Music Obsessions – November 2021

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions! Its November, friends! I can’t believe we’re already at the tail end of 2021. What happened, right? Between a lot of work, a few lockdowns and curfews and realizing how much fun it still is to stay at home and a lot of walks and TV, we’re already almost at the end of the year. Things have slowed down in general for the blog but we’re slowly picking up pace again. Of course, these monthly segments are still hanging on tight! With that said, this month’s music obsessions is not quite as varied but I figured, there’s still some good music especially a few performances pulled from a Chinese variety show that I’ve been catching every week.

一直一直一直，喜欢你 Always Always Always Love You – Xinyi Li 李鑫一
(‘Our Secret’ Main Theme)

The main theme for Chinese youth drama Our Secret matches the plot a lot. Its sang by a decent singer which I think its rather underrated and the song itself is very nice. It is a little simple in its lyrics but does match with the whole series itself. With that said, the main reason of putting this here is that it was played a ton during the watching of the series that it did grow on me and I do want to take the chance to promote Our Secret that I absolutely loved despite youth dramas being very familiar territory. I will write more about this in a TV binge soon.

啊默契 – Yuning Liu 摩登兄弟劉宇寧

Big fan of Yuning Liu in general. This is one of his latest singles and its really good. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to justify. He has a really good voice and the lyrics are decent.

等到花儿也谢了 I’ve Waited Until Flowers Withered Away- 薛之谦 Joker Xue &锤娜丽莎 Cui Na Li Sha
(Performance from Singing With Legends S2)

The next three is all part of the Singing with Legends Season 2. Its a really great music variety show where the older generation singer takes the younger singers in collaboration for various music and later turns into other teams to battle against others. The first one here is the rendition of Jacky Cheung’s popular song. Joker Xue and Cui Na Li Sha does a really great job and actually, Joker Xue’s voice in some part does sound similar to Jacky Cheung’s singing style.

那些年 Those Years – 胡夏 Fox Hu & 林子祥 George Lam
(Performance at Singing With Legends S2)

The second one is probably one of the most popular song performances to break out of this show as George Lam sings Fox Hu’s very popular song and adds a intergenerational feeling to the whole song which originally was about young love but has a different interpretation as men of different ages express their feelings about reminiscing their young loves.

Superwoman – 杨千嬅 Miriam Yeung & 萧敬腾 Jam Hsiao & 张碧晨 Bichen Zhang
(Performance from Singing with Legends S2)

While this group didn’t quite have the desired affect in battle with its counterparts as a whole in the team battles, the collaboration between these three talents singers has a completely beautiful feeling as they balance each other’s tones and voices incredibly well. There’s so much to love about this performance. If there was one word to describe the feeling is a really perfect harmony.

Stand By Me – 梅艷芳 Anita Mui

I know that Stand By Me is a very popular song and its a song that many people do love. However, Anita Mui was the Cantonese singer who chose to change it into Cantonese lyrics. In the face of the biopic for Antia Mui’s life being released, its a great time to share a song that I personally really love of hers among the many songs that she’s had during her short life. Both as an actress or as a performer, she is quite the Hong Kong diva and probably the only one that fits into the diva title. Either way, I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately and flipping through these older songs and revisiting them so maybe next month will have some more, who knows.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

Music Obsessions – October 2021

Welcome to this month’s music obsessions! The past month has been quite interesting. Looking back, there hasn’t been a lot of new music that I’ve discovered since I’ve been watching a lot of variety shows and stand-up comedy shows. However, fret not, just enough fun music to share this time around! As usual, some fun extras from variety show Singing With Legends at the end.

Let’s go!

不超级的马里奥 Mario Is Not A Superman – Ma Ye 马也

I love funky music like this that plays on video games or other pop culture stuff in their own twist. The whole song has some really fun lyrics about how Mario isn’t super in his pursuit for Princess Peach and whatnot which breaks the norm and its fairly entertaining over with its rhythm and music.

你不適合兩個人 You Aren’t Suitable for Two People – Sunnee 楊芸晴

While I never followed Rocket Girls 101 much, I actually do like Sunnee a lot whether its from her appearances in variety shows or her performance ability. I’ve been going back to listen to some of her singles and they all are pretty good. This is her latest single (I think) and while the music video has some awkward overacting, the song itself is pretty good. The whole thing is pretty simple but somehow Sunnee’s voice is one that I find so soothing to listen to.

違背的青春 Against Youth – Joker Xue 薛之謙

I don’t really actively follow Joker Xue’s music normally but whenever his music pops up wherever I always end up searching up the music since his voice is very unique mostly for how he sings. This time its from the new season of Singing With Legends where he performs this song. The performance itself is also pretty good (even if something funny happens) but there’s nothing better than sharing the original so here we go! Its also a different song from previous songs that I’ve shared before of Joker Xue’s songs as its not about love but more about youth and life itself.

不良少年 High School Punk- Lil Ghost小鬼王琳凯

I’ve shared a good few Lil Ghost’s songs at this point. Its pretty nice to see that as he develops his music career, he has proved that he is a great rapper and hip hop artist but also equally capable in other styles of music. The last few songs that he’s released has broken away from the usual hip hop style from when he started and has changed slowly but its always very upbeat and fun songs.

Pull Up- Panthepack

Panthepack has definitely been releasing their song’s very regularly now. The last few weeks had a few new releases. Jackson Wang creating this hip hop group really is quite interesting especially after I recognized the other three artists. One of them being more familiar as he was a mentor in Listen Up Season 1. Either way, their songs and music videos have pretty decent budget behind it and really good production value. I do like this one a lot as it does feature a lot of different hip hop artists from the Chinese entertainment industry in the video. Plus, its super upbeat and full of positive and happy vibes. Its like the joy of having fun with friends. Good times overall.

Extras from Variety Show “Singing With Legends Season 3”

I absolutely love the Chinese variety show Singing with Legends. At Season 3, this season has some of my favorite singers gathered together so suffice to say, I can’t give up a chance to share some of George Lam’s duets. Both songs are basically Hong Kong classics. The favorite is a mesh of Danny Chan’s song with a little snippet from Rod Stewart’s Sailing. Its a great new rendition.

The second is from their performance after the group’s have been formed in A Team for George Lam and Fox Hu. George Lam is one of my favorite singers even if I don’t listen all time. This song of his is one of my easily Top 5 favorite songs ever. This rendition definitely didn’t disappoint. Its hard to imagine that George Lam is 74 years old and still sings so incredibly good.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to recently?

Music Obsessions: July 2021

Another month has passed by! Its time for the next Music Obsessions! A decent mix this time from Cantopop to collabs and c-pop. All of them pretty fun!

Raining – Lil Ghost

Lil Ghost is one of those new musical artists from idol shows that really have constantly surprised me. First with his rap and hip hop music when he first debut solo after Nine Percent and then when he joined the second season of Our Song where he paired up with Coco Lee and probably learned quite a bit. Which leads to his latest music which is a change in style focusing more on his singing vocal abilities than his rap. I think there’a still some room for improvement but overall, the style and vibe from the music is so uplifting that its so happy to listen to.

The Way You Make Me Feel – 莫文蔚 Karen Mok

Big fan of Karen Mok right here. She has such a unique voice and singing style. Plus, nowadays cantopop is slowly losing out on quality (in my opinion) so when singers from the 90s and 00s come out with new music, its so awesome. I really like the style of her latest music videos which are so happy and positive.

Happy For You – Lukas Graham (feat. 衛蘭 Janice Vidal)

I have been listening to Janice Vidal again who I think doesn’t put out enough music and is pretty underrated. Refer to last month’s music obsessions when I shared “It’s Okay To Be Sad”. Here she does a collab with Lukas Graham for his song Happy For You and adding in that cantopop lyrics and style which a lovely mesh.

Zoom – R1SE

I’m still going through a bit of a ending phase as R1SE disbanded this past month. While I think they had good potential and whatnot, the different members seem to be popping up here and there whether its TV series or variety shows, etc. In time we will see how the members will do. However, as their farewell album’s main theme, ZOOM is a pretty good song. Cool and fun and pretty much shows off how this boy group is really good. Honestly, I think that after Nine Percent, this group is pretty solid. If only this year’s Youth With You group had formed, it would maybe have been another potentially solid one. With that said, I’ve gone on a tangent…

时光少年 Back to Youth – 胡夏 Fox Hu
(Flourish In Time’s Main Theme)

Ending it on the main theme song for Flourish in Time which is playing on Tencent right now and one that I’ve grown to like a lot. I left it on the side a little so that I can binge the last few episodes and not have to wait it out for the ending episodes. Fox Hu is renowned for being a singer of theme songs (although he has proved that he is capable of much more) and this song is pretty good. I like both the lyrics and melody and lot. It fits this kind of schoolyard romance.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

Music Obsessions – June 2018

Welcome to the June 2018 Music Obsessions!

Its been quite the month. There’s been a whole assortment of music that I’ve been listening to. Hopefully, you will enjoy it! 🙂

Done For Me – Charlie Puth (feat. Kehlani)

Somehow Charlie Puth seems to have a formula for catchy songs. The lyrics are actually quite similar in most of the time, its about some form of unloyal woman or breakup or broken/toxic relationships. Whatever it is, with pop music, I tend to listen to it for the fun beats than for the lyrics. Done For Me is a pretty fun one. Actually, my husband and I are pretty hooked on it so what can I say? We seem to can’t break out of Charlie Puth Top 40 songs.

Give It Up – Mike Williams

Now, this new Mike Williams video and music of Give It Up is a fun one. It  has some awesome beats and really gives this fun summer vibe. There are very specific songs that have the formula to match a season and this one definitely gives off those wonderful vibes and it makes me super happy to listen to.

愛死你 Love You to Death – Karen Mok (feat Alan Kuo)

I’m positive that I’ve talked about Karen Mok before but this lady is spectacular. I mean, she’s done some great work in Stephen Chow films but her singing talent and her voice is just so unique. Hence why there are two selections here because they are two very different style. This one is hardcore and is with Alan Kuo. And the second one…

If You Love Me, Raise Your Hand – Karen Mok

The second one here is fun and jazzy, full of saxophones and positive energy. I’ve actually been singing and humming this a lot. Actually, the other day I caught myself moving along with the lyrics here which is about raising your left hand and raising your right hand and nodding. Luckily, it wasn’t somewhere public so didn’t quite make a fool out of myself.

我們的愛沒有錯 Our Love Is Never Wrong – 胡夏 Fox Hu

Talk about an accidental find. I was just looking for something, probably Leehom Wang or Karen Mok or the songs from TV series Miss Rose (which I’ll post about soon) and then ended up seeing this one. And its turned out pretty cool and has me wanting to look for this series. I actually have never watched a Chinese TV series (Taiwanese is not the same thing). They  have a lot of them on Netflix and I’m going to one day. But if you do want to get a really authentic experience, their historical TV dramas are fantastic. And I don’t like reading about history much so it shows how great its done. Anyways, this song is really great especially because it seems like it would be a sad song but they give this change in tempo after the first bit and gives a nice upbeat feeling and I guess hope for this love he is singing about.