Musicians put own spin to heavily-criticised ‘One Singapore’ National Day song

From the flood of criticism that has engulfed this year's National Day Parade theme song has emerged a silver lining.

In the days immediately following the release of "One Singapore", a few young Singaporean musicians took to their drawing boards to give their own spin on the piece.

The song, after being posted on SoundCloud on Wednesday, has been roundly lambasted for its arrangement and the quality of the singing. Even its corresponding music video, posted on YouTube a day later, received its fair share of extensive critique.

Watch the music video for the song here:

The song, however, spurred local musicians to provide alternative versions.

Indie band Pitch Feather, for instance, challenged themselves to come up with a fully-arranged cover within 24 hours. Listen to the result of their feat:

According to guitarist and bassist Toh Chee Chuan, one of the group's three members, they, together with many others, were "face-palmed" by the song when they first heard it on SoundCloud, but noticed that it was "drowning in negative criticism" as the day wore on.

"(The band's lead vocalist) Alberta Leong felt that the song was actually not THAT bad, and people were probably just jumping on the bandwagon to pile on the negative comments, because well, it was fun," he told Yahoo! Singapore.

"We had a little music discussion and came to the conclusion that musically, the song composition was quite fine, and perhaps the lyrics, the arrangement and the performance was what many people had problems with," Toh explained.

"It is always easy to blast a song when you see a lot of other people blasting it," he continued. "Many people can't even put together a single chord on an instrument, but will endlessly criticise. It's pretty unfair to the songwriters -- I believe they put a lot of hard work into the song."

The songs lyrics were written by Selena Tan, and the music was produced and arranged by her longtime collaborator and award-winning composer Elaine Chan.

Toh added that they decided to be constructive, and find a way to make Singaporeans feel better instead of adding to the massive amount of criticism already floating around -- resulting in the 24-hour cover.

"As songwriters/artists outselves, we know how it feels like when our work is unappreciated, (and worse) disliked," he said. "Like it or not, 'One Singapore' is our national song. We're Singaporeans, so... yes, we'll be singing this song this National Day."

Another musician who produced a short cover of the song was 25-year-old Tan Siling, lead singer of The Animal Parade.

Watch her cover here:

Speaking to Yahoo! Singapore on Friday, she said she felt curious to find out how the song would sound if she put her own spin on it, and that she enjoyed being able to see the potential that a song has.

"I think there are bits that I liked, and some that I didn't," she said. "It's such a dense and complicated song that I walked away not knowing whether I liked it or not. As a songwriter, I got curious about deconstructing the song down to its fundamentals, and seeing how it could work from there, so I really like how the cover turned out."

International singer-music producer Eli T., in response to the backlash online against the song, did his own rendition, making significant changes to the tune and lyrics from New York, where he is currently based.

Watch what he had to say and listen to his version of the song here:

In his video, the 31-year-old lauded Chan's composing skills, calling her an "amazing talent", and hinted speculatively at what could have happened with "One Singapore".

"I heard it, and *guilty*, I hated on it," he started out saying in a roughly three-minute preamble in the video.

"Sometimes when... you take a Christmas tree up a ladder, everyone adds an ornament," he continued. "I added some chords (for this cover), but most of the chord progressions are from the original; I just packed things in and I changed the melody a little, but I want to just prove that Elaine actually had a really good melody line in there, it just needed a bit of moving around."

Meanwhile, local university student Derrick Foo, 25, is working on a electronic remix of the song from New York as well, where he is spending his summer doing a music course.

"I feel it's so cheesy, and I want to see if I can fix it," said Foo, who plans to finish his remix by Sunday. "I think the comments on the original show how much Singaporean listeners are underestimated. It feels like slipshod work and the listeners are aware."

Responding to these, songwriter Selena Tan, who is famously known for her acting and theatre roles, told Yahoo! Singapore she very much enjoyed listening to the covers that have been done so far.

"It is great that people have been doing covers of the song," she said. "In fact, when we were putting it together, we had in mind that there would be slower versions of the song or even more rocked up versions of it."

She made no attempt to disguise her disappointment at the disdain that Singaporeans online have shown toward the song, however, although she did explain why they chose to take the approach they did toward it.

"The song was written to allow every group to have a voice in it, and because there are 10 groups, it is a completely different type of National Day song," she shared. "Of course, I am sorry that my fellow Singaporeans don't like the song however I must say that I am incredibly proud of the singers in Sing a Nation, and the team of people who gave of their time and talent to this project."

Additional reporting by Justin Ong