Half Swept

So the first time I actually heard of the name Shanon Shah was during some spot promo for Ikon Malaysia but not that I checked the show out (no time for TV) but a search on Youtube revealed many of his performances, not only for the show but some really interesting live ones for No Black Tie and also Alexis Ampang. My favorite would be his own rendition of Bananarama cover – Love At First Degree. So here we have a man and his piano, surely that’s something worth checking out and that I did. Not without some difficulty as his album was not downloadable, sold out in stores and the stock was not replenished until I manage to track down his record company site that handles online order with free shipping.

So how was the album then? Honest to God I don’t know what I was expecting. It’s been awhile since I bought any album, awhile since I bought an album from a male artist, even longer since I have bought a pop contemporary album (mainly because you can download it off, there’s only a couple of good songs and there’s no longevity as you tend to toss it aside after awhile) and the second Malay album that I own (first being Ning Baizura and that was from a bargain bin).

Of course by the time I pop the cd into my car’s player I am already familiar with a few songs, one being the vintage sounding title track Dilanda Cinta which droved my colleagues to nuts (They went like Ya allah! What kind of old song is that?), my current favourite Angkasawan with it’s simple arrangement yet dramatic delivery and lyrics and Masih Aku Terasa, a very good cover of an old Malay song. The other slightly substandard tracks and quickly becoming a personal favorite are Kunci (talks about being lonely, something that every ghey can relate to, no?) and Jurutera, having a go at himself for choosing a wrong career path against his own love and the joy contained in the song when he found his true calling is something that I can easily relate to.

Having said that, the album is not without its flaw and for someone (and you don’t need to have a professional ear) or at least most of us who are used to listening to big artistes’ or big budgeted produced albums/music can certainly hear the difference. Some of the songs are quite rough and raw in terms of production value but you can’t compare that with the likes of Sean Ghazi who did his album in Sydney. Speaking of which, he also doesn’t have the backing of agency big boss boyfriend like Sean who does the album artwork so that’s another weak area which one can easily overlook even though it’s particulary hard for me as I really appreciate good album artwork. Somewhere along the album you felt as though there was indecision about the direction of the songs – to go pop or stay in ballads and mid temps where he excelled most that gave birth to neither here or there songs like Beku, Api and Cinta Murah

While you want to give him credit for coming out with 9 out of 10 songs in the album by himself, you couldn’t help but cringe at some of the lyrics which sounded abit forced (Puteri kita kian menjalang, putera kita semaking garang) and at the bahasa baku pronunciation in his delivery. Then again, BM is not exactly the most graceful language on earth and this is something we struggle on the daily basis when we translate ads created in English into Malay.

Still, a with handful of good songs – it won’t make you rush to get the album but definitely worth checking out for (official myspace has a couple of songs on for streaming). I would love to see him do a full fledged cabaret and jazz album as a followup. Would be interesting to catch him live one of these days if only he wouldn’t stress himself too much with his human rights job at the Amesty and keep on cancelling those Alexis show. Won’t be uploading the album, have to show some support for local music industry lar!