Music review: Bizarre, enthralling, powerful: Kimbra proves she’s not your usual pop star

It was already past midnight and the opening acts were drawing to a close. The threat of a super-typhoon and the cold, misty air at the SM Mall of Asia grounds last December 5 did little to dissipate the crowd, which only pressed closer to the stage, bodies squeezing, necks angling outwards eager to witness the second Kimbra walks onto the stage.

Far from being as weird as Lady Gaga, cutesy as Taylor Swift, rebellious as Miley Cyrus and having Katy Perry’s “up there” pop star cult status, New Zealand-born Kimbra may be the lesser-known sibling of the pop clan, prompting one cameraman covering the concert to elbow me and ask “Sikat ba siya?” But this is where Kimbra charmingly sets herself apart from the rest of them who’ve turned pop music into white noise or gym session background.

Listen to Kimbra’s songs—from her first album, Melbourne-released “Vows,” to her Los-Angeles-produced follow-up “The Golden Echo”—and you’d know that stardom is not on top of her priorities. She not only has powerful vocals, but also the playfulness and risk-taking attitude only a former indie artist can be brave enough to display and use to her advantage in a cut-throat mainstream music industry. That not one of her songs is something a person can mindlessly hum is a huge compliment to Kimbra’s eclectic, amazing talent.

All about the music

At her Manila concert, Kimbra took the crowd in a roller coaster ride with such mercurial randomness: a mix of Prince-inspired funk, jazzy vocals peppered with electronic experimentations, danceable R&B chants, pop culture references and vocal effects. At times, you’d wonder how she starts with a high-pitched voice then ends with a deep, jazzy reverb (she’s a three-octave singer). In the words of fans on Instagram, “Kimbra totally killed it!”

I couldn’t agree more with what the reviewer on The Guardian wrote: Kimbra thinks very deeply about making pop music. Most of her songs have stories to tell or issues to probe into, like her R&B slow jam opener “Teen Heat” that tackled the pressing adolescent issue of sex. But as much as “Teen Heat's” lyrics were powerful, “Settle Down” from "Vows" still made the bolder, bigger statement about questioning marriage and stability. It was also one of the songs the Manila crowd was most familiar with, with the audiences taking care of the “whoa-oah-oahs” while Kimbra beat-boxed the chorus.

Kimbra indulged the crowd with singing one of the carrier singles of "The Golden Echo", “90s Music”, a song that paid homage to Kimbra’s childhood pop heroes like TLC and Mary J. Blige. Kimbra revealed in her interviews that it was a “joke song”, but some critics felt that the song was too over-the-top. I love Kimbra, but it’s true. In her lineup, it was the least of my favorites. The too-many-layered vocal effects, not to mention the song as a whole, had me worried that she was forced to create a song that a mass audience can consume, bringing her “indie vibe” a notch lower.

But song after song that she killed, I can only think of “90s Music” as an oversight that Kimbra doesn’t even have to apologize for. She can make as much consumable music, for so as long as she makes more of the likes of love song “Two-Way Street”, her music idol Prince’s personal favorite “Carolina” and the unapologetically disco “Miracle,” a palatable song that seals Kimbra’s status as a rising pop star.

Add into the mix the fact that Kimbra is a charmer on stage. She delivers 12 songs with nary a break with someone filling in to sing or dance. Instead, she gives it her all—dancing, singing, playing the tambourine, with a spattering of theatrics and her donning a metallic puffed-up dress.

“Salamat at mahal ko kayo. Masaya ako dito,” Kimbra says to the delight of the crowd. “We love you too Kimbra,” the crowd answered back.

Kimbra’s encore was composed of four strong songs: “Cameo Lover” had the crowd dancing as she played her gold tambourine. A fireworks display at the end of the song had the crowd enthralled.  Then she mellowed things down with her Erykah Badu-ish vocals in “Love in High Places”, before turning the energy up again with “Miracle.”  On a high note, with the Manila crowd going crazy, she ended the show with the very edgy and danceable “Come Into My Head” with a shower of confetti raining on the crowd and wrapping up Kimbra’s first Manila concert.

It was a concert good enough to make true-blue Kimbra fans weep and make a convert out of reluctant listeners who thought Kimbra was just Gotye’s singing partner in “Somebody That I Used To Know” or worse, that Kimbra was just another pop star. But Kimbra makes us hopeful that in this unpredictable circus of popdom, real talent can still be distinguished from the humdrum of artists who perform just because are they are pop stars. — BM, GMA News

Alina Co-Calleja is a TV producer, writer, editor, voice over talent and a college instructor. She is permanently in between permanent jobs and is loving every minute of it.