the heartlands
- 1. Any central area, as of a state, nation, or continent;
2. The core or most vital area;
3. Where the home is;
4. Where the heart is.
#iphoneography #iphonesia #clouds #buildings #singapore #city #sky #blue #afternoon #sunny #day #marina #bay (Taken with instagram)
1 note (via tishavelita)
Stevie Loraine & the Clansmen: “If You Always Say” (Philips ME-0196-SE, 1967)
I hardly know anything about Stevie Loraine. She was a singer from Singapore who had a brief career in the mid-1960s, releasing two four-song EPs, one with backing by a band called the Dukes, and another with backing by the Clansmen.
They both came out on Philips, which seemed to have people everywhere in the 60s—the label released music in dozens of countries, covering a huge range of styles. There was money to be made, of course—recording local beat groups in Southeast Asia served the needs of a then-burgeoning market—but in the process of turning profits, Philips gave us an enormous gift by documenting thousands of bands that never otherwise would have had the chance to record.
One of my fantasy places would be a complete Philips vault, actually. Every release that ever came out on the label and its subsidiaries, all in one building, waiting to be listened to. You could take quite a journey across the 20th Century, through highlife, MPB, French ye-ye, progressive rock, early metal, jazz, electronic music, garage rock, New Wave, punk, disco, beat from every continent, ethnic recordings, and classical music. Fontana and Vertigo were Philips imprints. It was the first company to sell CDs commercially.
No such vault exists, of course, and a lot of the label’s more far-flung operations didn’t preserve their original tapes, so it would be hard to even make one retroactively. From what I’ve read, their Singapore operation was one that didn’t keep its tapes.
The records are still out there, though, and a lot of them are really good. This one is among my favorites. I love Abdullah Abu’s lead guitar on this—his work on the intro makes this song feel as though it’s emerging from the mist of time. The rest of the Clansmen (rhythm guitarist Derrick Nunis, bassist Raymond Lazaroo, and drummer Philip Monteiro) are as solid as can be, too. They recorded at least one single on their own.
There’s really no American or British pop single that this song, one of two originals on the EP written specifically for Stevie by Terry Marsden, can’t hang with. Loraine’s voice was powerful, and she clearly was a true English speaker—the hesitation in the pronunciation is often one of the few things holding singles like this from around the world back. Nothing holds this one back, though—it’s a perfect song.
Wish I’d been born in the 1960s…
14 notes (via gweena & everygreatsongever)
dear cara i am not an elite how do i survive in singapore ._.
Here’s a lesser secret: … Singapore’s one of the places you don’t have to be BORN elite to make it into the upper echelons. Survival is possible! Self improvement is desirable!
because it needed to be reblogged.
1 note (via wildeyedandgolden)
There have been several previous efforts to compile lexicons of Singlish, some for scholarly purposes, most for entertainment. This Dictionary differs from them in that it attempts, as the Oxford English Dictionary does, to record actual usage in published material. In this respect the Singapore newspapers, particularly their lifestyle sections, have been a remarkably rich source. It is my hope that, someday, a proper reading programme will enable each word and phrase to be traced to its first appearance in a published work, transforming this Dictionary into one truly organized according to historical principles. I have also tried to provide the etymology of the entries, but am handicapped in this regard by my lack of facility in other languages. Again, other more qualified persons will need to take on this task.
Singlish has had a bad rap in recent years. Its use in locally-produced television programmes such asthe sitcom Phua Chu Kang Pte Ltd was criticized as likely to affect the standard of English among the impressionable, and measures such as the Speak Good English Campaign have discouraged its use. I agree wholeheartedly that everyone should develop a competent command of proper English for use in business and official circles. At the same time, Singlish is economical, expressive and emotional. It is something home-grown that reflects Singaporeans’ multi-racial roots. It is how we talk to our families, our friends, the people that live with us on this Little Red Dot whom we come into contact with. Allowing it to wither away would be a real shame.
“…Singlish is economical, expressive and emotional. It is something home-grown… It is how we talk to our families, our friends, the people that live with us on this Little Red Dot whom we come into contact with.”
this.
(Source: worldenglishes)
4 notes (via worldenglishes)
