Music Obsessions – December 2022

A little late for this month’s Music Obsessions! Hard to imagine we are at the last one of this year. While I already got my Spotify Wrapped, I decided to do that with my final year round-up at the end of this month and do a little runthrough for January. Either way, there are still some good music that I’ve discovered or re-discovered.

恐懼蠶食心靈 Fear Eats The Soul – 鄭欣宜 Joyce Cheng

Joyce Cheng has really improved in her singing. While I’m not exactly a fan of all her music, I’ve been following her music more and more. Not only are her music videos done really well but the music itself from her voice and the emotions are all there. It really helps carry the song. This song and the way she sings it is quite a good match. Its nice to see that she’s able to embrace a lot of different music styles since I’ve shared probably three of her songs in Music Obsessions and each one has been different from the other.

比莉卡厲害 Billie is Incredible – Billie

A rough idea of what the song probably would be in English. I’m not quite sure the exact translation. This song is the main theme from Netflix Taiwanese series Mom Don’t Do That that aired a few months ago. The series itself is fantastic and I will be talking more about in an upcoming project that I will launch at the beginning of 2023. I’m in preparation mode as of the beginning of November and working hard to get things ready for January launch. Either way, this song is simply a lot of fun. The series is a ton of fun as well. Its happy and upbeat and that’s why its here.

烏梅子醬 The Dark Plum Sauce – 李榮浩 Ronghao Li

I honestly don’t listen to enough of Ronghao Li’s music. He writes some pretty great songs and none of that I’ve ever discovered have been bad. Its all pretty great ballads. This one actually feels a little bit of early Jay Chou from the music video to the rhythm itself. Its something that I’m rather nostalgic about since that was part of my teen years when music was the main emotional support. This song’s lyrics are also super sweet much like its title.

好想約你 – Gigi 炎明熹

This year’s new addition to my list of new artists that I think are pretty good is Gigi who was Hong Kong TVB’s Star Academy Season 1 winner. Its pretty nice to see there’s still some talent since most of the time when I listen to any new artists from Hong Kong shows, its all very disappointing. This song is pretty fun and cute and matches her age. Her voice reminds me really good female singers in the 90s which seems like its lost nowadays. Either way, the youthfulness of the song makes it so feel good.

藍奕邦 Pong Nan – Happy Prince 快樂王子

I wish that there was a better video for this song but I don’t talk about Pong Nan enough since from the beginning when he was making music, I loved a lot of his work. Most of his song’s lyrics are meaningful and thoughtful. It has this nice touch of intricacy that I’m a big fan of since it feels like its a rarity. As I was researching for this post, I learned that this song was actually the main theme song for a play.

Bonus: 我比从前更寂寞 I’m Lonelier Than Before – 陈慧娴 Priscilla Chan & 杨坤 Yang Kun
(Singing With Legends S4 Performance)

I’ve shared this song in a previous Music Obsessions (probably a few years ago) which is a pretty popular song of Yang Kun’s which he wrote during his depression and talks about the feeling of depression. Its a song that paired up with his distinctive voice is amazing. Truly heartfelt and deep. This time for the Singing With Legends show, he pairs up with Priscilla Chan to sing it together and it speaks volumes in a different way. Thinking about it, it sure is time to do a post for Priscilla Chan’s music (if I remember to do it next year).

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

Music Obsessions – June 2022

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions!

Much like last month, I can’t say that my music exploration has expanded much further than the performances from Chinese music variety show Infinity and Beyond and TV series OST. What can I say? I just have so much backlog that I’m trying to keep things a little bit more at the minimum and work on what needs to be done. With that said, there are some nice Cantopop songs chosen for the show to make into their own rendition and its been quite awesome overall to rediscover these songs.

Breath of Wind 风息 by Yanbin Hu 胡彦斌 & Xuanqing Ye 叶炫清

Who Rules The World really was quite the Chinese TV drama and such a great pick by Netflix to add to their library. I can see how it had such ratings in the recent releases from Chinese dramas and the talk that it had. I’ll be addressing all that in the upcoming TV binge (sooner than later hopefully). The soundtrack also did it lots of wonder and perhaps the one that grew on me a lot was this duet which truly did come at some great moments.

1984 – 周笔畅 Bibi Zhou

1984 was originally sang by Swing, a band duo who has now moved on to behind the scenes writing and producing music for other artists. One of them being Eric Kwok who has written some great contributions to Cantopop. I’m always pretty happy when anyone talks about Swing because they are such an underrated band that didn’t quite get the attention they deserved (probably because they weren’t active for that long). 1984 is one of their biggest hits and even then, they duo themselves according from the interview during Infinity and Beyond actually thought that the song was really difficult for them. In that sense, Bibi Zhou does do great with it in her own arrangement.

一生所爱 Love in a Life Time – 卢冠廷 Lowell Lo

Some of the best moments of the show is how they are able to truly bring forth fantastic music producers, lyricist and composers to highlight their work for Cantopop. Most people don’t know Lowell Lo as he only did some small supporting/cameo roles in popular Hong Kong films however, he is a fantastic composer much like his wife who pairs up with him as lyricist. Plus, he has some fantastic music back in the days. While he has mostly retired from the scene, there’s something so nostalgic about his own interpretation for this song which was a key song in A Chinese Odyssey. The scenes if I’m not mistaken are from Part 2 Cinderella (but I haven’t seen those movies in a long time so I could be wrong).

最佳损友 The Best Damn Friend – 李克勤 Hacken Lee & 毛不易 Buyi Mao

Originally a song of Eason Chan’s, this new rendition of The Best Damn Friend does capture another type of relationship as per the theme of the week and this time for them looking at friendships, some that might not have lasted despite how great it was before. A bit of a bittersweet sort of song. In the hands of two great singers like Hacken Lee and Buyi Ma in this new arrangement, its revives the song again.

我钟意 I Prefer- 炎明熹 Gigi Yim＆魔动闪霸 SmellyD & Azi

The latest offering that I love was from last week’s episode as they dived into another theme challenge. This time, they arrange and add a fun rap twist because of the rap duo here to give it such a happy vibe. Seeing as Gigi Leung is one of my favorite singers of all time, and I used to listen to this song a bunch, this new rendition still managed to give me the same happy vibes and was probably one of the standout performances solely on the youthfulness of the whole performance, even the added part which manages to give the song a naivety. Hong Kong’s The Academy winner Gigi Yim is really starting to impress me though. I’m starting to see her talent more and more as the show goes on.

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