Pending files, Malaysia slipping away, screaming music

Great news! According to the NST (Aug 25), “The Home Ministry will finalise all pending citizenship, birth certificates and permanent resident (PR) applications by the end of the year.” The minister said, “If we are late with birth certificates, children would not be able to enrol in school.” This is good news, but it made me wonder. A child goes to school at the age of five or six, so just how late are these birth certificates? And if the ministry can suddenly expedite all these pending files by the end of the year, why couldn’t they do it before? Fortunately, we’ll probably never hear about this again.

Dear Kam,
What’s going on with this caning business? Why do they want to cane a woman?
Ouch
via email

In Pahang, they want to cane a woman called Kartika. The story has been picked up all over the world and now we look like the Taliban. We’ve become a laughing stock and I wouldn’t be surprised if it makes people think twice about visiting Malaysia. But surely we shouldn’t care what other people think about us? Regardless of what other people think, personally, I don’t recognise a Malaysia that wants to cane women. Is my Malaysia slipping away from me?

Dear Kam,
A few weeks ago was the 40th anniversary of the release of Abbey Road by The Beatles. I listened to it again and it’s still brilliant. How come nobody makes albums like that anymore?
Yesteryears
via email

This might not interest a lot of people, but what the heck, I’m going to talk about it anyway. I adore The Beatles and Abbey Road is my favourite album. I even have a photo of me crossing the road like the Fab Four do on the cover. Fairly recently, I became reconnected with all my old vinyl LPs and I’ve been listening to them and enjoying them all over again. But although I’ve been enjoying them, I’ve also felt a sense of disquiet. I also think nobody makes albums like this anymore, and that’s sad.

Until fairly recently, a recording artist would put everything into making a studio album. Hours, weeks, even years could be spent in a studio making sure it sounded just right. If the album was popular, then it could make a lot of money that would easily pay for the studio time and the big country house — Abbey Road has sold at least 12 million copies. So it made sense to use all the techniques available in a studio that often can never be recreated when playing live. All the music that I love has been made in a studio, with all the funny, strange sounds that can only be made there. I’ve never really liked going to see music played live. There’s lots of queuing, pushing, bad sound and trying to get home late at night.

But nowadays anybody can download an album for free from the Internet. Nobody can make any money from making an album because nobody buys them anymore. Instead, if a musician wants to make money, they can only hope to do it by playing live. That way they can get ticket and T-shirt sales; so if they do an album, it’s merely a loss leader for the world tour. Bruce Springsteen’s recent album sold under 600,000 but he sold US$205 million worth of tickets for his tour.

The care and artistry involved in making a studio album has probably gone forever. Instead, musicians make music that is designed for stadium concerts. No more Kraftwerk’s Man Machine, no more David Bowie’s Low, no more Abbey Road, just bands screaming and thrashing their guitars. If you ever watch MTV, you’ll see that the videos have bands playing live, trying to show what an exciting experience their concerts are. Even if you did want to see them play live, they’ll never come to Malaysia because, well, you know why.
I’m always on the lookout for new music (the Ting Tings are very good), but I’m having to reconcile myself to the fact that the pickings will be very slim from now on. Oh well, at least I’ll always have Abbey Road.

Malaysian guru Kam Raslan imparts his wisdom to readers every week.

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This article appeared in Options, the lifestyle pullout of The Edge Malaysia, Issue 770, Aug 31-Sep 6, 2009.