Kris Dayanti personifies 'the babe' in pop music

Helly Minarti

JAKARTA (JP): Pop music groups of the 1990s have created a new image for women through lyrics that express "girl power".

They have sent a fresh message about young women living in the fast lane, which represents a major departure from the "rock girls" of the 80s who tuned out their pain and anger through music, while hiding behind outfits intended to deny their feminity.

The Spice Girls express it with Spice Up Your Life and Madonna look-alike Gwen Stefani of No Doubt growls it in I'm just a girl.

What about the local pop music scene? On the surface, Kris Dayanti's gig in the Fashion Cafe last Friday might indicate some "girl power" in her.

Young, gorgeous, sexy, glamorous and famous are descriptions that come with her award-winning voice. These are familiar ingredients which shape a pop diva.

Yanti -- so she is called -- personifies the glitzy incarnation of a female pop star.

Her singing career took off since she won the Asia Bagus Grand Championship in Japan, a talent scout contest, five years ago.

Now, at 22, she has emerged as one of the hottest stars in pop music. Her first duet album with her husband Anang, whom she married last year, titled Cinta (Love) has sold over 700,000 copies nationwide. Their second, Kasih (Lover), released in 1997, signals the same commercial success.

Yanti's popularity has even touched the TV screen.

As a finalist of a cover girl contest for a teenage magazine in 1991, she has pursued modeling and lately tried her acting talents in TV series.

In opening her performance, Yanti entered the runway-shaped stage riding on the back seat of a silver Harley Davidson.

Clad in gold short pants and a glittering sleeveless top -- with hair coiffed like a sharp asymmetrical crew cut taken out of The Great Gatsby -- she belted out Madonna's pop hit Holiday.

Five backup dancers followed her on stage and danced in a corner near the parked motorbike complete with the rider.

After another frisky tune, Maureen McGovern's Can't Take My Eyes Off You, Yanti engaged the audience with a small chat which came across more as self-praise with delight in having the spotlight on her for the night.

As part of a promotion campaign, a 26-page portfolio of Kris Dayanti was released recently at Rp 30,000 each. Fans who attended her show that night were privileged to have it signed by the pop star herself after the show.

This glossy book contains pictures of Yanti posing like a fashion queen. There is a photo of her clad in a midriff top much like what Gwen Stefani of No Doubt often wears, and a pair of thick-soled fancy sport shoes like the ones worn by Baby Spice of the Spice Girls. But most of the pictures depict the image she likes to project most: the 'Indonesian babe' like a Barbie doll. Barbie wears the exact maroon satin gala gown as Yanti's on the next page.

Back on stage, Yanti played some of her own mushy hits like Masih Ada Cinta (There's Still Love) and Terserah (Up To You).

Then she stole a short moment to put on a long wig and a silk batik. She made two more changes later on, one in which she wore Gianni Versace's haute couture lent from the designer's fashion museum.

The rest of the night was a compilation of popular hits like Trisha Yearwood's How Do I Live and a duet with husband Anang, unfolding their own love story in Demi Cinta (For Love).

Her older sister, Yuni Shara, joined her to sing a Koes Plus oldie Mimpi (Dream).

Yuni lent her voice to sing a soundtrack of a TV series in which Yanti acts, while her star sister changed into a cabaret Versace's sleek black dress.

So much for the night. A young wife in her early pregnancy, Yanti wrapped 13 songs and a little bit of chitchat telling of her private and public life.

She engaged whoever she found familiar in the audience.

She joked with fellow singer Titi DJ, who off-stage teased the way her husband sings, and congratulated the model-actress Tamara Blezynski on her recent wedding by commenting -- supposedly from her own experience -- that "getting married while you're young will do you good" and sang Happy Birthday in a high-pitched voice to model Karina Suwandi.

The current Yanti is definitely not the teenage girl on the brink of crying before singing in the Asia Bagus contest in her modest T-Shirt, jeans and black vest costume six years ago.

"I have grown up. I was an ABG (teenager) back then, now I'm a young woman," she pleaded.

Slim and thin with a waistline like a Barbie doll, Yanti clad herself in a feminine sleek dress with waxed eyebrows of the femme fatale's personification.

Yuni Shara addressed her as the "sensational artist". "People are always curious about her next appearance," she said while referring to her sister's fondness in experimenting with various wigs in lengths and colors.

"I personally like to put on makeup. Besides, I think the audience expects me to look beautiful and they deserve to see me that way," Yanti said. "They can be so critical on how you look, you know .." she added.

Forget the "girl power" thing.

Yanti is only a clichd version of a pop star whose purpose in life is to satisfy the masses through her diva-look and earn popularity from mushy hits telling her own love story in a banal melancholic lyric.

Kris Dayanti is a singer who puts herself on display as pop merchandise -- on and offstage -- including in TV ads, albums and titles gained such as when she earned the 1997's Most Glittering Female Star award from a local tabloid.

Her performance was also a trial gig to prepare for the opening of the Fashion Cafe outlet in Singapore this year.

So Yanti will play the star again, singing easy-listening tunes while wearing pieces of haute couture of the world's designers in the company of backup dancers and vocalists. Her next album will also be released around the same time. The babe rolls on.