Music Obsessions: January 2020

I know its Monday and I just realized that this whole holidays and beginning of January is very much making lose track of a time a little. Music Obsessions was neglected this weekend as I simply forgot. However, we’re here now and I do have some good music to share so here we go!

Pretty White Lies – Jason Zhang 张杰

Jason Zhang is such a talented singer. I can’t say this one quite lands as well as Perfume (HERE) did. However,  I believe that I heard this one in Vivia La Romance Season 1 or 2. I can’t remember right now but its a pretty good one. Upbeat and decent singing and lyrics. The guy is very charismatic and I’m really looking forward to see what other songs he comes up with. He does have  a lot of good songs but there are a lot of good ones that are much more ballads. Both a quite good but it’ll be nice to see this style a lot more.

旁观者(Onlookers) – 朱正廷THEO

Theo Zhu is definitely getting a ton of attention in 2019. He had three MVs come out for his EP. He was part of a few variety shows and it shows just how much popularity he has. Nine Percent helped and then when that ended, the continuation fully into NEXT also did. I can’t find the clip for his performance in China’s version of Masked Singer but it truly did show off his singing talents. Its also quite nice to see him embrace the different sides of him. Here, he goes back to this cute boy image which seems to match the person that he is in variety or reality shows. Either way, this is a fun and cute one. We’ll see where NEXT and Theo goes in the 2020.

Pick Up The Phone – Justin 黄明昊

Justin has really grown on me over the last year. In 2018, when he first got out of Idol Producer, it felt like his solo stuff was lacking and not truly in what I like to listen to. Its obvious that he has improved a lot especially as we get to this one where his rap is better and his singing is better. There’s a better rhythm to the whole music. Its also quite fun for this one. He still plays on the whole bad boy thing a lot which is quite different from the comedic sort of personality he has when he does variety shows like Great Escape and Who’s the Murderer. Pick Up The Phone is the first solo that he’s done that I’m liking quite a bit.

别勉强 Don’t Force It – G.E.M. 邓紫棋 & Eric Chou 周兴哲

There’s no doubt that both GEM and Eric Chou are great singers. I’ve shared a lot of their music over the past year or two. Seeing these two collab together is probably one of the best things ever. As expected with Eric Chou, its a slow ballad sort of song but luckily GEM also thrives in the slower music. She seems to be going into the fast-paced bad-ass songs lately which I’m not a huge fan of, so its nice to see this two come out with something more along their line of excellence and deliver a very decent duet.

就算沒有如果 Even If Not (“Eternal Love” OST) – 香香 Xiang Xiang

The last week of December was spent binge watching Eternal Love. All 58 episodes of this 2017 series that I have managed to finish at the beginning very recently (like yesterday of this post’s release). I’ll talk more about Eternal Love in the TV binge post which I’m releasing very soon. The songs in this series are absolutely wonderful. I would have filled the entire Music Obsessions with it but reason took over so here’s one which I particularly thing is pretty good and is really the theme for one of the side romances with Bai Feng Jiu & Dong Hua Di Jun shown above in the thumbnail.

Oh..you know..why not? Here’s another one of the songs in the series that I’ve really liked also for the main pairing in the series.

I’m usually not into oriental China series as they usually get rather dramatic and it does BUT their music is really good as I like the sound of Chinese instruments. I’m having this crazy idea of putting together a post for just Eternal Love music…that might be a good idea as a pairing for the TV Binge posts. Let me think about that a little more 😉

Let’s end this before I can’t stop myself!
Here’s the January 2020 Music Obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

Music Obsessions – December 2019

Its time for the final normal music obsessions for 2019! Its crazy, right? This one will not be Christmas-focused but it will have one with a special nearer to the holidays for some light-hearted and fun content. With that said, November was pretty crazy but I did find some fun music that I found almost all spontaneously during TV shows or TV drama.

Let’s check it out!

You Calling My Name – GOT7

I don’t listen to a lot of Kpop in general but I’m a big fan of Jackson Wang and he’s part of GOT7 which is why I ended up finding this one on Youtube when it first released. Its a really catchy tune and the video is pretty fun. The song is pretty good plus GOT7 has a good style to their voices and such. I’m definitely going to be looking up more of their songs.

大好事 (Great Thing)- 張洢豪 YiHao Zhang

I finished watching Wait, My Youth TV drama in November and it was so much fun! The soundtrack also was really good and it came down to deciding which of the three songs that I had in my playlist from the series that I wanted to share in this one and I came down to this one which is an original song and one that is more happy and positive, because who doesn’t like fun songs, right?

He Doesn’t Understand 他不懂 – Jason Zhang 張傑

I know that Jason Zhang for a while and I only really listened to his English single, Perfume earlier this year. Recently, I heard another one of his songs in Mandarin translated to be He Doesn’t Understand. I has really good lyrics and he has a pretty nice voice. Its one that has been on repeat on my playlist recently.

 錯過 (Missed) – 梁詠琪 Gigi Leung

Going back to a rather older song as I dive back into some Gigi Leung music. Gigi Leung is a singer that I’ve liked since I first started to like singing and music and all in high school so her music has followed me for a while. I’ve actually never heard of this one but still so great. Her voice works very well in this kind of slower music, not to mention, I actually like the lyrics also for this one.

WYTB – NEXT

The most recent song released on this list goes to WYTB by NEXT which was just released a week or so ago. After Nine Percent disbanded, NEXT carries a good portion of the members there. Oddly, Adam Fan isn’t part of this song, making me wonder whether he is still part of the group, although nothing says otherwise. Still, this one really does deliver as a few of these members are singers from Idol Producer that I really did like a lot. NEXT is always full of upbeat music every time I listen to them so always looking forward to their stuff even if they literally just got together this year. So lots of space to grow and release new content in the future.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
A mix of upbeat and energetic music and slow ballad type songs this time around!
This wraps up the year for Music Obsessions, at least the normal segment.

Look out for a Christmas themed one the week before the holidays!

Music Obsessions – March 2019

Time is flying by as we head into March and its time to share some more music that I’ve been listening to in the past month. I’m not sure that I have anything particularly new but then I’m still watching The Singer 2019 and that is charging up most of my playlist. Then that inspired to watch Super-Vocal then the other half is charged with this music. Then there’s the random song from movies and soundtracks and such. I do hope you enjoy! 🙂

Perfume – Jason Zhang

As my husband graciously puts it, this guy is like Chinese Charlie Puth. Well, like ten years Puth’s senior probably but the style of music definitely works in the same way. Especially as his song sparked the whole “perfume dance”. You will know what I mean when you watch the video. Its fairly entertaining. There’s a lot of serious music in this music obsessions so I decided to start off on a light and fun mood with this pick which has subconsciously playing in some variety show backgrounds until I heard the song.

She Is My Sin – Neil Gao 高天鹤

As one of three (I think) countertenors on Super Vocal, there is no doubt that this song shows off the perfect mash of modern music and operatic style as Neil Gao shows off his skills and his masterful control of his voice whether using his countertenor range or his normal vocal range. This performance is definitely one of the most unique in the show and showed off this new side of Neil Gao to be one of my faves.

超能守护神 Super Protector -TeamSpark

My Amazing Boyfriend 2 is my main TV series lately. Its so much fun to watch and those 6 episodes released per week truly make me so happy. With that said, the theme song isn’t quite as catchy as the the first but I still really like it a lot. It matches the vibe of the show so much.

雪花的快乐 The Happiness of Snowflakes – 黄子弘凡 Lars &方书剑Shujian Fang&梁朋杰 Pengjie Liang&张超Zhang Chao

The Greatest Show – 刘宪华Henry Lau&郑云龙Yunlong Zheng&张超Zhang Chao&方书剑ShuJian Fang&黄子弘凡Lars&梁朋杰Pengjie Liang

I couldn’t choose so I decided to just do a two in one deal. To be honest, I’d have done a 3 in 1 deal because its so fantastic. The 4 guys in Super-Vocal did two quartets together and they called themselves the 1975 group which was because their average age is 19.75 years old. This one was the latter one and I thought it was pretty good although the first one had more energy and a catchier song, still this one was more poetic. Its nice to see how they’re confidence changed from the first performance to the final one when they were joined by one of the judges, Henry Lau and their more experienced musical actor teammate, Yunlong Zheng. I haven’t watched The Greatest Showman yet (I know, shame on me), but I love the energy and confidence in this performance. Its one of my faves.

心脏 Heart – Super-Vocal Team

Last week’s The Singer 2019 was a nightmare for one of the members of this team and yet, the song they chose is from one of Chinese musicals. I’ve only heard it and never saw it. They do such a great job even with one having a huge flu or bronchitis or something. After watching the Super-Vocal show, I’m actually even more appreciative of their performances. Their voices are truly amazing. I think this quartet is absolutely fantastic.

As an extra…here’s a solo performance by Yunlong Zheng, probably one of my faves from the show:

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
Few more English songs than I though there was which is great!
What have you been listening to?