Local album Sing, Love pay tribute to Singapore

SINGAPORE — A star-studded line-up of local creatives have come together to pay tribute to Singapore with an original music album titled Sing, Love. The unique collaborative effort features well-know names such as Stefanie Sun, Corrinne May, Jeremy Monteiro and Rani Singam and younger names such as THELIONCITYBOY, Charlie Lim, The Sam Willows and Sezairi Sezali contributing to the five-track album. The songs were written in four different languages and each of them will feature videos directed by the likes of Kelvin Tong and Brian Gothong Tan, among others.

“I wanted to create something that we can be proud of. We wanted to bring some of the best musicians across different genres and languages,” said Ruth Ling, the album’s executive producer. “It wasn’t meant to be nationalistic; I wanted to hear what our artistes had to say (about Singapore). We wanted them to be pop songs and radio-friendly, which everyone could like.

“When we were thinking of ways to celebrate this milestone year … we thought, what better way to do so than through music? We hope that Sing, Love will touch the hearts of many more, both in and out of Singapore.”

The album is centred on the theme Our Family, Our Home, and the first single, Starlight, a boppy pop number written by xinyao veteran Chen Jiaming, Ling and Sezairi features the Malay pop singer and jazz singer Joanna Dong singing in Mandarin and Malay.

Tan, who directed the music video for Starlight, said: “I was quite happy to do something new. The main inspiration was the song. It was really poppy and catchy. The lyrics are quite complex and sophisticated. I wanted to make something child-like, but very Brechtian.

“It’s not as polished as other music videos, but I liked that rawness. The song is about coming back home, so I wanted to show that and capture that feeling.”

All the musicians were more than happy to participate on the album. “I was most happy when she called about the project and when she mentioned the collaborators … It was all the wonderful things one could imagine as an artiste,” said Rani Singam, who collaborates with jazz musicians Jeremy Monteiro and Nathan Hartono, and rapper THELIONCITYBOY on the English-Tamil song, Love Sings.

“Ruth made a bold decision … She’s really ballsy to come up with the music combination for the album,” added Dong.

“It’s a very exciting project. This is something very different. Hopefully, Singapore is ready for some new national songs,” said THELIONCITYBOY. “This project seems to be a milestone.”

The other songs from the album will be rolled out before its official launch at the Sing, Love concert in July, said Ling. More details will be announced at a later date. CHRISTOPHER TOH