Music Obsessions – November 2022

Welcome this month’s music obsessions! I can’t believe that we only have one more music obsessions next month and then we’re moving onto a new year! Where did this year go? I actually know the answer to that…a lot of sleepless nights, first with the tail end of the pregnancy then its all about the newborn life. Either way, we’re not in the adventures post. The staying at home more has given me the opportunity to dig through some music.

诀爱 Love – Faye 詹雯婷

I know that I already shared Love Between Fairy and Devil OST song in a previous Music Obsessions but I came upon this song during a singing variety show and realized that the singer is actually the vocalist in FIR. I did fall out of the Taiwanese artist scene for a few years. I had thought the singer’s voice for this voice sounded familiar but just couldn’t pinpoint who. Let’s just say, FIR was a really great trio and while they were most famous for their songs that were featured in the TV series The Outsiders (which unfortunately recently got taken off Netflix), she had an amazing voice. I’m actually starting to dig through her solo music so probably will be sharing some of that in the coming months.

Be My Warrior – Zheyuan Chen 陈哲远 & Shen Yue 沈月

I was destined to love the TV series Mr. Bad since I really love the vibe of the two main leads not to mention the whole pulling a character out of a story into real life sounds so fun as a fish out of water story. That is besides the point since the song is a duet between the two leads Shen Yue and Chen Zheyuan which is a lot of fun. They don’t have perfect singing voices but its such a happy and lively song that its so catchy and sends so many positive vibes.

紅顏如霜 Cold Hearted – 周杰倫 JAY CHOU ft. JABBAWOCKEEZ

While I am starting to feeling like Jay Chou has hits every once in a while, there are a lot of songs that feel similar to other songs. This one does have that vibe of a song that he did maybe a decade or 15 years ago or something. I can’t remember when it was exactly but Jay Chou is Jay Chou and the music video is really cool and the song, despite feeling similar in style to another one of his songs, still has a nice rhythm to it.

妄想 Delusion- VRF

I don’t know what I was looking up but somehow I landed on realizing that singer and actress Miriam Yeung’s husband originally debuted in VRF which is this boy band that didn’t really make much of themselves except for this song, which I remember discovering and thought at the time that it was pretty good. I mean, I’m not a fan of Boy’z, a much more famous boy duo at the time which was constantly paired with Twins but I can’t help loving that this one has one of them, Kenny ugly crying in the music video. Its more nostalgia that this song is here.

我難過 I’m Sad – 5566

Talking about nostalgia, I was watching Call Me By Fire and at one point someone mentioned the success of 5566 and I was a tad surprised because 5566 was famous for a little bit of time in my memory and then didn’t really make it that far. They did star in a few dramas but in my memory, they got really famous because of My MVP Valentine, which this song is part of the OST and the series is actually on Netflix (at least it is in Canada) and I remember it being really a big deal at one point. I do plan on revisiting it. Seeing as Netflix is picking up a bunch of these older Taiwanese series, maybe I will do some type of segment with it. Who knows. Either way, 5566 was pretty cool and fun fact, I actually own one of their albums.

浮夸 Exaggerated – 陈小春 Jordan Chan & 张智霖Chilam Cheung
Call Me By Fire S2 Performance

With all the singing variety shows I have been watching, I had to share as usual as an extra. In the last battle for the team, Jordan Chan and Chilam Cheung joined forces in this rendition of Eason Chan’s Exaggerated. Its one of the most engaging performances of this season. To be honest, there were some really awesome performances in general this season because of the talent they found to join.

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

Music Obsessions – October 2022

Another month has gone by and we’re in October. With the Halloween Marathon kicked off this week and feeling like things are relatively on track, its time to take a little moment and share some of the music I’ve been listening to in the past month as well as a few songs that’s been gradually added to the baby lullaby repertoire because my baby apparently listened to Chinese pop music in my belly and now thoroughly enjoys being put to sleep to that.

143 – Nana Ouyang 歐陽娜娜

As I’ve been watching a variety show with Nana Ouyang, I’ve been deep diving into her music lately. Its been a while since The Best Of You was released that I liked and shared previously, her latest release is one that I’ve really enjoyed. While its nothing too spectacular in terms of lyrics, I think what works really well as I listened to a lot of her music that her voice is very soothing and relaxing to listen to. I have a few other of her songs in rotation but this one does stand out to me.

舊日回憶的山丘 – 容祖兒 Joey Yung

Nothing like a jump back into time as I’ve recently been thinking about this song. Not quite sure why but its one of the earlier Joey Yung songs that I’ve always loved a lot both for its lyrics and its rhythm. Its also one of the songs that I’ve loved singing the most.

分手快樂(獨唱版) Break Up Happily – 梁靜茹 Fish Leong

The newest addition to this month’s lullaby session for our newborn has been this one. Fish Leong is one of my favorite singers ever so its not a surprise that a lot of her songs have entered into this month as I’ve been just following the songs I like to sing to my little one.

勇氣 Courage – 梁靜茹 Fish Leong

Can you see the theme that my brain thinks in terms of artist so of course, this month also had another Fish Leong song in the line-up! A little fun fact that I actually performed this one on stage for Chinese School performance back in mid-2000s (can’t remember the exact year anymore).

And of course, we have one more which is my absolute faves from Fish Leong below…

Fly Away – 梁靜茹Fish Leong

无与伦比的美丽 Incomparable Beautiful – Call Me By Fire S2 Performance

I usually don’t like sharing performance versions but Call Me By Fire S2 is back and I’m loving this year’s line-up even more than last year’s. I’ve never heard the original of this song before but this rendition is so touching mostly because its so romantic and the fact that I’ve been a big fan of the two people in this relationship since my youth days. It meant a lot to me even if it had nothing to do with me personally. Either way, the song title says it all and the performance was so beautiful.

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?

Music Obsessions – May 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! I think the big takeaway from April is that I survived yet another year of it! This year was especially challenging. Luckily, there was two newly added TV show on Netflix for a fun Chinese Drama with a decent soundtrack and a martial arts world newly released Tencent one and a new singing variety show that launched very recently which provided me lots of music to share plus bringing back a lot of nostalgia for Cantopop classics.

Facade 被人 – Joker Xue 薛之谦

For a modern series based on the esports world, Falling Into Your Smile isn’t exactly the best of its recent batch using this setting but the soundtrack for this one still is pretty fun. Of course, I’ve shared a bunch of Joker Xue songs in these Music Obsessions. Its rare to see him doing songs for a TV series OST but this song really blends well with the series. I love his voice and the song itself is pretty good.

Soulmate 第一默契 – Xu Kai 许凯 & Cheng Xiao 程潇
(“Falling Into Your Smile” Ending Theme)

Continuing on with the soundtrack for Falling Into Your Smile, it seems suitable to add in at least one of the theme songs especially since it includes a duet from the two main leads which had pretty good chemistry. It brings me back to when I was talking about Cheng Xiao earlier this year when I shared the duet for The World of Fantasy. This music video also captures the TV series pretty well especially the romantic chemistry element. This time, Xu Kai is a much more seasoned actor so probably in terms of singing its not quite as good but it still captures the vibe of the show.

无双 Wu Shuang – Liu Yuning

The latest Chinese series to land on Netflix is Who Rules The World which actually is getting some pretty impressive ratings as its airing in China right now. It probably has to do with the main leads Yang Yang and Lusi Zhao who are in a lot of TV series which has pretty high profile. However, its nice to see them in this sort of martial arts/fantasy world where they do fit so very well together. The script itself is done really well and the chemistry behind them including the world building is so far is good. Plus, the main theme here is by one of my fave up and coming singers, Yuning Liu. I mean, I share a ton of his music here already.

Infinity and Beyond 声生不息 – Performance Favorites

One of my favorite music variety shows to land this while is Infinity and Beyond. In commemoration of the 25 years of Hong Kong Handover, the show invites both Mainland China and Hong Kong singers to group together in men and women team in a competition format ranging from new to veteran singers to battle against each other. Every competition evening includes 2 top choices along with the winning team and audience performance which will eventually be compiled to a soundtrack for the show at the end. Its a pretty neat idea especially since it takes a lot of the Hong Kong classics and gives it a new life for the newer generation. Plus, most of the show doesn’t feel like a competition and just a bunch of good and great singers gathered together to share some good performances. It was pretty hard to narrow down what I liked since there’s quite a few but I didn’t want to overload everyone since a lot of this has to do with nostalgia.

初恋 First Love – Mike Tsang 曾比特

卡拉永远ok Forever Karaoke – 魔动闪霸

海阔天空 Boundless Oceans Vast Skies – Women Team With Audience

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

Music Obsessions – April 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! Nothing like some music to soothe the mood. Especially as I’m drafting this up and there’s quite a bit of stuff to plan out. There are some new releases this month that has been rather fun.

豐乳肥臀 BBBB: Big Boobs Bubble Butt – 鄭欣宜 Joyce Cheng

I’ve been following Joyce Cheng on Instagram the past year or so. She has truly broken away her parents’ shadow and proved not only that she is talented in the singing business but also her confidence about her body in general especially since being larger size is such looked down upon in the Asian society (at least from my own experiences). I still remember when her biggest news years ago when she went through some intense diet regime which was published as a book. But now, she is promotes self-respect, self-love and self-confidence. This video itself is a lot of fun as well plus she does show off her really good vocals. I’ve shared some of her music before as well and she’s also been releasing some good singles. Looking forward to see what else she releases.

Blow – Jackson Wang

Jackson Wang is really made some fantastic music lately. I do enjoy that he’s branched away from the hip hop music. I think he is a really great rapper and has some nice singles but this new path in his last few releases is truly so much fun. His latest song, Blow’s music video almost has that musical and theatrical element that makes it pretty entertaining to watch but the song itself is so upbeat.

香水 Perfume – MAYDAY 五月天

It seems like a great time to share the latest video from Mayday, a Taiwanese band that I’ve probably shared before (but I’ve done so many of these that I can’t remember anymore). Mayday celebrated their 25th anniversary which is a fantastic milestone considering this band hasn’t changed its members for the all these years and always deliver quality music. There’s so many songs to share in their discography.

Monica – 張國榮 Leslie Cheung

Its hard to resist sharing Leslie Cheung at the beginning of April as his passing is so close to my own birthday that I always remember this Hong Kong superstar when April 1st comes around to listen to some of his music. Thinking about it, March would have been a great time to do a Leslie Cheung movie marathon. Either way, Monica is probably the first song that I loved from his because it was so upbeat mostly because I listened to this when I was a kid and not exactly caring too much about anything other than the music but it still holds a special part in my heart. Not to mention the corny dance moves but its one that makes this song so fun and hard to resist doing it when you hear it.

明星 – 張國榮 Leslie Cheung

I’m not sure if its a coincidence but when we look back at Hong Kong superstars, they are always scared to lose what they’ve achieved and their talent. They want to be remembered and that’s exactly what Leslie Cheung’s song is which is a little bittersweet as its about a star that’s left and being remembered. I think its suitable song to listen to during this time that truly captures how much his fans still miss him a lot because he was a one of a kind talent.

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

Music Obsessions – March 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! Its hard to imagine that we’re already in March! There’s not a whole lot of new music to share but I’m going to share some new finds from TV series and other stuff this past month.

Kung Fu Piano: Cello Ascends – The Piano Guys

Its been a while since I listened to The Piano Guys but when their music popped up during the Winter Olympics for the Chinese Figure Skating team for their free dance, I looked it up and voila! I think its a wonderful piece of music and lots of fun.

對立面 Opposite – 蔡依林 Jolin Tsai
(“The Wolf” Chinese Drama OST)

Its my second attempt to watch the Chinese drama The Wolf as I work through some of the series that I’ve either started or catch up with last year’s TV series that I missed but had wanted to watch. I have to say that the second watch is a little more successful but can’t say I’m enjoying it a lot more even though I’m further. However, there is no denying that the soundtrack is a great selling point for the series and one of the reasons that some of the moments do pull through. I will finish it gradually….in time.

满月之下 Under The Full Moon -曾咏欣 Nicola Tsang
(“Love Under The Full Moon” Chinese Drama OST)

The latest TV series that I started is Love Under The Full Moon. It also has a great soundtrack. Super hard to find the legit videos for it though. Still, I found one which was a bit of the promo trailer with one of the sounds. The show itself is pretty fun diving into time travel and playing with quantum science (which I know nothing about it so it easily sells for myself). With that said, the show is pretty fun and the soundtrack matches up to it.

Dear Leslie – Leo Ku 古巨基

My latest addition to my list on Spotify is this song from Leo Ku. I know I showcased a bunch of Leo Ku last month with his huge medley songs but I’ve been rather nostalgic with the whole the music thing and Leslie Cheung is a talent that took his life too early so when Leo Ku did this tribute a few years back, I didn’t know about it until recently and its rather good.

奇洛李維斯回信 A Letter From Keanu Reeves – 薛凱琪 Fiona Sit

Diving back to older music, this song keeps popping up on my shuffle playlist on Spotify. Its not quality music since I honestly feel like Fiona Sit’s quality music comes in the past few years but I thought the whole idea for the song was so cute since it goes into the whole fangirl culture and hoping that the celebrity you like would reply your letters and stuff and in this case, its Keanu Reeves.

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

Music Obsessions – November 2020

A little bit late for this music obsessions this month and debated putting it out on the weekend but some fun batch of music for today feels like a good time.

帶走你的垃圾 Take Your Trash With You – 衛蘭 Janice Vidal

The first song is a random stumble of music that was recommended to me on Youtube. I haven’t heard Janice in a while. I used to listen to her when she first started off in Hong Kong with her sister Jill. She does have quite a good voice and this song reminds me a little of another song but only in lyrics and not how its performed.

一生何求 Life Expectation – 李健 Li Jian & 谭咏麟 Alan Tam

The season 2 of Our Song is amazing. I’m totally hooked on it. They have a lot of Hong Kong singers and some big names like Alan Tam and Coco Lee. The first performance is my favorite with a cover from Alan Tam and Li Jian for Life Expectation, one of my mom’s favorite songs. Its a really great song with fantastic lyrics. Its the days to remember when lyrics actually had meaning. I don’t know Li Jian a lot but he has a great voice so paired up with Alan Tam, its a great performance.

像暗殺似的繞到背後擁抱你 Hug You From Behind Like An Assassin – 太一 Tai Yi

A song that I discovered because of Our Song: Season 2 from Tai Yi, a singer-songwriter who is most known for shutting himself one year (or something) and ended up writing a lot of songs (can’t remember the exact amount). He’s a little odd and very introvert so not quite the usual star appeal but I saw him in The Singer in the last season and he is incredibly talented. This one is very cool mostly because the song title is so whacky and playful.

Flying On Paper – Yuning Liu 刘宇宁 & CORSAK

Corsak’s really been on fire with his latest music. I’ve been liking every single one. This one pairs up with one of the rising singers in China called Yuning Liu that I’ve shared a few songs in these music obsessions. He has a very unique voice. This one is a lot of fun.

孤獨 Loneliness – G.E.M.鄧紫棋

G.E.M. is a great singer. There is no doubt about it. I’m a little lukewarm about her song style since it changes a lot. While this genre of music for her usually isn’t her forte in my opinion, Loneliness is her latest release and its one heck of a song. The lyrics are good and the pairing with Moonlight Sonata is really good. One of my favorite songs right now and one that I’m trying to learn and sing.

That’s it for this music obsessions!
What have you been listening to?

Music Obsessions [November 2017]

Its November!!! Its kind of hard to really acknowledge how fast 2017 has gone by. Perhaps its being busy with all the projects and all the life stuff that just keeps bombarding us. The past month was one that needed a lot of music to get through. Sure, we had vacation so music for the road but also a lot of big decisions and stressful times and frustrating bits. We made it through and I can’t say that music wasn’t a big part of it since its always there for me. The Voice Season 13 finished up their blind auditions and the battles which took a lot of my time as well so maybe we will see some influence here. It always kicks up my desire to sing all the time so I went back to check on some 90s Hong Kong pop since that is how I got into the whole loving to sing.

Let’s check it out!

Live Goes On – Grasshopper 草蜢

Yesterday’s Song – Hunter Hayes

Evolution of Boy Bands – Kurt Hugo Schneider ft Sam Tsui & Michael Constantino

Freeze Time – Jonathan Roy x Deepend

誰明浪子心 (Who Understands a Drifter’s Heart) – Dave Wong

A nice mix of some upbeat music and some Hong Kong pop from old and new. I just realized as I was compiling this that I was listening to a lot of songs on repeat so it was pretty  hard to narrow it all down. Here are the ones that has been playing the most on repeat. There’s not really much to say. The other stuff on my Youtube playlist are some of The Voice battles.

Happy Sunday!
What have you been listening to?

Music Obsessions: All Sorts of Fun!

Good morning (afternoon/evening/night whenever you see this) on this fine Saturday. I’m in a fantastic mood.  Well, I had some long needed phone time with my best friend last night and living on 5 hours of sleep and heading out to check something out, hopefully with some photo time with my camera but before I headed out, I felt like I wanted to share some Music Obsessions!

I don’t know what I’d do without this past week so these songs have been on repeat! Its a mixed basket this time around so maybe you’ll find something you’ll enjoy as well 🙂

Tiesto & KSHMR feat. Vassy – Secrets 

This video is awesome, especially because I’m totally into the gaming thing right now.  Arcades, Oculus rift…so awesome.  I wish I could afford the Oculus Rift. It seems like an amazing gaming experience. Plus, the beats and tunes are addictive.  I haven’t been too into a lot of Tiesto’s newer stuff but this collab one is really great 🙂

Dreaming Alone – Against the Current feat Taka from ONE OK ROCK

Against the Current is definitely a force to be reckoned with.  When I first started listening to their music, I wasn’t too sure but the last few originals and covers have been really great.  Plus, ONE OK ROCK (from what I’ve checked out so far) has some pretty decent music as well.  Not exactly my usual music genre but there’s some good music.

Shut Up and Dance – Walk the Moon (Tyler Ward acoustic cover)

Sam Smith – Like I Can (Piano Cover by Corey Gray)

And some bonus Hong Kong nostalgia going on!  Some HK pop from the awesome Dave Wong, originally released in 1988.  Late 80s and early 90s had some of the best music in Hong Kong.  But then, I’m also in this weird Hip Hop phase and checking out one of the few Hip Hop groups (who has disbanded now) called LMF (short for Lazy Mutha Fucka). Either way, I had some peculiar taste in music…haha! There’s some nice beats even without understanding it so check it out if you’d like 🙂

 [HK pop] Dave Wong – 幾分傷心幾分癡/Bits of Sadness Bits of Craze

[Hip Hop] LMF – 飛/Fly

[Hip Hop] Edison Chen feat Hanjin/MC Yan/Paisley Wu – War

That’s it for this month’s Music Obsessions! See you all on Monday with my next post! Its gonna be a busy weekend! Plus an announcement coming next week and a good bit of bloggy business to take care of 🙂

Happy Saturday! 🙂