Asia Pacific Quarterly: Singapore's Acts Go For Regional Impact

Amid the music-retail gloom of 2002, a debut album by Singapore artist A-Do has made a remarkable impact in the world of Chinese-language pop. The disc, Getting Dark, has sold some 700,000 copies in China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore.

The album was released first in Taiwan in April 2001,where it generated a press blitz. A-Do, a former construction foreman, was discovered in 1999 at a singing workshop. A-Do is signed to Yellow Records, a new label set up by Ocean Butterflies Production.

"It's been a long while since we last heard a really touching, sincere album with words and music talking about the real feelings of men," says Billy Koh, executive producer of Ocean Butterflies. "Radio has been flooded by too much junk, with only teenage-idols and R&B in the last three-to-five years in Chinese pop. People are really sick of the canned-food copycat music."

Since Ocean Butterflies set up offices in Taiwan and Malaysia, it could orchestrate its marketing plan across Asia, in Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia and China. A-Do's first regional Asian concert tour will take place later this year.

Similar to A-Do, singer-songwriter Stefanie Sun also broke first in Taiwan when she was signed by Warner Taiwan, and that territory remains her strongest market. Her second album, My Desired Happiness, initially released in December 2000, has sold 380,000 units in Taiwan and some 40,000 units in Singapore alone. Her third album, Kite, released in July 2001, has sold more than 30,000 copies to date. Sun is now Singapore's biggest pop export to China; each of her albums has sold more than 350,000 units in the market, according to her label. To sell her image on the mainland, Sun is featured in one music video singing on China's Great Wall.

"To break a local talent, it was strategically important to sign to a big market like Taiwan," says Kathleen Tan, MD of Warner Singapore. "In Singapore, we spent aggressively on advertising for her, on TV and on radio. We positioned her as a regional Chinese act. Sun is just what the market needs after the Chinese pop market collapsed in 1998. She appeals across age and gender, and she is a rare Chinese pop act whose back catalog consistently sells."

Even in the Malay-language genre, Singapore act Ferhad had to break in Malaysia first, where the singer is signed to Malaysia's Positive Tone label, distributed by EMI. Ferhad's Tubed album has sold more than 10,000 units in Malaysia. Positive Tone's managers, Darren Choy and Ahmad Izham Omar, booked Ferhad into concert appearances across Malaysia. He also appeared on all the awards shows, even winning a best newcomer award on Anugerah ERA 2001, a major industry award. He also had a major hit single, with "Higher Deeper," and the video was promoted heavily on Channel [V] and MTV Asia, giving him recognition across South East Asia. To raise Ferhad's regional profile further on his next album, Positive Tone plans to record a duet with one of the Philippines' best new acts, Kyla.

"Given that the Singapore market is so small and restricted, local artists will naturally start thinking beyond the local market if they want to be big," says Valerie Lim, MD of EMI Singapore. "In fact, for Mandarin acts, I believe the gateway is up north in Taiwan or China."

Ocean Butterflies' Billy Koh sees the trend in technological terms: "With the Internet and satellite programs, Chinese pop has become a 'world Chinese' market," he says. "Anyone from anywhere, as long as you are really good, you will be well-received anywhere. The market is bigger and so is the competition. The success of A-Do and Stefanie Sun is not just the effort of the artists themselves. The whole Xin-yao movement [Chinese indie pop] in the early '80s was actually the seed of today's fruit. If you ask me for the 'secret magical formula,' I think, first of all, one must be true to towards the music, to be able to be touched by the music."