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 – April 2020

April is upon us! 2020 is going by crazy fast and spring is already here! The world’s a bit crazy right now but its why music is so important! At least for myself, I have coincidentally been watching a lot of music-related variety shows, making this Music Obsessions a little more padded than normal. I just can’t choose and really want to share it all! Its different music genres and a little slow and a little fast as well to give it a little balance. Hopefully you will like it!

GOOD NIGHT – Lil Ghost 小鬼

We start off with something fun and light. Lil Ghost (Linkai Wang) previously a member of Nine Percent, released this song back in 2018 however, I only caught this because of variety show Our Song. Lil Ghost is one of the most talented young rappers in the Chinese music landscape that really has a lot of potential and while I might not have seen it so much in Idol Producer, the many variety shows that he’s been in really shows off his personality as well as his talent. At least on-screen, he brings a lot of positive vibes and that’s really great.

Half Moon Serenade 月半小夜曲 – Hacken Lee 李克勤 & Charlie Zhou 周深 (“Our Song” performance)

Hacken Lee and Charlie Zhou’s every single performance in Our Song was all my favorite so it all comes down to which song I love personally a lot and my favorite song of Hacken Lee (definitely in top 5 singles) goes to Half Moon Serenade and they do a fantastic job here. Its how their voices play off each other really well and also how they manage to pair together so well.

Remaining Years 餘年 – Sean Xiao 肖戰

Sean Xiao has been through a rather ridiculous situation in my opinion early in March, right when I started checking out his stuff, peaked by interest after Who’s The Murderer and then his stellar performances in Our Song and my interest in checking out The Untamed eventually (but haven’t yet). I ended up finding this song that I’ve put on repeat a whole lot. He is a very talented singer who started out in a boy group XNINE but ended up pursuing an acting career nowadays but he still has really good voice. Remaining Years is a song in last year’s series Joy of Life (that I also didn’t see but my mom is currently watching) and its really the song and how it sounds that I find has a hard element to learn how to sing.

The Younger Me 少年 – Wakin Chau 周華健

Wakin Chau is more like my parents music but I grew up as a little girl listening to him and knowing a lot of his song in the 80s and 90s. So many memory songs and he has a unique voice that you can just recognize right away. His latest album took him years to put together and the lyrics here (while not written by him) is incredibly meaningful and kind of grabs me everytime. I’ll translate the Chorus and ending verse:

Some people we don’t see again, Some dreams have been forgotten
I sing every song to keep the happiness
Some roads are hard to walk, Some pains take a lifetime to heal
I can still smile and live

Sometimes its too late to settle, The years have passed before your soul
Fortunately there is a little faith, Accompanying us to go through everyday
Don’t forget your heart’s younger self, The wild and brave younger self at the start

100 Ways – Jackson Wang

Adding an English song to the mix! Jackson Wang makes some pretty fantastic music videos. While I can’t say that I love a lot of his music, mostly because I’m pretty picky with his style of music. However, 100 Ways is definitely my fave so far and the one that I’ve replayed the most. Its upbeat and fun. The lyrics is a tad repetitive but the whole song’s rhythm and beat just works so catchy!

我说了算(I Have the Final Say) – Nicholas Tse, Jam Hsiao & Karry Wang
(Me to Us performance)

Me to Us is a great variety show that has really only started. Putting together Nicholas Tse, Jam Hsiao and Karry Wang, the former two who I know more than the latter. Nicholas Tse wrote this song for the first performance of Me To Us as they all sing it together. Its just all kinds of awesome. I can’t fangirl over the fact that I just thought back that its been 20 years that I’ve been a fan of Nicholas Tse and his performance is every bit as fantastic now than when I first heard his songs in 2000 (maybe even 1999). Not to mention, this song is so fun and powerfully rock!

When I Met You當遇見你  – Yuning Liu 劉宇寧
(Ending Theme “Skate Into Love”)

I kind of debated whether to put this here since I might end up using this video as a part of the TV binge when I finish Skate Into Love but you know what, I truly have been lately the most obsessed with this one. I have shared a few of Yuning Liu’s songs before and this one is also really cute and romantic and fits this series a lot. There’s some great singing going on here from Yuning Liu as well.

That’s it for this (longer than usual) Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to on repeat?

Music Obsessions – March 2020

Welcome to March 2020! Its time to do a monthly roundup of music that’s been on my playlist! Its been quite a mixed bag and some of it is from various phases I’ve gone through and shows I’ve been watching and whatnot.

Just Let It Be – Dimash

A few years ago, I heard Dimash’s first performance on I am a Singer 2017 snippet and it was awesome! He sang this French song called S.O.S. Although there were pronunciation issues, his voice is amazing because of its range and control. I hadn’t realized that he had released music since then but then I found this song and its just awesome. Its nice to see him break out of his classic music and head into something that brings both this classical skills to something a little fast-paced and modern.

Amazing [Find Yourself Ending Theme] – 林世民 Shimin Lin

I just finished Find Yourself this past week and TV binge is coming up soon. A little backlog this year so it’ll happen soon. The ending theme for Find Yourself was unusually an English song, albeit a little language issues in the lyrics but the rhythm and the singing is pretty soothing. Because of that, then it played during the series, it actually matched a lot of the scenes well and this one kind of really grew on me over the process of watching the 40 episodes.

皮囊 Pi Nang – 蕭敬騰 Jam Hsiao

I can’t believe that I haven’t shared songs from Jam Hsiao sooner. This Taiwanese singer actually came to fame around the time that I had fallen out of Chinese music so he’s somewhat of a newer discovery. Jam Hsiao is part of The Singer 2020 this year and he has a killer voice with a wonderful grasp on the falsetto and higher pitches plus he likes fast, quirky and more hard rock style plus adding on his performances, it all works really well. This song is amazing. Honestly, it seems like a fun one to just sing to your heart’s content (even if its not going to be easy to sing).

《爸爸去哪儿》第五季主题曲MV
Dad Where Are We Going 5 Theme Song

I went back the past month to check out Season 5 of Dad Where Are We Going because of my recent wrapping up of Ashes of Love and my new obsession with the actor Alan Deng. In this reality show where celebrity dads take their young children on various trips to challenge and build their bond, Deng Lun takes on the trial dad where he takes care of a little girl who seems to have some social media fame. Its just incredibly cute and heartwarming to watch. This theme song is so cute that I can’t help to listen to it non-stop. Plus, almost all of these dads were celebrities that I grew up with: Jordan Chan (from Young and Dangerous series), Will Liu (Taiwanese singer where I went through a phase of loving his album), Wu Chun (from ex-Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit).

等爱 -[“海棠经雨胭脂透”片尾曲MV] – 邓伦 & 阿兰

Well, I did say that I’ve been looking up Alan Deng’s stuff so while I haven’t went on to other TV series yet but I did find that he has a talent for singing and this song for last year’s series Blossom in Heart is a beautiful duet that he does. It has some more harmonizing moments with the female singer Ah Lan, who I also do like her music. I’m still debating whether to watch this series since it seems to hit a few things I don’t like about TV series from the snippets here so we’ll see. However, this song has been playing on repeat! Love it!

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
Its been a pretty solid month for music discoveries!
I actually had to make some decisions to not overload!

What have you been listening to?