Sidetrek: Corrine May

Perhaps I am behind the times and behind the news, but it was only this week that I heard this wonderful song on the radio. "Everything in its time."

A touching piano accompaniment heralded one of the strongest female voices I've heard in a while. Rich, deep, a little bit pop, a little bit country, sounded like one of those pop songs played as a background in tv episodes like Ally McBeal or Charmed.

So of course I had to write down little phrases in the lyrics and then search for the song and singer online. An initial search proved rather difficult, but I managed to find lyrics of it on blogs suggestive of Malaysia/Singapore authors. Ah, probably one of those ubiquitious local songs...

Yet, her voice. Her accent. Distinctly Western. *boggle*

Finally, on one blog, I found the singer's name, and ran a search on that. Aha, a website and biography.

http://www.corrinnemay.com

And now, I can only say, "S' bout damned time."

In this cosmopolitan world, it's about damned time that a Singaporean made it big. Perhaps not superstar big, but pretty good big. And created a product that is global, not local. It's not faux Azian, it's not something reliant on Singlish culture, it's just pretty damned good quality singing, that imo, can easily top heaps of American Idols.

And did I mention she's a Rafflesian? Haha, about damned time indeed.

Why'd I say that? Well, one of the most poignant memories for me is sitting in the air-conditioned hall, listening to various concerts. Most of them were, well, *hem*, of academic standard, to put a euphemistic spin on it. The books I snuck into the place were more interesting. Some of them were passably good, funny, or sweet.

But a rare few were *knock your socks off* *holy shit, this gal has TALENT* *this is even better than stuff you hear on tv/radio*

And during one of these such, I entertained the thought that in the future, some of them ought to be embracing and exploring such talent and getting it recognized by the world.

Glad to be vindicated. (Even if she's prolly a generation ahead of my musing thought.)

And it's seriously good stuff, her music. One can listen to excerpts on her webby, and now I desperately need to get to a Sembawang Music store ASAP to pick up her album.