ANGGUN
CIPTA
SASMI
Indonesian Artist
By: Hannah Gregor
EARLY CAREER
• Anggun was born in April 1974
• Began singing lessons with her father at the age of seven
• Highly disciplined and occurred on a daily basis
• Anggun’s mother began serving as her manager
• At age nine, Anggun began to write her own songs and recorded her first children’s album
• Her greatest influence was Western rock music
• She released her first official album at the age of twelve
• Dunia Aku Punya (The World is Mine)
• Not very popular
• At age 15, she released a single “Mimpi” (“Dream”) which rocketed her to popularity
• Subsequent singles increased Anggun’s fame and she released two new studio albums in 1991 and
1992
• Her final album, Anggun C. SAsmi…Lah!!!, was released in 1993
1993-1996
• She founded her own record company in 1993 and began considering an
international career
• In 1994, Anggun released a greatest hits album of her Indonesian hit songs and
subsequently sold her record company in order to fund her move to London
• Anggun began writing songs and recording demos
• All the demos were returned with negative replies within months
• She began thinking about moving to another country
• She moved to France in 1996 and her international career began advancing
• Erick Benzi offered her a record deal
• Signed to Columbia France and Sony Music Entertainment
• She began working with Benzi and several others on her debut album
1997-1999
• In 1997, Anggun released her first French album
• The album was an experiment with world music and adult
contemporary sounds
• Anggun described the album as “a concentration of all the
musical influences of my life.”
• “Snow on the Sahara”, the most popular single from the album,
peaked at number one on the French Singles Chart
• Became the most played single in France in 1997
• The English version of the album was released internationally in
33 countries between 1997 and 1999
• Anggun toured in the United States for nine months to promote
the album and appeared on American television programs
1999-2003
• Anggun’s second French album was released in 1999
• This was an experiment with electronic pop and ambient elements, along
with R&B music
• Only peaked at number 48 on the French Albums Chart
• Only two singles were released off the album
• Neither were very successful
• The English version of the album was more successful
• Never released in the United States because of the lack of response to her
last album
• Anggun collaborated with several artists between 2001 and 2003
• She worked with DJ Cam on a mixed French-English song in 2001
• She also collaborated on an Indonesian-English song with Deep Forest in 2002
• Three collaborations in 2003 with Italian rock singers
2004-PRESENT
• Anggun returned to Paris from her tours
• She signed a new record deal with a French independent label
• She began work on her next album with several producers, including JeanPierre Taieb and Frederic Jaffre
• Anggun writes her songs in English
• Hired Jean Fauque, Lionel Florence, and others to adapt her English songs into
French
• She collaborated with several artists and released several more international
albums
• New album set to be released in 2015
INFLUENCES AND SIGNATURE STYLE
• Anggun began as a rock singer
• Influenced by rock bands, including Guns N’ Roses, Bon
Jovi, and Megadeth
• The album that she said “changed [her] life” was The
Fragile by Nine Inch Nails
• She said about her first album in 1986 “I was writing
songs all the time, but my specialty was classical piano
and singing.”
• Anggun studied traditional Balinese dance and uses the
traditional art in her performances
• Anggun was one of the first Asian singers to have a
strong presence in the European and American markets
and helped pave the way for other Asian singers.
ACTING CAREER
• Rumor has it that Anggun was offered roles in
The World Is Not Enough and High Fidelity, but
turned them down
• Defending why she refused the roles, she said
“I was born a singer. I won’t go into another
profession because I think there are still many
people out there who were born to be movie
stars or models. My calling is in music.”