I got my copy of Desiree's (of Project Superstar Malaysia '06 fame) long awaited debut album yesterday, and having listened it another time this morning, here's my take on Des and Co.'s maiden effort.
At first glance I was quite held off by the slightly unsharp cover photo, but lauded the manufacturers for the use of a jewel case compared to most of the Digipak or DVD case crop. Well, the rest of the album liner images weren't really sharp either. It turns out that the photography was done in Hong Kong, although the liner captions would misleadingly suggest that Des has travelled the world.
The album sounds very urban. I assume this was a result of the collaboration with Singaporean Kenn Wu at his Tiny Box Studio (Singapore is urban mah). From what I heard, they took a year to come out with the album. As I've said, its very urban, with most tracks containing urban beats and electronics. Its something similar in feel with Elva Hsiao's songs. Although generally, its similar with most contemporary pop stuff of the region.
I think most (maybe not her fans) would dismiss her singing as nothing spectacular. Yup, that's my impression too. I think she doesn't have the bit of edge. "The edge" is kind of like a singing that powers the song but not to the expense of overpowering. There are emotions and good flow, but not as good as to make the music stand out like what Yise did. But I do think that she is a capable singer, and the urban feel of her songs fits her nicely. I doubt it would work if she were to sing acoustic/light stuff. This is something that I'd put on my car stereo while driving to work. No, I'm not degrading it to car music, I generally considers it a good urban album. It's just that we had a lot of urban sounding stuff on the market already and this one is going to find hard competition.
So, to sum it up, Desiree's first is an album worth listening. Although less engaging as a whole, it is better than some of the mass manufactured pops from around the region. And as a Malaysian artist, its a big leap for the industry. There are a few tracks that I particularly liked, one of them being the sentimental piece 不得不爱你 (Can't Stop Loving You). I'd put this track on a movie scene involving lady sipping wine at her 25th floor apartment balcony overlooking the city nightscape.
Lead track 'Baby':
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