Sing a brand new song

TAKE a peek behind the closed doors of any karaoke cubicle and you’d find many a tone deaf crooner struggling to climb the heights of musical ecstasy without ever attaining top `C’. They’ll more than likely split someone else’s eardrums, or destabilize a neighbour’s sanity before anyone within earshot can so much as say Whitney.

Thankfully, the musical pedigree of Aishah, Dayangku Intan and Herman Tino are quite safely established in Malay music polity not to cause rhythmic disharmony. Professionally, their musicality is not in question.

Politically, for that’s where they are headed, they are united in the desire to make their mark as parliamentarians. If they do make it, it is on to a new vocation, not nearly far removed from the glitzy pursuit of hedonistic avarice common to both professions.

Aishah was the stage name for Wan Aishah Wan Ariffin. What if her musical trajectory were to have remained on course from the glory days fronting her multi-national group the Fan Club? She would by now have scaled the pinnacle of the profession to be our very own version of Ms Houston, minus all the super-starry sorry angst?

Instead, she found a new purpose in life and opened a new page in her personal journey with a detour in the path of pious devotion.

Google her video and you’ll find out why she has taken umbrage with officialdom – something to do with her failed marriage and effort to take custody of her kids, having been married to her Antipodean bandmate.

The Reformed Character

Where once she strutted her booties on stage, she now appears on ceramah platforms, modestly garbed speaking about the shortcomings of the system. People who attend her ceramah roundly think she sings better than she preaches, but hey, talk about performing to a sea of the faithful!

In trying to neutralise whatever damage she could inflict, a coterie of cybertroopers have worked overtime to dig up past videos of Aishah in her Fan Club days. These show the gadfly gal gyrating her svelte figure, stylish bop and winsome smile all the while strutting her sassy stuff on stage. The idea is to dredge up as much of the seedy side of her ‘jahiliah’ (ignorant) past, hoping a bit of mud would stick to make her unpalatable to a conservative Malay milieu.

She is not alone in sharing her star power with the opposition. Dayangku Intan has the interests of fellow artistes like her at heart and curiously, has chosen the opposition platform to carry on the fight.

What has she taken on? None other than the She Panther of Penggerang, former Youth and Sports Minister Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said. So formidable is the former minister - who unexplainably, was left without a portfolio by the Najib administration - that no one dared put up a fight, having been returned unopposed in 2008.

This time round, we relish the prospect of a real cat fight in the coming days of campaigning. We’ll more than find out more than just who is queen at karaoke.

A Local "BOSS"

Unbeknownst to music fans, Malaysia has its own budding Boss if the sagacious pronouncements of dangdut King Herman Tino is anything to go by. Naivety personified, he says he is contesting, to spread the message of luuurve…..!

Yo…Don’t laugh! Did you for one moment, not expect the seeds planted by John and Yoko on a bed in Soho would a flower of peace prosper, here in Malaysia?

Better late than never eh! The dangdut dandy is contesting in the rural Selangor heartland of Tanjung Karang, taking on the might of Datuk Mohd Noh Omar, who in the last parliament was agriculture minister. The Kuala Selangor township in the fertile coastal plains of this rich state is as agrarian as it is rural. Yet Springsteen in this Javanese re-incarnation thinks he stands a bat’s chance in hell to unseat a really gluey incumbent.

If you are beginning to feel sorry for the BN, don’t! In the blue corner, there are enough high-profile rockers and talented thespians who not only sing Umno’s praises, but are also card-carrying members to boot.

Troopers In The Blue Corner

Singer Zainal Abidin who goes everywhere asking everyone to think green actually bleeds blue – he is an active Umno member and goes so far as replacing the green (which is the colour of PAS’ flag) in the lyrics of his most popular song to blue, or red as the case may be (red being the colour of protest in Kedah, when it was under the PAS-led government following PRU12).

In similar vein, the KRU boys wear their political allegiance high up their artistic sleeves and have produced many a pro-BN promo.

And oh, who could have missed Michelle Yeoh’s cameo at the gigantic dinner on Sunday evening where her charm must have been the main magnet that attracted the world record crowd of 60,000 – I kid you not – to attend the BN bash. They certainly did not turn up to watch Todt – Jean her French b(eau)friend! The message she delivered? "I think Najib is a good PM."

Much in the same entertainment vein, well-known compere Aznil Nawawi with a coterie of stars chose the busy spot in front of the Pavillion in Kuala Lumpur to give out tee-shirts, bearing the smiling imprint of dear PM Najib.

It remains to be seen how much of an effect all these endorsements can sway a voter one way or the other on May 5. I for one will not consult the stars to make my choice!

RAZAK Chik thinks the best music album ever made is Billy Joel’s "52nd Street", and his (BJ's) rendition of "Honesty", the best song ever.