Anggun is an Indonesian-French singer-songwriter and TV personality who has been performing music since the age of seven. Her first international album, “Snow on the Sahara” (1997), and her six studio albums to follow have throned her as the Asian artist with the highest album sales outside Asia, with gold and platinum album status across Europe and Asia. Anggun has appeared as a judge for “Asia’s Got Talent”, the French version of “Masked Singer”, as well as the Indonesian versions of “The X Factor”, “Got Talent”, and “The Voice”. Anggun was invited to serve as a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations twice, first for the International Year of Microcredit and then for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
Harvard Political Review: What makes music meaningful for you? Has that reason changed over time?
Anggun: I have to say that my first encounter with music was quite natural. I didn’t even ask myself any questions because I was born and raised in a country [Indonesia] where music is super present everywhere you go. It’s something that is a part of you, a part of life, [and] a part of education. Before Indonesian babies learn how to talk and walk, they learn how to sing. It’s second nature to be a singer. It’s just another way of communicating and expressing myself. Because of that, I was always trying to be extremely honest and careful with what I write and sing. From what I know of music and what I like from this or that musician, I like what they represent and what they carry in their music.
HPR: How has the music scene changed since your debut?
Anggun: When I hear music nowadays, I don’t actually understand a lot of it. The songs are very short and sexual. Music has gone from melodies and stories into something that is just catchy and grabs your attention. It’s become like McDonald’s french fries: You have to eat it right away and you can’t take it home because otherwise it’s no longer fresh. Through TikTok, most kids nowadays only know like 15 seconds of a song. Youth today are not taught to be patient. A lot of them have short attention spans, and the industry is trying to cater to that. The carpe diem generation is the “now” generation. But we’re more than just “now.” We’re fragments of these little moments that make us who we are. Now, you have to be beautiful. You need millions of followers, and you must have that catchy song. It’s not about music anymore. It’s sad to say that.
HPR: How can we address this problem of “fast food” music?
Anggun: The way I see music today makes me want to write more songs with meaning because I don’t get inspired a lot with what’s out there. I’m from a generation where we like to take time. If there is something positive to take from this quarantine, it is that you have nothing but time. Maybe it will teach all of us to breathe again, to appreciate again, to savor. Hopefully there will be a reset button where we have built some kind of hunger or thirst for music as we used to know it before. We have to make time and we have to teach the younger generation about time. I want us not just to listen to music at home but to go where the musicians are — at a concert, on the streets, or in a bar — being with music and living that moment to the fullest.
HPR: What do you draw from when writing lyrics?
Anggun: I try to go into my memories, or I steal some stuff provided from others — I’m a good listener. When you write songs or books, you get inspired by people’s stories, and then you somehow make it your own. A lot of my songs are personal but not autobiographical. I used to write songs about what’s going on in my life. But these days, instead of “me,” I write more songs about “them” and the world surrounding me. That’s why I love conversation. When I learned French, I basically talked to a lot of people. I love grandmas, especially at bus stops, because they have time. They always try to go somewhere, but they’re in no rush. They have the funniest and most beautiful stories to tell.
HPR: What makes for a good song?
Anggun: My father was a book writer. He always said that there’s only so much words can say, but when you add melody to your words, all of a sudden, words become magical. I like songs that can speak to you because they represent what you feel or might have felt at some particular moment in your life. We all live the same thing. We eat, we sleep, we love, we have broken hearts. The way we do these things and the way we learn or grow up from these things — that makes us who we are. There’s a saying — when you’re happy, you listen to the music, but when you’re sad, you listen to the lyrics. It’s important to be able to put the right words, but also [to] put the right melody, [to songs]. When that magic happens, you’re the luckiest person.
HPR: Tell me about your musical inspirations.
Anggun: I want to pay homage to Billie Holiday. She’s one of those singers whose life story was horrible. She was beaten up, she drank, she took drugs and all that. She had the most horrendous loss stories for women. But whenever she sang about that in her songs, it’s almost as if she didn’t want to disturb you. She wants to tell you the story, but she sings almost with a smile. It’s so very light and inspiring. When you see divas singing on stage, you don’t see the pain in their faces. To be able to make a good sound with your voice, it’s all the resonance of bones. Sometimes, singing is just painful, but you don’t see the singer showing the pain. It’s all about love and generosity. And that’s beautiful.
HPR: How would you define success in the music industry?
Anggun: My take on that has evolved. I used to think that the meaning of success is when you’re right about your instincts about a song. I had that kind of success in my teen years in Indonesia, and a more important success in Europe. But then I thought that it wasn’t just that I was right, but also that I was lucky. It was probably the kind of song that people wanted to hear at that particular moment. Success back then for me was just like a lottery. Now, though, I think success [occurs] regardless of the amount of albums that are sold. It’s whenever someone says to me, “You know that song that you wrote, that helped me through my divorce.” Success is when something that I thought of can reach the heart of a person or help them through a particular moment in their life.
HPR: Beyond music, you’ve also ventured into acting. How did you find that transition?
Anggun: Way back when, I was only about music, singing, writing songs, and performing. When my first album was lucky enough to be out in America, I used to have an agent who told me that Hollywood was calling. They wanted me to become a James Bond girl. I politely refused all the offers. I thought acting was a totally different profession. I don]t want to step on somebody else’s property and claim that I can live there, too. I have a lot of respect for people that genuinely worked super hard on getting certain roles. So I thought, if that is the case, then I have to work on it. And then, I just did a movie. I’m set to do another one at the beginning of next year. It’s a very different feeling because in music or TV, you have to play with the camera. In film, you have to forget that the camera ever existed. When you play a character, I’m allowed to say things that I personally never would’ve said. I have that armor, “It wasn’t me. It was her.”
HPR: How were your experiences judging on TV shows [“Asia’s Got Talent”, “The Voice”, “X Factor”, “Masked Singer”]?
Anggun: It’s super fun. For me, it’s like going on vacation. I don’t feel like I’m working because [the contestants] are the ones who work. They’re the ones who perform in front of us, and I like the entertainment bits in it. Now I see this profession in the entertainment business as something quite serious — not in an intellectual sense, but more in the necessity of it. It’s a good thing to be able to make people forget about their problems for two hours or five minutes or something. You need entertainment and you need your minds off of your problems. All types of entertainment and everybody working the entertainment business — comedians, actors, actresses, or TV hosts — we’re all in this mission together.
HPR: Any memorable TV moments?
Anggun: At [“Asia’s Got Talent”], there was this scary magician called “The Sacred Riana” from Indonesia. She won the second season, and she was in character nonstop. Her dedication towards it was incredible. Even backstage when the cameras were off, she was still in her character. She didn’t break. Even during lunchtime when everyone is eating with each other, she would take her plate, go to a corner, and eat in front of the wall. I loved knowing that. That is one of those things that I said, “Wow, this girl really wants to win.” She’s so serious about her magic. And that’s why I guess she won.
HPR: If you could invite anyone to dinner, alive or dead, who’d that be?
Anggun: No doubt, Freddie Mercury. Growing up, he was my father, my friend, my mentor. I’d also invite Elie Wisel. I met him once at a United Nations gathering. We were in a panel where we had to talk to people after giving a speech, and he happened to speak before me. He was talking about his life experience. Once he finished, I was fine, and then I started to talk, and I was in tears. Instead of saying what I was there to say, I was talking about him. The fact that he lived the most horrendous moments in his life but all he took from that is just love and hope. That is all he wants to say to others. I would also invite Jerry Seinfeld. I used to love his show a lot. I think that kind of sitcom is what is lacking nowadays. No big words, no cussing. They use incredible words. They even spoke with French words sometimes. In the way they talk, the way they approach a subject, it was rich. It’s funny because Jerry always said that it’s a sitcom about nothing. But those nothings are a lot of somethings. Those nothings were rich. So Freddie Mercury, Elie Wisel, and Jerry Seinfeld. Oh, we need a woman. Then Billie Holiday, of course.
HPR: Is there a life motto you live by?
Anggun: It changes all the time. Nothing really happens on its own. You call things to happen to you. It’s all about the energy that we put out there. That’s why you have to be careful what you wish and what you give out. What you give, you will receive somehow, maybe not in a form that you’re waiting for, but there’s always something to learn. That’s why I’m always eager to meet new people. I love traveling. There’s always something to take out of it. For me, that could be a song, an essay subject, or probably just a good conversation. But whatever it is, it’s life. And you should always welcome life.
Image Credit: Antoine Gouiffes Yan
