The joyous rose of Turkey - Gülşen

Gülşen is Turkey's most desired, and widely despised singer. The scourge of feminists and religious fundamentalists (who would have thought that it was possible for these two groups to ever agree over something?), Gülşen works hard to convince her fellow citizens that contributing to reduce women to the status of mere sexual objects is a noble pursuit, especially if you do so clad in a transparent bikini and a little cheap jewellery (you have to include it – diamanté is a necessity if you want to avoid catching colds! ;-P). However, things were not always like this. Once a chaste, pious and contrite serious musician, Gülşen proudly declared her love for all things traditional and artsy. Not surprisingly at all, she did so because she coursed her baccalaureate studies in the prestigious Şehremini Lisesi, widely considered one of the best educational centers in Turkey, and is a graduate in Musicology from the renowned Music School of Istanbul’s Technical University. She also happens to be an excellent guitar player and a fantastic composer – the poor thing probably wanted to be admired for her work and not for her body. Aaaaawwww, poor misguided soul in desperate need of stilettos, silicon implants and a fake tan! :-P Still, she managed to achieve notoriety on the strength of her deep, rich contralto voice and some unbelievably beautiful compositions, for which she was seen as a possible candidate to, one very distant day, occupy Sezen Aksu's lofty throne right on the very top of the Turkish pop music heaven.

However, people soon tired of Gülşen's artful dalliances, and her awesome third album Şimdi/Now (2002) failed miserably in the charts in spite of being one of the best works of art by any Turkish musician in that year. After having to cancel concerts and presentations due to an overall lack of interest, I guess that she spent a few days in deep mediation and came up with this brilliant answer to the existential question: what do you do when you’re talented, unfairly ignored and still young enough? Easy. You stop wearing clothes in public! So, after a little water, lettuce and apples dieting, some torrid sessions on a tanning bed and a bit of liposuction here and there to accelerate the process, our once prodigal daughter Gülşen came out of the detox clinic as the very flower of whore-dom! ;-P And I love her even more for it, because her music hasn’t lost any of its quality and now she’s a whole lot more entertaining to watch! In addition, I must admit that I can’t get enough of the "I know I'm too hot for you to do so, but if you take me seriously I might shag you later" paradoxal shadow that falls over everything that she’s done as of late. It gives her desperation a touch of complexity that’s missing from all the other clothes-averse pop tarts in Turkey :-P. Or the world, for that matter.



Now, seriously, I have to say that it is indeed sad that a talented musician like her should be forced to pander to the lowest common denominator in order to save her career, but what the heck! She’s selling millions now. Anyway, there’s not much more to say about her, since her life seems to have been devoid of any significant dramatic experiences, and she seems to be one of the few young Turkish musicians whose careers haven’t been built by Sezen Aksu.

Thus, without further ado, I present you with the selection I’ve made; I really hope you’ll enjoy it! But as always, I’d like to remind you to go to buy her albums here.

Yurtta Aşk, Cihanda Aşk/Love In the World, Love In the Land (Dance Version)

The original version of this, the title track from her latest album (2005), is a rather good disco song that’s strongly influenced by Middle Eastern folk. Still, I’ve chosen this remix version of it because it has acoustic flamenco ornamentation, some heavy electric guitars and a far more aggressive beat – it’s more international, in short. The title of the song is inspired by a famous phrase from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk; the father of modern, secular, rabidly pro-Western Turkey – ‘yurtta barış, cihanda barış’ (peace in the world, peace in the land). As pretentious as this shameless paraphrasing of a great man who changed the course of Turkish history is, I must admit that the song is AWESOME, and the lyrics quite good. So much so, that it was one of the biggest hits in 2005 in Turkey, spending seven weeks at number one in the charts! But the album has so much more! In it, Gülşen has included reggaeton, R&B, folk numbers and even house music! God, how I love her! Video.

Sarışınım/My Blond One

This cover of a 1988 Sezen Aksu mega-hit is FABULOUS!!! Whereas the original is marred by what could be best described as bizarre synthesizer effects disastrously clashing against each other, this is given the full folk/pop treatment that it ought to have had in the first place, and the results are just… AAAAAAAHHHHHH! Let’s just say that I love this so much, that Gülşen could very well start releasing actual shit from now on, and I’d still happily buy it. She’s bought my eternal loyalty with this! It begins with heavy percussion that keeps running all the way to the end of the song, and is frequently paired by a thick, heavy bass line that will have you bopping around in no time!!! But the wind section of the song is what really makes it so awesome. It was also a huge number one hit in 2004, especially after the video, in which Gülşen appears dancing in a transparent bikini that barely covers her ‘charms’ with false diamonds (her jewels ;-P actually had to be digitalized before the video was broadcast), was banned from Turkish television for being considered pornographic! Here it is!

Sakıncalı/Objectionable (Acoustic Version)

This beautiful acoustic song is an example of what Gülşen is capable of, both as a composer and producer. Opened by melancholic piano instrumentation, this wonderful folk-inspired ballad combines very slow, delicate verses that come alive with violins and oud arpeggios, and fast choruses that keep their urgency thanks to a heavy bass line and some rapid percussion, which keeps appearing and disappearing as the melody lazily unfolds. It’s simply gorgeous. Video.

Of… Of…

The title track for her 2004 rising from the ashes, this song doesn’t really mark a sharp departure from everything that Gülşen had done before, but it is nonetheless still different enough as to have been a surprise for most of her fans. I’m not sure about the meaning of the title, because it has nothing to do with the lyrics (it’s a typical ‘I left you, you found someone new and now that I want you back, you’re taking revenge by playing with my feelings’ sort of song), but it’s very catchy and fun, so I don’t really mind! I LOVE the combination of a fast trance beat with traditional çiftetelli instrumentation. It’s gorgeous! Video.