Taufik's bad dream

SINGAPORE: The front page of today's Berita Harian, entitled 'I DREAM' JADI MIMPI BURUK? caught my eyes this morning. Translated it means 'I Dream' becoming a bad dream? Basically the article reveals that Taufik's 'original' song 'I Dream' may not be that original after all. The song was apparently sang by a LeAnn Rimes, a Grammy award winner in 2001. You can hear it for youself from Ridzwan.com, in his blog written on September 25 or from YouTube. Both clips are the same. So far MediaCorp and SonyBMG has been tight-lipped about the uncanny similarity of the two songs.

If the songs turns did not turn out to be an original song, I feel sorry for Taufik for he had been ripped. On the other hand I wonder if this will land him a windfall. Since a franchise was signed with the understanding that an original song will be sang and awarded to the winner, shouldn't this be a breach of contract? Anyway Taufik shouldn't feel too bad because for the last 2 years this had been his song, and he had made the most of out it - a double platinum. Since then he had gone on to win many awards in the region. He had already proven himself.

However in the bigger picture, I wonder how it will affect the Idol franchise. MediaCorp was contemplating whether to renew the Idol franchise in 2 years time, and I think after this episode, most likely Hady will be the last Idol. Now I wonder whether Hady's song 'You give me wings' is an original. In his case it is more critical because he had not produce his album yet. One wonders what will happen if his original song lost its originality. Will he get a replacement original song?

In response to this revealation, and if proven true, I feel that we should expose this incident as much as possible so that words will go back to the US. This is so that those who had supported the Idol series knows about the incident and put pressure on them to clarify the matter. Somehow our market is small, so we may not have much consumer power to make any impact. The franchise had make a handsome profit out of the finalists, and so it be fair that they stay true to the spirit.

I sincerely hope that Hady's song won't be renamed 'You give me broken wings'!