BMG
Pop, 2004
For a rushed job with really cheap-sounding production values, first Malaysian Idol winner Jaclyn Victor’s debut CD Gemilang could be worse, I guess. It could have sounded as awful as the first Akademi Fantasia winner Vince’s debut CD, for example. With six Malay songs and four English songs making up this CD, Ms Victor displays the same flair as she did on the local version of the Idol franchise. Which is to say, she is at home in easy-listening adult contemporary songs and this CD wisely capitalizes on that. Much credit has to go to the producers, a motley crew of familiar local names like Aidit Alfian, Jenny Chin, and the Indonesian guru Aubrey Suwito, because the tracks are actually the finger-snapping, singalong type.
Ms Victor’s English-accented enunciation in Malay takes a while to get used to but otherwise, tracks like Di Bawah Pohon Asmara and Love are cheeky and funky while predictable ballads like Tiada Lagi Indah and Bring Out the Best of Me won’t be the most exciting things I’ve heard but they are catchy enough without driving me to sleep or irritating me the way some big, weepy ballads tend to do. She also has her studio version of the P Ramlee classic Tunggu Sekejap here, which I find more enjoyable than her Idol performance as there is less over singing here, and her version of When I Fall in Love, an ordinary jazzed-up version of an already over-covered song.
The weak point of this CD is the winner track, Gemilang (included here as both a studio and live version), an overwrought soppy ballad sounding a little too much like any random big boring ballad for comfort. Also, can someone tell me why Impian, nearly a carbon copy of Gemilang, is included here?
Still, I am glad to be given a chance to listen to what Jaclyn Victor can do and this collection of pleasant adult contemporary pop tunes, while not earth shattering in any way, is a good effort. In the case of Jaclyn Victor, Malaysia can sometimes deliver. Once in a blue moon, perhaps, but that blue moon is right now illuminating Jaclyn Victor.
