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Jaclyn Victor has been colouring Malaysia’s music industry with her powerful, soulful vocals for two decades. So, it is only fitting that the former Malaysian Idol winner has an English version of the winning anthem Gemilang, released in 2004 or 2005.

After Victor’s win on Malaysian Idol, she went on to participate in other singing reality TV shows, as well as pursue acting and other endeavours.

Since it’s been a pretty long time from the original release of the Malay song, this came as a surprise to social media users and fans alike. A snippet of the music video, launched on 17 January 2025, was posted on Threads and Instagram. The related caption informs users where the music video can be found as well other information on where the song can be heard and streamed. YouTube, Spotify and Apple Music are platforms where the song can be streamed/heard/viewed.

Aubrey Suwito is once again credited as the composer, while Adrian Puan is the lyricist for the English version of the song. Diana Meltzer, the American music industry executive who discovered bands including Evanescence and Seether, is also credited under the Artist and Repertoire (A&R) department of Victor’s record label. The relevant mixing and mixing engineers are also credited for the song.

Popular fashion designers Melinda Looi and Rizman Ruzaini are the ones behind the wardrobe of Jaclyn Victor in the music video, which is 259 seconds long. The recording of this version was done in New York, according to an interview. In that same interview, Victor highlighted that the pressure was higher in recording the English language rendition because the song has been performed in Malay many, many thousand times. She also had to take into account the American pronunciation when recording the song, as many of us Malaysians would lean towards the British equivalent.

The English rendition, which is in line with her unveiling of her seventh studio album in January 2025 bearing the title Glorious, is released by Sony Music Entertainment. Notably, the audio-only English version is longer than the corresponding Malay version.

For some reason, the Malay original has a slight edge over the English version, perhaps because of the word choice and how it sounds, due to syllable structures. This is even if the English version stuck pretty close to the Malay single that was first released in the early 2000s.

Jaclyn Victor is of Tamil Indian descent. Her father’s death when she was nine resulted in Victor’s mother assuming the sole responsibility of raising the vocalist along with Victor’s three younger brothers. When Victor turned 18, she started singing in hotel lounges and pubs. In 2004, with the encouragement of Victor’s mother, Victor auditioned for Malaysian Idol. Her winning song Gemilang was released by Sony BMG Music.

Given the history and background of Malaysia, schoolgoing Malaysians are generally able to hold conversations in at least Malay Language and/or English, since both these languages are compulsory in Malaysian schools. As a result, with Victor’s upbringing and exposure, she can function and sing in both English and Malay, to appeal to different segments of audiences.

 Her new album contains seven songs in Malay and two in English.