Cindai

Recording

Cindai was Siti Nurhaliza’s first collaboration with Suhaimi Mohd Zain, fondly known as Pak Ngah, as the album producer and became her first full traditional album. It was produced after massive success of her two self-titled albums.

Following the successful of her debut traditional Malay song, "Sri Mersing" in her second self-titled album, Siti Nurhaliza later recorded a fully traditional Malay album. Most of the songs from there were traditional compositions. There were only two that were original namely "Cindai" and "Joget Berhibur". Other eight song tracks were produced with new arrangements.

Musical style

Cindai on which Siti Nurhaliza is accompanied by an acoustic band for the traditional feel and adopted the zapin rhythm.

Release and reception

Cindai was released on 17 November 1997, eleven months after Siti Nurhaliza released her second self-titled debut album to popular success. Siti Nurhaliza would later emphasize traditional Malay music on her later albums: Seri Balas (a duet album with Noraniza Idris; 1999), Sahmura (2000), Sanggar Mustika (2002) and Lentera Timur (2008) and continuing her collaboration with Pak Ngah to this day.

To promote the album, three songs in the album - "Cindai", "Joget Pahang" and "Joget Berhibur" were released as the main singles and later received music videos. Siti Nurhaliza also performed the titular song, "Cindai" as part of her special performance during the 1998 Commonwealth Games. Cindai was a commercial success, sold over 400, 000 upon its release and being certified 5x platinum. "Cindai" has also been translated into Mandarin sung by Chinese singer Chien Bai Hui, though some of the lyrics remained untranslated, in which Chien claimed that she could not alter them due to its perceived beautiful and poetic composition.

On 1 April 2005, she sang Cindai as a part of a medley of Zapin songs along with Mahligai Permata and Ya Maulai at the end of Irama Malaysia segments of her solo concert at the Royal Albert Hall, London. Siti Nurhaliza also performs "Cindai" as part of the fourth medley {traditional) in her SATU concert in Istana Budaya in June 2009 and her Konsert Lentera Timur in October 2013 respectively, the song also performed by Siti at her recent concert, Dato' Siti Nurhaliza & Friends Concert in April 2016.

Credits and personnel

Credits adapted from Cindai booklet liner notes.

Awards