When I first of this ad (I think last month?), it didn’t leave me a good impression. No doubt the images of good old Singapore were really nice and nostalgic, it wasn’t enough for me to be hooked on the ad. Or at least admire it as most people in COM443 did. To me it was another propaganda ad from campaign city, which kind of reminded me of that term paper I did for ESL408… Propaganda in Singapore. That I would say was a great experience.
Anyway my intention for this entry is not to slam the ad. It’s a propaganda and I think whoever’s behind this ad has tried his/her best to make it as relevant as possible to Singaporeans.
One thing the ad focuses on is the images of Singapore. While some may feel teary how Singapore has progress to its current state as a metropolitan city. I feel sad in regards to the government’s effort to conserve Architecture. The government and even the people are constantly looking for that iconic building that best represents Singapore. I think in the process of finding it, Singapore has lost a lot of distinctive architecture. Of course, it seems easy to justify it by saying this is the consequence of development. Who will remember how the first flats built by HDB looks like? That Orchard Road used to have a market? That there was a tunnel connecting Alexandra Hospital to Sentosa (when the hospital gets demolished)? Only the people who are interested in History and Architecture? To quote the German proverb: ” The old forget, the young don’t know”. Such is the reality Singaporeans face, and yet are unfazed with this tragic reality.
Is there anything to feel proud of when in process of development you lose so much?
After much scouting I found out the guy who sang the song to this ad is Clement Chow. Yeah, not Jeremy Monteiro. He is quite the prolific songwriter who wrote the iconic “Count on Me Singapore”, “We are Singapore”, “One People, One Nation, One Singapore“. Oh my… I was crazy for those songs when I was in kindergarten. But who was I to blame, my Dad was heavily involved in PAP, so I kind of grew up in that sort of environment. It’s just amazing how different I feel about PAP now than when I was a kid.
Professor Armstrong mentioned that it sounded out of place to have a kid sing the starting lines of the song in the ad. After repeated exposure to the ad, I realized that as the ad progresses, the voice of the singer(s) ages. So I suppose the voice was depicting that of someone that grew up with Singapore and the reason why the voice sounded like a kid’s at the start and like an old man’s at the end of the ad.
I didn’t particularly like the arrangement of the song, though I must say the chorus is catchy. It just took a long while to get into the melody. However, it is to be noted that this song has an infectious sleeper effect as I noted people singing or humming the song in school and on the public transport. Oh well… Looks like the National Environmental Agency (NEA) scored another winning propaganda.
But how effective is it going to be to convince people to recycle and keep Singapore clean? Time will tell…
