Anggun sings her way on ambitions of world fame
By Helly Minarti
JAKARTA (JP): Go international are sacred words in the entertainment world. As "global market" becomes familiar terminology and brings a borderless world to mind, hitmakers in Indonesian music are setting their ambitious sights on distant shores. Plenty have tried, some have made slights inroads but many never go far.
The bottom line is that going international means more than winning an award in an obscure international singing festival or releasing an album in neighboring countries which share a relatively similar culture. And it takes more than a good voice, loads of talent or a distinctive style.
Indonesian singer Anggun C. Sasmi shows that being quirkily different isn't good enough to stand out from the rest in the teeming music world. She is savvy enough to know it, too.
After disappearing from the Indonesian music scene for more than three years, the 23-year-old is back brandishing a new musical image and attitude.
Once known as the female teenage rocker who belted out searing tunes, she now offers a musical grab bag on her latest album, Anggun, released last month. It combines sounds of familiar pop, modernized hip hop and rich tunes from the world of music she has been listening to during her time in France.
Recording Anggun in Paris, she enlisted Erick Benzi -- the prominent French composer who has arranged for famous artists such as Celine Dion and Mariah Carey -- as her musical director. She also got a top French director to make her video clip.
Anggun cowrote four of the album's songs with Benzi and Life on Mars, was written by David Bowie.
Just take a look at her now. Anggun is no longer the skinny tomboy clad in short leotard pants, knee-high boots and trademark barrette of three years ago, but a young woman in sleek but elegant Azzedine Alaia, the Parisian designer famed for his sexy dresses.
No blushing here. She laughed when acknowledging her revamped style.
"Yes, I'm different to three years ago. I don't live in Indonesia anymore, and I have been married for five years," she explained.
Anggun, who started singing at the age of 7, made a children's album when she was 9. Her father, Darto Singo -- a writer of stage plays and children's books -- trained her. Anggun climbed every musical stage and later the charts.
In 1986, she released her first teen album, Dunia Aku Punya (The World I Own). She composed one of the songs, Tegang (Tense), with her father. Arranged by Ian Antono, a notable name in Indonesia's rock music scene, Anggun's musical direction was clearly set.
Her second album, Anak Putih Abu-abu (The High School Kid), was released five years later but stayed true to the same rock spirit.
Young, talented and articulate, she was living every young girl's dream of fame. It was during this busy time when she met her French manager, who later became her husband, Michel Georgea.
With Georgea, Anggun produced her last two albums in Indonesia, Noc Turno (1992) and Anggun C. Sasmi ... Lah!, in which four young, top-notch Indonesian musicians were involved. They brought with them their influences of pop rock, soul and a bit of funk to the last album.
Also around that time, the pair started to move ahead in realizing Anggun's dream by meeting with an international recording label and eventually producing songs. "Mostly I wasn't happy about it," Georgea says.
They married in 1992 in Paris, and two years later, they left Indonesia to explore Europe.
"Actually I didn't have a fixed idea of where I was going at that time," Anggun says. But London seemed a good start and Paris appeared a good place to settle down.
Rose in the wind
"I was like a rose in the wind," Anggun says, quoting her favorite song on the French version of her new album.
"I traveled to foreign lands, like a rose carried away by the wind, but I was lucky enough to have someone supporting me all the way," she says of Georgea.
Both attended many musical performances in Europe and met up with musicians, many of whom were Michael's contacts, to see if they could work together.
"I was looking for teamwork. There are always plenty of good musicians, but the most important thing is the 'connection'," said Anggun, who dreams of being part of a classic singer- songwriter collaboration, like Elton John and Bernard Taupin once were. She said she had begun to have feelings of that with Benzi, and he in turn had believed that she had more than enough talent to rise as a star.
Teamwork also means a good back-up management.
"There are two things in showbiz music -- the 'show' and the 'business'. As an artist I only want to concentrate to the show and let other people take care of the business," Anggun says.
One thing led to another. Anggun and Michel's efforts began to pay off in the form of a contract with Sony Columbia in France to release an album in two versions, English and French.
For the Indonesian market, they released a special edition presenting 16 songs -- three in Indonesian, 10 in English and three in French. Some of the songs are very short, more like beautiful interludes between the longer songs.
"I've never enjoyed producing an album like I have this one," Anggun says. "It was always done in a rush, catching the deadline. I never had a chance to go deep. This one is like my baby. I like all the songs because they tell my stories."
Don't expect to find any trace of her rock period on the album. "I listen to a lot of English music and also world music such as Sheila Chandra's. I'd also like to try other ways to sing."
"Since I'm not well-known yet, Erick Benzi and I had to work together to decide what music we'd play," she said.
The result is an exotic mixture of modern tunes and traditional sounds. Yet, Anggun refused to parlay her Indonesian identity as . "I don't want to use it in the form of wearing a kebaya (traditional clothing) outfit or blangkon (Javanese hat) kind of thing," she said.
"I'm not a representative of Indonesian music. I'm not pesinden (traditional singer in Java and Sundanese music). What I present here is all the music influences in my life, a bit of Java, a touch of Bali, my rock period and sort of world music."
There are even Bulgarian vocals in one of her songs.
All her "blood and sweat" efforts were not wasted. Her French version, Au Nom de La Lune (By the Moon), sold 82,000 copies in France in four weeks and is currently number five on the French charts. In Indonesia, she sold 50,000 copies in three weeks.
That may be only the start. In April, she was invited to audition in Manila in front of the president directors of all Sony Music representatives internationally. This may prove the career turning point that will open wide the doors of world music to her.
Her album will be released soon in other Asian countries, including India and Japan, as well as Canada, America and Europe. The path to international fame may be rocky, but it looks like Anggun is be clearing her own way.