Are artists good at making songs more talented? This is Habsah Hassan’s comment…
PETALING JAYA: Determining an artist’s talent and ability is not as easy as it seems, let alone measuring his level of success.
Prolific lyricist, Datuk Habsah Hassan believes that art is a broad field and requires the involvement of many, therefore placing an assessment for an artist or artistic results should also look at various aspects.
“This field of art, to determine where we are, it has to involve many people. Maybe an artist can sing, act, write songs and so on.
“But in the end we have to see, how will the public accept his work?
“No matter how good or how high an artist’s talent is, he still needs other people’s opinions. He has to be open-minded because the art is produced for the public to enjoy,” she said.
She commented on the ‘fight’ on social media involving a group of fans of several artists, including Datuk Seri Siti Nurhaliza, Yuna and Aina Abdul.
It started when a social media user uploaded her opinion on Twitter saying Yuna is more talented than Siti Nurhaliza, on the grounds that Yuna can produce her own songs.
“Yuna is indeed a talented person in song production. She has her own niche market , but how do we measure her success compared to Siti Nurhaliza?
“It is impossible for there to be one individual in this world who controls everything because everyone has their expertise and field.
“So to compare the quality of an artist based only on talent and what he can do, is not allowed.
“The success of an artist is determined not only by talent, but also by the public’s acceptance, the artist’s own seriousness and is also helped by the factor of luck or fortune,” she explained, who has produced more than 1,000 song lyrics for popular artists in the country.
Naming Aina and Naim Daniel as one of the singers who have good abilities in creating songs and lyrics, she however advised the new generation artists not to be easily swept away by popularity.
This is because maintaining popularity and consistency has proven to be very difficult.
“When I was chairing MACP (Malaysian Employees’ Rights Protection Agency), there was a group whose royalty collection was very high in one year. Even Datuk M. Nasir was also defeated by them.
“But that was the only year. After that they disappeared because their songs were no longer played. While M. Nasir, it’s been years and still getting high royalties.
“How many of our artists have appeared since the last 10 years, rose for a moment, then disappeared. It’s a pity, because they have talent.
“As a creative person, don’t aim for our songs to ‘live’ for a year or two. Don’t be quick to notice just because we have millions of fans on social media, because those many may only like us for a few years,” she advised.
