Music Obsessions – August 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! The last month was pretty fun as a lot of new music videos landed and others popped up on my list from various shows and whatnot. All Chinese music from different spaces and styles but all very fun stuff! Let’s check it out!

最偉大的作品 Greatest Works of Art – 周杰倫 Jay Chou

Jay Chou is basically my youth seeing as he got famous in the prime of my post-secondary days around 2003 and he became the center of a lot of conversations and his songs became the focus of karaoke days back then as well making him an musician that I’ve been following for a long time (with some gaps in the middle) and I’ve shared quite a few songs of his. I should really considering doing a focus post on him when we get a slower month. This month, he dropped this one which the song itself is nice but the video is one that is even better, especially for those who watched his J-Style Trip on Netflix where you see some of his best friends pop up in this music video as well as he travels through time, performs a few magic tricks while recreating the art masterpieces.

一格格 Frames – 衛蘭 Janice Vidal

There’s a chunk of Janice Vidal’s discography which is an empty space for me when I stopped listening to Cantopop for a while (or at least the new stuff over a decade as I lost a little faith in what was coming out) and now its a lot of catch-up. This popped up mostly because of the Chinese singing variety show and their really good rendition but the original very nice. The whole chill vibe really suits the song and is such a feel good song in general.

賽勒斯的愛 Cherlas – 張敬軒 Hins Cheung

Its been a long time since I have looked up Hins Cheung’s new music. Funny enough he is rather underrated since he went onto the music scene fairly quietly and had a few hits but no one really knows him that well (at least in my circle of friends). This one oddly popped up my recommended videos recently. Somehow I found it rather catchy. The story is well portrayed in the music video as well. The lyrics are decent as well.

隆里电丝 Lonely Dance – KEY.L刘聪/ICE杨长青/盛宇DamnShine/Ricky

My latest variety watch is the latest season of The Rap of China Season 4 or something. I’m not an avid watcher of this variety show but this season is a competition of the best of the best or something so some pretty cool competitors in competition show. While I don’t really share a ton of variety show stuff, this one did get released as a single by one of the performers here but I still prefer the performance version more, mostly because I really do like ICE as a rapper and the whole guitarist Ricky is a super nice addition. Its a fun funky rap song which is kind of how I like hip hop music or just the fact that rap itself can be incorporated into so many different styles of music. This is a great example of it.

最後一堂課 Graduation – Eric Chou 周興哲
(“Mom, Don’t Do That!” End Theme)

I’m not sure if people actually watch Taiwanese series, even if they are Netflix series but I’ve had my eyes on them for a while and slowly catching up with it. The recent release of Mom, Don’t Do That! Is where this song is from. I do like Eric Chou quite a bit as well and he is diving into acting as he takes a cameo role in the series. The song does match certain parts of the series pretty well.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!

Music Obsessions – February 2018

Its February and right in time for the Valentine’s special! So we’re going to do some romantic songs here. Honestly, my past month has been quite reminescent in catching up with Hong Kong pop music from singers that I’ve listened to before. I’ll have some other fun stuff as usual 🙂

Let’s go!

This Girl – Hunter Hayes 

Fun and energetic is what I love about Hunter Hayes’ songs. His love songs are always so positive and its really a nice and happy time to listen to.

真命天子 The One – Sammi Cheng

One of my ultimate favorite singers is Sammi Cheng. To me, she’s quite the queen of 90’s Hong Kong pop music. She is fantastic and within her tons of songs, I remember really love this one because of how happy it is especially when it was the theme of a 20 episode Hong Kong TV series that I really enjoyed a lot. She sings about the feelings of meeting and being with “the one”. I love how she uses heartbeat sounds to start the song.

你的男人 Your Man -Andy Hui

Quite the coincidence that I’ve always recently been listening to Andy Hui and catching up with his music. He also happens to be Sammi Cheng’s husband and their careers started in the 90’s at about the same time and their love story is quite something as they were together for a long time, broke up and then went back together and are married since a few years back. However, this song actually starts at around the 1:30 point as the story here is about a man growing out of his bad habits to be his girlfriend’s man and be able to save up to propose and get married debt-free. Andy Hui sings really  nice love songs and I’ve always been a fan.

最後最後 Last Dance -Fiona Sit

Probably the song that I’ve been listening the most on repeat in this month’s selection and one that is somewhat of a bittersweet story told by this music video about the song Last Dance. I can’t say that Fiona Sit is my favorite singer because she never had this very impressive vocal talents but her music is very catchy especially when one of her breakout songs translated is called Letter to Keanu Reeves and its incredibly cute. I’ve been reminiscing and listening to that one when I saw this song pop up in the recommended and its a newer song but her vocals are really quite good now and the song here is beautiful about the last dance of a couple that broke up over a stupid argument and the guy comes back after a few years for a last dance before he leaves to go back home.

手望 – Hins Cheung & Ivana Wong 

I’ve been a fan of Hins Cheung since the release of his first album. I can’t believe how long its been since he’s been in the business. Time sure does fly by. Before I stopped listening to Cantopop for a while, one of the last songs I listened to a lot was this duet between him and Ivana Wong (who is vouched by Jacky Cheung, who happens to be a king of the industry in 90’s and is one of the best singers ever in my opinion). This song is quite romantic. Unfortunately, there is a pun element to the title so I’m not exactly sure how to translate it. However, their vocals and the tune is just so awesome.

For the additional fun bit:

Tessa Virtue & Scott Moir – Free Dance ‘Moulin Rouge’ Canadian Skating Nationals 2018

I used to watch the Figure Skating Nationals and Olympics and everything all the time with my dad. After he passed, I actually stopped for whatever reason. I saw a post on this on Facebook the other day. Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir are amazing and got a perfect score for this routine. You could feel the beauty in their dance and coordination and it did feel like they were so in sync. It helps that they chose one of my favorite soundtracks, Moulin Rouge, which I listen to all the time.

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