TEDD Chan’s

But I’m glad that Love Anthem proved my anxiety false. After a couple of listens, I feel it deserves all the hype that surrounded the release of the CD. And the album pleases both fans and first-timers.

Here’s what to expect from Love Anthem.

The album has a selection of both Mandarin and Cantonese tracks that never fail to impress. The messages are clear. Like most Mandarin and Canto pop of the same genre, the music is pretty soothing and the lyrics usually say a thing or two about relationships, break-ups and patching up. However, this time round, I find that Tedd’s lyrics are better interpreted in Cantonese; we say Mandarin, so-so. Cantonese, applause, please.

However, Love Anthem can be a “slow burner” in a way. It needs repeated listening, time for the messages to sink in. And when it does, I’m sure you will appreciate the album as it is. Tailored for fans too, who have been waiting patiently for this to come.

Track two of the album, Private Party, bears resemblance to Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi’s intro. It’s got a fast beat and energetic vibes. It’s a dance track that has the same feel as Paparazzi, especially towards the end.

I like the way how Qing. Liu Gan, was put together. There are bits of everything — acoustic guitar, keyboard, drums, piano, electric guitar, and violin as well. Combined with the soothing voice of Tedd, it just makes the whole song really good. I like Tedd’s singing in this song and how he conveys his emotions and yet controls his voice well. Somehow, the ending reminds me of Danny Elfmans’ Finale taken from The Kingdom’s soundtrack. It’s sad, but there’s also a sense of pride and relief.

Quan Min Ai, the last track of the album is another power-packed song. It gives so much jive in that one song alone. It’s catchy, and you would find it hard to stop yourself from tapping along to the melody. I have to admit that I’m a total-sucker for love songs, especially those slow and sad ballads about holding hands, walking on a beach with the sunset as the backdrop …and then the girl dies of some illness. I have to say that the seven-track album has really nice lyrics to sing to, good interpretations of what love is and soothing melodies.

All in all, Tedd never fails to impress his audience, especially his fans. Having sampled his previous tracks before, his latest release just gets better with every listening. It’s still early to judge the success of this album but I won’t be surprised if fans and newfound fans are already lining up at music stores to get their hands on Love Anthem.

Unexpectedly the showcase was delayed almost an hour, with fans chanting Derulo’s name out loud and singing his songs. But the frustration soon dispersed when the 21-year-old singer took centre stage and brought the house down – literally. And if you still have no idea who the hell Jason Derulo is, here’s a news flash for you.

Born Jason Joel Desrouleaux in Florida to Haitian parents, Derulo changed the spelling to his stage name to make it easier for people to pronounce. He wrote his first song Crush on You at the tender age of eight! He graduated recently from the American Musical and Dramatic Academy in New York.

Derulo has been writing songs for artistes like Sean Kingston, P.Diddy, Lil Wayne and Cassie, and was recently invited to perform as one of the opening acts for Lady Gaga’s The Monster Ball Tour. In 2009, Derulo released his first self-titled album with the hit single Whatcha Say. And like they say, “the rest is history.”

Derulo was a stunner on stage, vowing fans with his amplified songs like Runnin’ Solo, Whatcha’ Say, The Sky’s The Limit, What If and In My Head. The atmosphere was even livelier when Derulo broke into his dance routine with his entourage of awesome dancers. There wasn’t a dull moment throughout the entire showcase which lasted a bit more than an hour.

Excitement was palpable everywhere. Despite the OMG-deafening decibels, yes it was VERY LOUD – the showcase was a very-close-to-the-heart sort of gig. And yes, everyone had a great time singing along to Derulo’s songs.

And by the time Derulo was through performing his six songs, the crowd was asking for an encore. It was a spur of chaotic moment, when the fans refused to budge away from the stage, waiting for the encore performance. He then went up on stage once again performing Fallen and Blind before bidding farewell.

Overall, Jason Derulo’s performance was unexpectedly well above average, leaving fans with a night to remember. The smoke effects from the smoke machine was bad enough, but nobody cared. As long as Derulo was on stage, all that mattered were the great songs paired with some pretty slick moves.

Till we meet again, Jason!

ANYONE who was at the Usher concert just a couple of days ago at the Bukit Jalil National Stadium would know how difficult it was to put those feelings into words. Words like “wow” or “fantastico” or “ohh la la” or “awesome” or even “exciting” can’t possibly sum up the explosive performance put upfront by the R&B superstar and his energetic dancers and band.

So, after bracing the strong crowd counting by the thousand and amid many screaming fan girls later, I’d say the effect hasn’t completely washed out of my system – yet. Yes, no doubt it was one of the best concerts that I’ve been to so far and I’m willing to go for the same show twice (this shows how good it is) if the next show isn’t as far as in Beijing.

Personally, I was a little afraid when the stadium looked a little deserted during the opening acts that I couldn’t help but felt nervous – what if Usher walks in and sees the empty stadium, what will he think of us Malaysians? Will he cancel his show? He better not. The opening acts saw Iz Sulaini and Mizz Nina warming up the crowds by giving their all-out performances. Also spotted performing during the opening was Alif Satar.

Among the VIPs spotted on that night was DYMM Raja Permaisuri Agong Tuanku Nur Zahirah, Dato’ Mukhriz Tun Dr. Mahathir and his family; local artistes like Ning Baizura, Fara Fauzana, Lisa Surihani, Anuar Zain and Namewee.

The concert did not start until 9pm, about half an hour behind its planned schedule. By then the stadium was sardine-packed with fans screaming out for Usher to be onstage and from where I was standing, die-hard fans sang his numbers while the rest couldn’t just stand still! When fans caught sight of the entourage entering the stadium compound, the crowd literally went crazy, waving and screaming for Usher.

In between waiting for the final preparation, Pop Shuvit’s frontman, Moots kept the exciting fans all warm up through funny chats. At exactly 9pm, Usher took the centre stage and immediately swept the crowd off their feet. Before breaking into his first song, Usher did an awesome dance routine, which pretty much fired up the atmosphere.

For the entire 90 minutes, Usher did not stop performing throughout the night though at some point he seemed to slow down just a little bit to catch his breath back. There was never a single of dull moment the minute he was on stage, belting out songs after songs like Caught Up, You Make Me Wanna, Nice & Slow, Love in this Club, There Goes My Baby and finally OMG, which was one of the most-awaited songs to become the highlight of the concert.

The concert ended at exactly 11 pm on a high note. Fans that can’t get enough of the versatile singer demanded encore performance, but let’s just save the best for his next tour, shall we? I left the concert a happier person; satisfy nonetheless with the performance throughout the night.

It was definitely worth the long wait.

Bye, Malaysia! I will be back!!

One of our VOIZE writers had to face a gruelling 4 hour ride to accomplish a mission –to catch the Voice Independent Music Award (VIMA) Club DJ Award 2010 winner spinning at Penang’s hottest club which promised an extremely full house every night. And when we mean full house, it was ridiculously full that you wonder if the club ever practiced safety to consider the size of the venue and how much people it can manage. In most countries, it’s a law whereby you cannot congest a building for safety principles but it’s blatantly not practiced over here.

DJ Headmasta at work.

On that Friday night as we approached Batu Ferringgi at slightly after 10pm, cars were pilling the streets to head up towards the beach as all the stalls filled the asphalts; beckoning tourists to enjoy what the night had to offer in Penang. Parking spots at Sixty9ine Mansion were already taken and the club was embellished with banners of DJ Headmasta, which proudly boasts his trademark hair-do and his VIMA win.

“Remember tonight’s theme” DJ Headmasta said. “Wear something yellow, green or blue…the Brazil’s jersey colours” he added as he reminded us after dropping us at our respected hotels to freshen up and then meet up at the club.

Close to midnight, we were rested and revitalized after a very late dinner; we headed straight to Sixty9ine Mansion to catch the man in action. Many a time watching DJ Headmasta at work as he excites the crowd with his flawless spinning, he stirs the crowd up at Sixty9ine as they start to dance to his music. His music choices however when spinning here are rather more commercial than what he spins in KL and I was inform that the management had requested a more commercialized music to attract more customers.

Andrew LD lost in the midst of the crowd.

When I approached Headmasta to inquire on his different choice of music, all he said was “Yes, I have to play more commercial stuff instead of my choice of music because the management had strongly told me to. It’s too bad I guess that the crowd can’t enjoy my trademark songs…” It dawned on me that the management of this club is struggling to keep their customers but at the same time, reject the possibility of making the venue a unique destination. No doubt their interior were something to talk about with your friends and the layout was amazing but dangerously non-drunk-friendly but a fairly talked about place with really horrid management is just a waste of space. It event took us forever to get our orders. Correction. Our drink orders never arrived that Friday night up to the time we left the club.

(L-R) Andrew LD & Charlene Joseph of VOIZE.

Personally, I think DJ Headmasta has done a great job at entertaining the crowd, regardless of what music he was spinning that night. He created a night not to forget and truly proven to deserve winning the VIMA Club DJ Award that even another local independent artiste, Andrew LD came to support Headmasta for his 2 night event by the beach.

Album keyart taken from Sony Music Malaysia site

CHRISTINA Aguilera made it clear enough that she is no ordinary girl in the reflection and certainly needs no one to save her from herself. How she put the heads up on her critics proves she is a gem in today’s music industry.

When her self-titled debut album Christina Aguilera (1999) first hit the stores, some of her songs, like Genie in the Bottle and What a Girl Wants, took the musical charts by storm and made everyone sit up and pay attention. And she continues to impress her critics with her strong vocals and impressive tracks …Hurt, Save Me From Myself and Beautiful, among her many.

Her latest album, Bionic is an example of her unique talent. This album is packed with explosive, electronic beats like the opening track Bionic and subtle, slow-moving numbers such as Lift Me Up and My Heart.

Bionic is anything but your ordinary CD. It’s a mix which allows Aguilera room to showcase her excellent voice control. There’s always a little for everyone. There are slow songs for you to chill with after a long day, or groovy house music to let your hair down. There’s far more to Bionic than just suggestive sexual lyrics (Sex For Breakfast and Elastic Love).

In I Am, she sings about a sense of belonging — that everyone should just be themselves and no more pretending. There’s a lot less of the screams and shrieks to all of the tracks in this album. She fits the mood in to the songs effortlessly and the songs are catchy too.

I Hate Boys and Vanity are both interesting tracks you can listen to over and over again. The lyrics might be a little offensive for some, but every song speaks for itself and you will find yourself liking them more with each listen. Bionic also has some beats that remind me of 1980s disco music.

I found this album very unique and the only disadvantage is that some of the tunes are repetitive. Bionic comes across as an incredibly hyper offering. But it, simply put, is good.

This album is produced by Atilia, Tok Khon (TK) of the Phunk Mob and Adam Sofian Mazlan of Bsync Productions and is touted to be a memorable compilation that includes interesting combinations of producers and performers.

Atilia’s album launch began with a video presentation by Alibi Music for the making of one of her music videos, Indah, the full and completed video of Indah and Harus Bagaimana. “As you can see and expect from the making of Indah, this music video has that very hippie flair and feel good feeling to the video as well as in the music” Atilia says. “I just thought that this album is called Indah because I’d like to celebrate the idea of friendship, hence that inspired the music video as well –to celebrate the beauty of friendship, and mind you, the media is the first ever to have seen this music video as it has not been uploaded on my official website or on YouTube!” Atilia adds with a smile.

After the official presentation of her two music videos, Atilia performed 5 out of her 10 songs in her new album. She began with her feel good song, Indah which caused the celebrities in the audience to dance and sing along to her music and that certainly put a smile on Atilias’ face knowing that all her hardwork has been worth all her time. “During the production of the music as well as the music video, I have been thought to not rush the process of creating something wonderful…” she mentioned as she thanked everyone who was involved in making this album. As she continued to sing 4 of the rest of her songs which were Gelombang; an original song by her mother, Old Love with Noh Salleh from Hujan, Terindah Pilihanku and Harus Bagaimana, the audience was left content yet at the same time surprised because for some, watching Noh Salleh from the popular band Hujan singing such a romantic song with Atilia was out of the norm. However, it didn’t stop the duo to have their unique voices to pair up flawlessly.

(L-R) KC Ismail, Alibi's Head of Music & Atilia.

Atilia’s music was accompanied by regional vocalists and groups such as Angga from Maliq & D’Essentials, the foremost pioneer for the revival of neo-soul music in Indonesia, Noh from the current coolest rockin’ band in Malaysia; Hujan and Sore, la saveur de l’année group in Jakarta. This album will prove to be the most wonderful mix of collaborators. Atilia’s revival of her mother and mentor’s popular song from the late 70s and 80s Gelombang gives it a new life with new arrangements, sound and style. Musicians who are involved in Indah includes some of Malaysian’s best with Tok Khon on Keyboard, Fly on Bass, Lewis Pragasam on Drums, Jamie Wilson of Akasha on Guitar, Steve Thornton on Percussion, the sounds of flute from Sonia Croucher of the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra, and Ujang on Drums. For the track Change; Jingles played Bass, Aidil Johan on Tenor Sax, Cheryl on Baritone Sax and Eddie Wen on Trumpet and Flugerhorn and Paul Morrison for other instrumental sounds.

Get ready for an album that will blow your mind with the versatility of Atilia’s styles of singing in genres that are varied, beautiful and colourful. Her songs in her album include:

1. Indah
2. Change
3. SelainNya
4. Terindah Pilihanku
5. Harus Bagaimana
6. Old Love
7. Leka
8. Gelombang
9. Angel
10. Silly Little Thing

On YouTube, the versatile singer has a steady following — it has reached 300,000 subscribers worldwide and, with over 6.3 million total video views and still counting.

In 2004, Choi was crowned the champion of David Bowie’s Mash-Up contest, where Bowie chose the winner personally.

Following that, Choi became the grand prize winner for USA Weekend Magazine’s John Lennon Songwriting Contest and appeared alongside recording artiste Usher.

In October 2008, Choi released his debut album worldwide titled Only You. Following his success, Choi released his second album in May 2010 with the title By My Side, which features feel-good songs like Better You, That Girl, Heaven’s Ease and What Do You Know.

Throughout his musical career, Choi has performed in many locations, mainly in the United States.

But on May 20, Choi is set to perform live in front of thousands of fans in Korea for three days at the Welcomm Theater, Seoul, Korea.

His songs can be heard playing on NBC, VH1, MTV, E!, the Food Network and even the Disney channel.

Check out David Choi’s official website for more information about the singer and to download some of his songs for free!

Follow him on Twitter for his daily updates and thoughts on music.

Photo credit: David Choi’s official website (http://davidchoimusic.com/photos)

It was also obvious that the members of Sterephonics were delighted at the number of fans that turned up for their concert –  they stayed to play a few more songs after the encore. All the way from Wales, Stereophonics played one of my personal favourites,  “Have a nice day” and I could not have been happier. Their 15 hours or more  of travel time had been worth every second for us especially since it was the first gig for the Welsh-based band in Malaysia.

At the Tokio Hotel Concert, young screaming female fans filled the venue. Two of our local bands performed before Tokio Hotel. Pop Shuvit opened and they ended their set with their infamous song “Marabahaya”. Next on was Bunkface, and they took the opportunity to spray the crowd with their trusty waterguns. The crowd didn’t seem to mind; in fact a few of the fans had passed out even before Tokio Hotel performed and I can’t imagine what it must be like being smothered by the staggering number of people although mother nature had dampened the heat with a slight shower earlier in the day. Could be the water guns seemed a  “refreshing” strategy to the boys from Bunkface.

As soon as Bunkface ended their performance, there was about an hour or so of intermission to segregate the media by ushering out the writers and only allowing the photographers to stay at the photography pit for photo opportunities.  We had to enjoy Tokio Hotel from afar instead of up front and getting a full experience to write about on their first visit here to Malaysia. Let’s hope that future  engagements are more fluid the next time they perform in Malaysia…and hopefully also at an improved location that doesn’t have the  attendees getting caught in the rain, especially with Malaysia’s unpredictable storms.

No one knows it better than Nisha, after all she has been hosting the Red FM Late Night Love Songs segment for three years now. Spinning from every Sundays to Fridays, 10pm to 1am, Nisha admits that sometimes you just need that extra kick to find that special someone. “The tunes will soothe your soul and keep you and your loved ones company till late at night,” said Nisha. Not only that, she notes that there’s a change in listeners when it comes to expressing their feelings for one another through moving songs by Brian McKnight and Jim Brickman for example.

In fact, the Late Night Love Songs is so successful that Nisha decided to do a CD compilation, featuring songs that she has been playing on her segment. “It was more like a mutual agreement thing between Red FM and the record company to come out with these songs,” Nisha told Voize at the album launch yesterday at Studio V, One Utama. “We’ve got a lot of great feedbacks and requests, which is why we decided to spread those love by compiling them into a CD,” quipped Nisha, the girl next door that oozes warmth and familiarity everywhere she goes.

There is also Love Classifieds, where it’s a chance for singles to meet other single people out there. First started in March 2007, Love Classifieds began from a 40-people event to drawing more than 100 people in the most recent one. True love has been found in these events and it’s not surprising that we see couples emerging after spending romantic day together. For your chance to win tickets to this event, just tune into Nisha’s segment and you could be the next lucky participant in Love Classifieds.

Priced at RM 39.90, Red Night Love Songs Compilation CD is now available in leading music stores. Featuring romantic tunes by Jim Brickman, Akon, Leona Lewis, Brian McKnight and many more, this is one album that is worth listening to.

The boys include – Tay Cher Siang on piano, Vincent Ong on bass, Julian Chan on saxes; and Adam Osmianski on drums and percussions. Though all of them come from different musical background, their music nonetheless takes into shape, fitting perfectly like pieces of jigsaw puzzle.

Photo credit: http://taychersiang.blogspot.com

The arrangement of “Hunger Strike” is a mix of everything from soothing Pink Panther-ish sax to upbeat drum and then piano. While “Hunger Strike” certainly doesn’t mean someone is going hungry for a cause, instead, it represents every musician and the type of songs they play. It sort of reminding every listener that both established and aspiring musician yearns for more unique musical ideas, that for them don’t seems to end.

“Standing in the Rain on Euclid Ave” is soulful, emotional and tends to speak for itself. The song gives the feeling of being lonely and despair. The part where the upbeat drums remind me of life is like a roller-coaster. At some point, it’s mundane, but as things come along, so does everything around you changes for good. The sweeping, sort of scratchy drum in the background is what makes this song stands out more.

Now, “Little Steps” is something you should listen to on a quiet night with a couple of great friends over a glass of chill wine. Well, it’s not usual party “boom boom pow” song, but rather it serves up as a relaxing kind of song.

For an experimental album, “Eleven” is really good and it should be in the list of top 10 favourite albums of all time among all the jazz lovers out there.