Echoing this sentiment is a 2007 Taipei Times article that pointed out the Danish band has “undiminished” popularity in Asia because they “avoid messy beats or loops that get in the way of a memorable melody and an emotionally effective verse-chorus-verse song structure”.
The band’s lead vocalist Jascha Richter said that because they are from a non-English speaking country, their lyrics are “quite easy for non-native speakers to understand”. Many of their fans are also learning English and the band’s songs are sold as MP3 downloads with lyric sheets, the article added.
When their records were released in England, however, they were told their lyrics were “too naive”, guitarist Mikkel Lentz revealed. But this “simplicity” that’s resulted in them struggling to be heard in Europe and the US is possibly “one of the secrets to our success” in Asia, where the band plays a different set list for concerts.
“In Europe, it’s more up-tempo. They want to freak out, jump and dance. In Asia, you can really sense the karaoke tradition of being into the music. We play, they sing,” he told Taipei Times.
I suspect this winning formula applies to recently-reunited Norwegian group M2M too, whose Asia fanbase has since flooded their social media accounts begging for comeback concerts in their country. Clearly we haven’t forgotten the beloved duo – or the lyrics to their perennial bangers Mirror Mirror, Pretty Boy, Don’t Say You Love Me, The Day You Went Away… You get the drift.
So I have no doubt Singapore’s branding as a premier concert destination is a solid entertainment and economic strategy to attract these bands from yesteryear. Failing which, it seems nostalgia always sells.
But to me, there’s a more basic driving force behind the return of such bands to the region. It stems from our innate interest in karaoke and an equally instinctive understanding about what makes the perfect KTV song, which creates a culture-shaping reverence for these bands whose songs we’ve memorised.
The more entrenched this enduring appeal, though, the more inexplicable it becomes. Eventually, you can’t quite pinpoint how or why it started at all – but you can always tell when a band has it.
Some would call it a gut feeling.
