Musical Down and Outs

Posted by Hatice Soylu from Istanbul, Turkey and Steffan Matrak from Moscow, Russia

The Pantene Altın Kelebek Awards (Golden Butterfly Awards) 45th ceremony saw its celebrated recipients receive their statuettes this year - but Tarkan was noticeably absent.

Last year, Tarkan took away the golden gong for Best Male Pop Artist, with it going this year to Turkish pop newcomer Edis Görgülü.

It follows on the heels of Edis knocking Tarkan off Biletix's annual top spot for the performer with the "most sought after tickets". The poll saw Tarkan's three year run at the top come to an end this year.

But some commentators are of the opinion Edis has "a long way to go" to match Tarkan, while popstress Demet Akalın - who presented Edis with the Best Male gong - spoke of Edis doing Tarkan impersonations as a 10 year-old during one of her concerts.

Elsewhere in reports about the Golden Butterfly Awards, actor and comedian Cem Yılmaz made an appearance, but not to present the Best Male gong as he did for his friend Tarkan last year. Yılmaz presented mutual friend pop singer Kenan Doğulu a honorary jury award celebrating his 25th year in music.

Yılmaz tried for the same joke as last year, but it fell a little flat with the press a second time around, while female celebrity Tuğba Ekinci - most remembered as "that woman" who hijacked Tarkan's acceptance speech at the 38th annual Golden Butterfly Awards - took to social media to rant about the ceremony for not mentioning a celebrity presenter seriously ill in hospital.

She complained about the slight to the famous presenter, saying: "The organisers must be so sad that Tarkan didn't come to the award ceremony this year that they forgot all about it".

Songs With a Past

At the Golden Butterflies last year, Tarkan also won a golden gong for Song of the Year with "Beni Çok Sev" - which was mired with plagiarism claims soon after and still continue today.

At the time, the singer of the 30 year-old original song had said that Tarkan was "blameless" over the alleged theft. But in a recent interview on daytime TV this year, she apppeared to drastically change her tune.

In the video, the singer claims Tarkan "is aware of the theft and not sorry" for the situation and that her friends are "sent threats" over social media when they share her original song.

In the shocking claims, although she does not expressly name Tarkan as the person making the threats "because of legal issues", she said she was not expecting an apology for herself and, as far as she was concerned, the matter was closed.

"Imitation is the best form of flattery, so I'm happy," she said.

Meanwhile, in relation to another 2017 song from Tarkan that has been met with claims of theft, "Çok Ağladım" has been in the press this week for entirely different reasons.

In an interview with the track's composer Murat Matthew Erdem and lyricist Ayça Z. Aydın, lead singer of Miya, the sad background behind the song came to light, while also hinting that any similarities with another song was down to the arrangements once Tarkan bought the track.

"The tempo was much slower and more acoustic," Erdem said, explaining that the song was initially going to be released on the duo's own EP, but were delighted when Tarkan expressed an interest in the track. "We were in the supermarket when we got the news Tarkan wanted the song. I hope there isn't a CCTV recording of our joy after that phone call," the long-time Tarkan collaborator added.

And Aydın, who wrote the lyrics, shared the moving story behind the words: "The song is about the longing you feel for someone you love very much... For me, that person is my late mum. Matthew has been working with Tarkan for a long time anyway. And my mum would always take the opportunity to ask after Tarkan every time she called."

Aydın went on to say that her mum would ask after Tarkan, even though they never met: "'How is my beautiful boy? Is he OK?' she would ask after Tarkan... My mum had a great love and affection for him. That's why Tarkan singing the song holds a separate joy for me".

"Queen Takes King"

And finally, another 2017 track from Tarkan's album 10, has been taking up column space - "Her Şey Fani".

This time the news story is about the song's release by its songwriter, Turkish pop's first lady, Sezen Aksu. The simple, undoctored version has been praised by critics - preferring it over the arranged version in Tarkan's album.

Aksu has been experimenting with the pop format, by releasing demo versions of songs she wrote for other singers on her official YouTube account in an online exclusive this summer.

Instead of releasing mastered covers of her songs given to other artists for a third album of an ongoing series, Aksu decided to release the demos online. The concept was so popular that Aksu released the demos on CD - which shot straight to number one.

During the album's online drop the diva explained her reasons for its inception was the desire to share the song's vocal purity, before the "urgency to tailor a hit" polished it into the final cut.

A demo (from "demonstration") is a song or group of songs recorded for limited circulation or reference use rather than for general public release, and often used in bootleg versions of records.

And finally...

And while Turkish actress Gonca Vuslateri was spotted dancing wildly to a Tarkan song at an event, one-time Tarkan pop rival Mustafa Sandal - recently divorced from Emina Jahović - has been in press wires that say he could "follow in the footsteps" of Tarkan and marry a fan, after he didn't say no to the idea on social media.

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