The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 05:23 PM PDT

JULY 23 — Having been afforded a brief close-up glimpse of their heroes during last weekend's pre-season fixture in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysian Liverpool fans will now be wondering whether the world's most popular football team (sorry, Man United and Barcelona fans: that honour still goes to Liverpool) can mount a serious challenge for the English Premier League title in the coming season.

The signs are encouraging, with the return of living legend Kenny Dalglish as manager sparking a notable improvement in form and a subsequent burst of confidence unlike anything witnessed at Anfield for many years.

After Dalglish was appointed manager in January, the Reds gained a total of 33 points from their remaining 18 league games — just less than half a season.

To put that into context: In the same number of fixtures, champions Manchester United and second-placed Chelsea both collected 36 points, while third-placed Manchester City also gathered 33.

If the Reds had maintained that sort of form over the course of the entire campaign, then, they would have been serious challengers for the title.

But there's a big jump from playing well for four months in a low-pressure situation to gaining the requisite consistency and mental durability under pressure to challenge for major honours. The real test for Dalglish and his team will come if they make a good start to the season and find themselves in the title frame when 2011 ticks into 2012.

Dalglish has recognised that his squad needs improving and has largely concentrated on bolstering his midfield during the off-season, adding Jordan Henderson from Sunderland and Charlie Adam from Blackpool in the centre of the pitch, along with Stewart Downing from Aston Villa to play on the left wing.

Twenty-one-year-old Henderson looked a little out of his depth in his solitary England appearance against France in November and his form for Sunderland faded as the season went on. The reported fee of around £16 million (RM77 million) is an awful lot of money for a young player with just 60 starts in the Premier League under his belt, but he's clearly a signing for the long-term and won't be expected to become a regular starter straight away.

Adam is less of a gamble after being captured for a reasonable £7 million from Blackpool. He's clearly a talented ball player with an excellent range of passing and dangerous set-piece delivery, but his physical attributes are questionable and exerting a significant influence for Liverpool is a very different matter than running Blackpool's midfield.

It will also be interesting to see how Dalglish intends to use Adam in tandem with Steven Gerrard because they have a very similar natural position: spraying passes from the centre of midfield, looking to get forward to link up with the front two and wanting to shoot from the edge of the penalty area.

Unless Dalglish intends to use Gerrard on the right wing, it's difficult to envisage how he can accommodate both Adam and Gerrard in the same team.

The signing of Downing is a very good one — even though he didn't come cheap at a reported £20 million. The former Middlesbrough player is a proven Premier League performer, having started more than 150 games over the past five seasons, and can be relied upon to provide a steady stream of quality crosses from the left wing.

One player who will be particularly happy with Downing's arrival is Andy Carroll, whose physical presence and aerial ability were begging for someone of Downing's calibre to put the ball on his head. You have to play to your strengths and, by signing Downing, Liverpool should be able to provide Carroll with the consistent level of service he requires.

And of course, Carroll will be more than ably supported by Luis Suarez, who has further enhanced his ever-growing reputation as one of the world's leading strikers with a series of excellent performances for Uruguay during the ongoing Copa America, including both goals in the semi-final victory over Peru.

Suarez — who, it's worth remembering, is only 24 years old — is a fantastic player and he could, in time, prove to be one of Dalglish's best-ever signings. The development of his partnership with the similarly promising Carroll is an extremely exciting prospect for Liverpool fans, who may soon be able to boast a front pairing as good as anyone else in England.

With Gerrard, Downing, Adam, Raul Meireles and Lucas Leiva in midfield, and Carroll, Suarez and the ever-reliable Dirk Kuyt in attack, Liverpool are starting to assemble the array of weapons which should allow them to become a real force this season.

I believe the title will probably be beyond them — the squad doesn't possess sufficient strength in depth to challenge Manchester United, Manchester City or Chelsea over the course of nine months — but I can certainly see them beating Arsenal and Tottenham into fourth place.

The good times could be returning to Anfield.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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Noises from the fringe

Posted: 22 Jul 2011 05:18 PM PDT

JULY 23 — When we entered 2011, the local independent music scene seemed to be quite uncertain. There weren't that many local albums produced in 2010, and 2011 seemed to point to even fewer albums being made because of the nature of the market.

Nowadays everyone seems to be more comfortable releasing singles every few months for the purpose of radio airplay and maintaining a profile in the eyes of the mainstream.

For someone like me who's always on the lookout for exciting new music, this year has turned out to be a surprisingly rewarding one. Of course, there's not much to get my blood pumping when it comes to the Malaysian mainstream music scene. So far, none of the big indie acts like Hujan, Yuna, Bunkface or Meet Uncle Hussein have anything new out yet this year.

But if you listen closely, there's been some really exciting noises being made on the fringes of the Malaysian indie music scene. Earlier this year, Furniture released a solidly rocking second album that surprisingly was in a strong Swedish indie pop direction, albeit peppered with their trademark dream-pop and post-rock moves. Najwa dropped her neo-soul tinged debut album, with recording and production quality that's just pure class.

Local Britpop giants Bittersweet also released their long-awaited second album about two months back and the much requested physical version of the P. Ramlee Indiepretasi tribute album was also released around the same time.

Another indie rock band with a healthy mainstream presence, Pesawat, also just released their debut album last week, after around three years of accumulating countless hit singles on Malaysian radio. So it's not been a bad year at all so far in terms of quality albums.

What's truly gotten me excited so far this year, though, are three relatively new and unknown bands that have been jostling for airtime on my CD player. The first two share a split album called Paraphernalia, and the bands are Partimelovers from Kuala Lumpur and Love/Comes from Kuching.

It's probably too modest a release to be called an album as it's on CD-R, but the 10 songs on it and the professionally printed sleeve, not to mention the pretty agreeable recording quality should more than qualify this to be called an album.

What's special about these two bands are the kind of sounds they're making, as they both explore genres that are very rarely heard in Malaysia. KL boys Partimelovers, while they still need quite a bit of tightening up in their playing, especially in the rhythm section, are already exhibiting quite a remarkable understanding of what makes post-punk, their chosen genre, tick.

Often erroneously thought of as disciples of Joy Division and Interpol, I personally think they lean more towards the twin guitar hook making of Television and maybe even The Feelies, as evidenced by the five songs they contributed to the album, all of which possess the sort of memorably catchy hooks rarely associated with the post-punk genre. A special little band, indeed.

Then you have what's fast becoming a lot of people's new favourite band, Love/Comes. Exhibiting a strikingly sure hand on the magic and power of the genre we all call "shoegaze", Love/Comes is quite simply an awesome band, blessed with song writing skills that should be the envy of a lot of other bands out there. Their five-song contribution to the split album are sparkling examples of why people still love legendary 90s bands like Ride and My Bloody Valentine to this very day.

And now we come to what is, for me, the Malaysian album to beat this year, called Subversion, which is the debut album from a band called The Garrison. Proud members of the local DIY punk scene, which is a scene that's virtually ignored in terms of media coverage, The Garrison has simply made an album so effortlessly great, it's a wonder it's taken the DIY punk scene this long to come up with something with this much crossover potential.

A heroically "1977 punk" sounding album, with a few astoundingly catchy reggae songs thrown in, comparisons with The Clash are inevitable (there are already cries of "The Clash copycats" being thrown at them, presumably from people jealous at how good this band is — Malaysia Boleh, hehe), but what makes The Garrison so appealing is just how good the songs are. If you have any sort of love for punk rock, then falling in love with their album is almost a given.

But even if you have no love for punk rock whatsoever, there are quite a few songs in the album that will win you over anyway, which is why I said before that this is one album with immense potential to cross over even to certain parts of the mainstream.

Now how about that, a DIY punk album with crossover potential? 2011 is turning out to be quite an interesting year indeed.

* The views expressed here are the personal opinion of the columnist.

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Kredit: http://www.themalaysianinsider.com

Sabtu, 23 Julai 2011

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

The Malaysian Insider :: Opinion

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