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 – September 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! I honestly can’t believe its already September and I’ve actually managed to keep up with this segment with actual content. Its a little wild overall. Either way, here we are so let’s go right into it!

Cruel – Jackson Wang

At this point, Jackson Wang really has proven that his variety in his music with his resources has truly grown quite a bit including the music video themselves are really creative. While I can’t say that I love all his music the same level, there’s a certain catchiness to them that jives well. Cruel is pretty good and the video is pretty impressive. I wonder whether Jackson Wang will one day jump into being a director at this point seeing as all his music videos now have a certain fantastical story background.

眼淚落下之前 Before Tears Fall Down – Silence Wang 汪蘇瀧

This summer’s youth romance film, since it seems like there’s always one highlight film of that regard in China is My Blue Summer. The source material for My Blue Summer has already been adapted into 2 separate Chinese TV series before called Unrequited Love both times with the only difference being its network and the cast. While I think that’s kind of pointless, they’ve gone and adapted it into a film as well. Which brings us to Silence Wang’s song which I really liked when he performed it in Wonderland Season 2, a Chinese lifestyle variety show so found the original MV.

寻一个你 Searching You- Yuning Liu刘宇宁
(“Love Between Fairy and Devil” Theme)

One of the hit Chinese fantasy dramas this summer has to be Love Between Fairy and Devil so of course, I’m also watching it right now. Not binging quite the way that I normally would but everything fits so well for me from the cast to the soundtrack. Its theme is by Yuning Liu which I have shared him music quite a bit over the time this segment has been around. Probably one of the newer singers that I like nowadays since the last time I followed someone so intently has be at least a decade ago. Regardless, I’m always happy to watch series and find his song part of the OST. Its a really nice one that matches this series pretty well.

臟藝術家 Dirty Artist – MC HotDog熱狗

Its crazy how time does fly by but MC HotDog was the original first generation Chinese rapper back in my teenage days and its great to see the status that he’s achieved as a hip hop artist. In the last few years popping on music related variety show, there’s a humble side of him that makes him so respectable. In the latest season of Rap of China: All Stars Season, not only did he take all the new generation rappers under his wing in his team, there’s no doubt that during the performances that all these years experience with his writing and the messages he wants in his songs now. There’s a versatility that can’t be duplicated. Either way, he tried to not outshine his other team members most of the time but this song he did himself is probably the best of the show.

粉色海洋 Pink Ocean – 周杰倫 Jay Chou

I’d like to say that Jay Chou’s latest album seems to be all songs paired up with Taiwanese lyricist Vincent Fang who found his popularity writing up the majority of the hit songs from Jay Chou’s beginning albums, so there’s a real taste of nostalgia as this album’s songs remind me a lot of the earlier albums of Jay Chou back in 2000. This music video also is one filmed with Jay Chou’s son so its pretty fun overall. While most of the songs in the recent music videos are pretty good, this one is so light-hearted and positive.

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

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 – January 2022

Welcome to the first Music Obsessions of this year. To be honest, I’ve been just listening to a lot of old stuff lately so not really a whole lot of new things to share especially since a lot of the new stuff is from Netflix movies and holiday films so it seems like its not exactly a great time to share it. However, I did get back to listening to some fun older music as I was updating music on Spotify so I’ll share a few of those here.

The Wrong Song – mxmtoon & Dylan Chenfeld

Mixtape is one of those movies that I find are somewhat of a hidden gem. It has content that I really like and also focuses on the mixtape era which teaches the newer generation of when there were people putting together mixtapes and the whole idea of it. Of course, that’s besides the point here because the final song that they find is the original which probably means more in the movie than listening to it alone but I do enjoy the lyrics and such.

龍捲風 Tornado – MAYDAY五月天 feat.周杰倫 Jay Chou

Tornado was originally released on Jay Chou’s album in 2000 and probably the song that truly put him on the map. Its pretty epic to see that 2 decades later after many hits, he decided to team up with Taiwanese band Mayday to release this version. Its also a great version to be honest since both of them are very talented.

The Big Hits 勁歌金曲 – 古巨基 Leo Ku

The epitome of Cantopop medley does have to go to Leo Ku when he created an actual song that lasted 12 minutes and included a bunch of Cantonese songs that were really popular. The first compilation actually snuck in some popular classic Mandarin songs as well which worked incredibly well. However, it was quite a breakthrough and accompanied myself through a lot of karaoke sessions as the starting song when I was younger as warm up when with friends.

The Big Hits 2: The King of Love 情歌王 – 古巨基 Leo Ku

Of course, Leo Ku’s first medley success leads him to The Big Hits 2 which is a compilation of Mandarin love songs which has a lot of pretty fantastic choices as well. Its not quite the novel idea this time around since the original The Big Hits song and didn’t accompany me as much but recently, I’ve been revisiting it and there are some really great hits included in this medley that is well worth a listen.

勁歌金曲3-Party King – 古巨基 Leo Ku

To wrap up today’s session, I figure I’d just finish up introducing these Leo Ku medleys since the final one is called Party King, one that I knew existed but listened to the least as I had pretty much taken a break on Hong Kong music for a little while. However, as I listened to this again, I realized there are some decent songs mixed up in here and some pretty nice hit songs in there. My only issue with the Party King mix is that it does use that one party song beat to string all the songs together and it loses some of the actual music but does manage to cleverly put each of the songs and lyrics together.

Not exactly the best Music Obsessions but I’ve been wanting to revisit some older songs lately.
Hope you enjoyed! What have you been listening to lately?

Music Obsessions – December 2021 (& Spotify Wrapped)

The last Music Obsessions of 2021 is here as we dive into December’s edition. Usually I put in some holiday stuff but this year, with my 2021 use of Spotify, I had something fun to share with their Spotify Wrapped for 2021. I’ll still had a few other music from the past month for fun but I will do a little recap of some music that was surprisingly playing a lot in my playlist.

Let’s go!

陪你去流浪 Accompany You To Wander – Joker Xue 薛之謙

What is there to say about this one? I actually think this song is just really good. Joker Xue is really talented and I’ve shared quite a few of his songs before. His voice is really soothing especially when he is singing these slow love ballads. Not to mention the whole music video is nicely done with the snowscape and all.

Do You Know Me – 24 Herbs 廿四味

My friend is streaming Sleeping Dogs right now on Twitch and it made me realize that 24Herbs did songs for the soundtrack. Its how I landed on this song. I used to listen to a bit of their songs before which was mostly duets with Sammi Cheng but this one is pretty good and actually got to dive a little into the hip hop group themselves which actually has two members from LMF, a Hong Kong Cantonese hip hop group which basically was the first (or one of the first) to do something where rap was their main genre focus.

兩個你Double You – G.E.M.鄧紫棋

This song is a theme song for a Hong Kong TV series that I haven’t seen but I’m sure its just airing recently or airing soon but G.E.M. is a singer that has been on my radar this past year or two. She has a really powerful voice and this song sounds pretty good as well.

Spotify Wrapped Overview

Below is the Spotify Wrapped for this year. I never knew this stuff was done, especially since its just the beginning of December so feels a little early. I didn’t dive into all the top songs or stuff but just focused on the two mentioned here, the most played song and the most played song from my top artist. The other stuff, you can enjoy and have fun. I use Spotify mostly for Chinese music and I have multiple playlists which I only focus mostly on one which is why its very unified to one thing. Its made me think about merging some of the different music together on Spotify. I am new to it just this year so still figuring out what works best.

Top Song: 告白氣球 Love Confession – Jay Chou 周杰倫

Its not too odd to think this one is my top song considering its also a pretty top song on Youtube for Jay Chou and had quite some reach. Plus, it is a really good song. Its lighthearted and romantic and really has the Jay Chou style to it while still having an upbeat vibe to the whole thing.

到底要怎麼樣 – 小鬼王琳凯 Lil Ghost

I’m not going to lie that Lil Ghost being my top artist was a little odd. I do have a few songs from him and he did become quite a frequent artist that I would listen to because the past year or two has just been him being involved in a bunch of variety shows which highlighted a lot of his own music after Nine Percent disbanded making him probably one of the more music focused celebrity that came out of all the guys there since a lot either vanished or just shifted into the TV drama path. His songs are also really fun and upbeat, positively happy to listen to overall.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
Do you use Spotify? What did your Spotify Wrapped look like?

Music Obsessions – September 2020

Time for the next Music Obsessions! Its September and the beginning of Labor Day Weekend! Fun times, right? I’ve been bombarding everyone with movie reviews lately so all wordy posts in general so lets just get right to it and check out some fun music!

Warm Sunshine 暖阳光 – 吴季峰 Jifeng Wu

One of the songs from the Mr. Honesty is definitely one of my favorite since its all kinds of positive vibes. Its all happy and fun to listen to which is exactly what I’ve been wanting to listen to.

红眼睛 Red Eyes – Rarpid望江晴 & JD & 葛兆恩 Kodii
(“Listen Up/ Rap Star” Team Battle Performance)

There’s probably isn’t another performance part of Rap Star/ Listen Up variety show that I’ve listened to more on repeat. These three put together a stellar show packed with a love triangle story line and some great lyrics. If only they had a version which was just what they were saying when the mic is off to add to the actual performance, that would be so cool. All three are such good rap star contestants that I’ve love to see them get further. Of course, JD ended up winning 1st place in the show already so he’s going to places.

Mojito – Jay Chou

I’m 3 months late to this Jay Chou party but this song was a reminder that I need to get back to J-Style Trip. Its filmed in the streets of Havana, Cuba and has such a fun vibe to the story with lyrics that compare some romantic lyrics comparing a lover to Havana and all its highlights. This song is upbeat and awesome! Not to mention the music video also has a special appearance with Alan Kuo.

Rain 雨- 沈以誠 Eason Shen
(Song from TV Series “Go Ahead” OST)

I haven’t had a chance to fangirl over Go Ahead which is my latest drama binge as its playing right now updated with new episodes everyday. That series is just all kinds of feels. I’ve cried and laughed, sweet and bitter times and there’s still 10 episodes to go as I’m writing this up. This song is my favorite that happens to play in some of the really memorable moments fittingly. I especially love the piano ballad and the lyrics…well, that’s everything isn’t it? Its my current mega obsession both the song and the TV series.

宇宙的宇 阳光的阳 – JD
(Winning Performance of Rap Star 2020)

The finals of Rap Star was really awesome with a lot of amazing performances. I had a hard time deciding which one to use since the 2nd Trouble.Z and 3rd place KC also had some awesome songs. While I think this one won on the song being about JD changing his usual style and taking a more melodic route with a rap song and lyrics for his son about giving his name which meant that he would give him the universe and the sunlight, which is rather touching and warm. I mean, how to do beat a song like that? Not to mention that JD was no doubt going to win this season since he had a lot more stable and solid technical skills and production skills than the other contestants in general.

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

Music Obsessions – October 2019

A month sure flies by as we get to October! There’s been a decent amount of music that I’ve liked and discovered and its going to be a longer list than usual. Its all some fun songs and a nice mix of different genres so hopefully you’ll find something that you like as well!

See You In My Dream 偷偷看你 – Jeric 陳傑瑞

I’m a crazy person with ridiculously bad attention span so Love is Deep only has 4 episodes and I never got around to finishing it (got to add that back to my to-do list). That aside, they did have a midway change in their theme song in the second half to this very adorable song that caught my ears at the first line of lyrics and the fun tune. The lyrics translated: There’s Tow kinds of love, you’re either a cat or a dog, you’re born the sticky-type or proud and need little attention.” So freakin’ adorable, right? Turns out after I saw this video that the singer Jeric actually had a small role here that appeared in a few episodes.

If Only – AMei 張惠妹 & Qiyuan Zheng & Pan Dong

I’ve taken a little break from Super Vocal 2 to let it pile up a few more episodes and I’m not a huge fan of the Mango TV app as it also casts really poorly on Chromecast so this song is from a few episodes ago. This song was originally a collaboration between AMei Zhang and Andrea Bocelli. They changed into a trio and then added in some dialogue and whatnot. People say that Qiyuan Zheng has bad English and breaks the song but I love his voice and it just melts me regardless of whatever accent. If Only is my go-to song this past month whenever I’m under huge stress or not feeling too positive. Love it so much!

Love You 3000 愛你 3000 – Will Pan 潘瑋柏 (feat. 黃旭Boom & 肖恩恩Sean T)

Will Pan has vanished a few years from the scene (at least it feels that way) and its pretty nice to see him coming back. He was always known for his super fun upbeat songs. This time, he collaborates with Boom and Sean T (people that I’ve never heard of) and the style here is pretty nice. Its very smooth and fun.

Won’t Cry 說好不哭 – Jay Chou 周杰倫 & Mayday Ashin 五月天阿信

Trending #1 on Youtube INTERNATIONALLY, if you were on Youtube for the week of this song’s release, you might have seen it on the front page of your feed. I couldn’t be happier to see Jay Chou and Mayday’s Ashin’s collab have better success than that. They are two of my favorite singers and this song is really awesome. The music video is done really well also. I say it all the time. Everyone has their dominating domain, in Jay Chou’s case, music, singer and music production is where he is at his best!

前程似錦 – 陳立農 Leo Chen ＆李現 Xian Li

I never knew that movies did songs to celebrate the end of the filming but this might be the first time and its for this upcoming movie with Xian Li and Leo Chen (when this post releases, he will be now called ex-Nine Percent member as their contract for the group ended in early October…sadly). Either way, the song is happy and fun and has some nice snippets of their filming process that is great adveristing because now I can’t wait for the film’s release, so maybe eventually get to see it here. Two of Xian Li’s works (Love O2O: The Movie & Tientsin Mystic) has been on Netflix so I’m crossing my fingers that Netflix will pick this one up also.

No Accidents 沒有意外 – KUN 蔡徐坤

Its probably no coincidence that a few of the Nine Percent members have been showing up more frequently with new projects of late. No Accident has been out for a while but Kun promoted it recently on Happy Camp as a new song on his album. I don’t follow Kun a lot as his singles before didn’t quite work for me but this one though, definitely does. He could work a little on the falsetto more but overall, this is a nice song. He did the lyrics for this one and its written pretty well actually, which shouldn’t be a surprise since during Idol Producer, he did show some production skills also.

Soldier at War – Ben Wiggins (from Anna and the Apocalypse)

I’m going to be lying if a lot of music from Anna and the Apocalypse isn’t topping my play list right now. In the heart of what I could find on YouTube and the Halloween month going on right now, here’s one with zombies performed by Ben Wiggins called Soldier At War and happens to be one of the songs that I like quite a lot.

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

Valentine’s Double Feature: Secret (2007) & The Space Between Us (2017)

Its been a while since I’ve continued on the Valentine’s Netflix Alphabet marathon! Its getting dangerously close to the end of the month and I still have a good few movies to get through. At this point, it might spill into the beginning of March. Either way, I said that I’d finish it so I will. Due to the missing X selection later on, I have chosen to do two S selections! This is the last change to the alphabet marathon. Surprisingly though, these two are both teen romances and have some unique-ish idea/concept.

Let’s check it out!

Secret (2007)

Director (and writer): Jay Chou

Cast: Jay Chou, Lun-Mei Kwai, Anthony Wong, Kai-Syuan Tzeng, Ming-Ming Su, Devon Song

Ye Xiang Lun, a talented piano player is a new student at the prestigious Tamkang School. On his first day, he meets Lu Xiao Yu, a pretty girl playing a mysterious piece of music. – IMDB

Jay Chou’s directorial debut sees him both as the writer of the original story and also acting in the film. From Initial D, its already not high expectations in the Jay Chou acting but Jay Chou is a creative individual and a very musical person so its no surprise to see that he has injected a musical element to this story. The pity of this film goes to Netflix categorizing its subgenre that ruins the twist of the story making it much easier to guess. The ending is somewhat of a headscratcher and feels a bit flawed from what the whole logic behind the situation was, the story itself had its charm. The first is the setting that its done, bordered by water, the school grounds and the more classical building. The second is its characters, including Jay Chou who wrote in a character that truly matches himself. Its probably the perk of being the writer of the original story.

On the off-chance that you aren’t watching this through Netflix, I’m going to keep this spoiler free as much as possible. While this movie seems a lot like your average teen movie with the female character having some ailment, there is a much more light-hearted sort of appeal to this mostly with its added twist. Using music as a medium is a really nice touch here. With the subgenre that it tackles, there are some little logic issues and flaws but it also has this fantasy element that adds a little something extra.

As I mentioned before, Jay Chou writes a character very suitable for himself therefore he does a decent job. Its really his romantic interest, Lun-Mei Kwai that takes a lot of credit here. Her personality reflects Xiao Yu’s character a whole lot whether its her little movements or when she’s happy or sad. The chemistry between them spark up some nice little moments that make us truly root for this pairing. However, in a movie full of young actors and actresses, there is no doubt that Anthony  Wong stands out the most playing the father of Jay Chou’s character. He has this vibrancy and his character while seemingly not very significant in the beginning, ramps up quite the significance by the end.

The Space Between Us (2017)

Director: Peter Chelsom

Cast: Asa Butterfield, Britt Robertson, Gary Oldman, Carla Gugino, BD Wong, Janet Montgomery

The first human born on Mars travels to Earth for the first time, experiencing the wonders of the planet through fresh eyes. He embarks on an adventure with a street smart girl to discover how he came to be. – IMDB

I’m not exactly understanding all the hate that this movie seems to get via the different site that I’ve looked at. To be honest, this movie is right up my alley. For one, it has an incredible cast, at least I’m a big fan of everyone here. Then it has this whole sci-fi premise of space and Earth. The idea behind the story is pretty nice as well. There are some glaring similarities to a lot of other movies, the one that I thought of first was Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart (Review), an animated film that I love a whole lot. To see competent young actor and actress like Asa Butterfield and Britt Robertson take over this pairing just warmed my heart because they are both constantly on my radar.

With that said, the music here is fantastic. The story here is a bit thin on the character development side of things and focuses on some cheesy teen romance thing, which worked for me because somehow these two have a good bit of chemistry and some really nice scenes. Plus, the whole fish of water thing always makes me feel incredibly entertained especially how they wrote up Asa Butterfield’s character even if he falls into those tropes of having some weakness to him but the fact that its because he’s born on another planet really makes it unique in its own way.

On top of that, you get Gary Oldman and Carla Gugino in this film who truly add quite a bit to the film in their roles. Its quite the adventure to see the whole chase from one thing to the next. There is romance but also a great deal of adventure that is where the bonding of the characters happen. Britt Robertson does play a very similar role to a few roles she’s done where she is a teen that doesn’t fit into the life that she is from. The key question here that is asked is “What is your favorite thing about Earth?” I think its a valid movie that uses this story to ask a deeper question about appreciating the things that we have around us that we take for granted. There are many layers to the story. Sure, it has its faults and there’s a ton of cheese and its fairly predictable but there’s also a lot of fun and adventurous moments here that work. Plus, it doesn’t take the normal teen romance type of bittersweet ending so I’m all for that.

That’s it for this double S feature for Valentine’s romance!
Both movies that have flaws but that I found a lot of enjoyment from!
Have you seen Secret or The Space Between Us?

Music Obsessions – April 2018

March is now behind us and Spring has arrived! I’m not sure that I’ve listened to a lot of new music lately but I am catching up on some nice stuff. Its been a while that my list has been listened on repeat so frequently with just those few songs. Plus, I’m going back to some music that I loved a ton from months ago and added some music that I had taken out back in. March has been great in some ways but a whole lot of soul searching. Maybe its the getting older that makes me think and reflect on life in general. Either way, when I hit those moments, I like to block out a lot of everything and find back my balance through music. This segment is supposed to be nice and fun so I’ll skip the drama and share some music I’ve loved this month.

Let Me Go – Hailee Steinfeld, Alesso ft. Florida Georgia Line, WATT

So why suddenly Hailee Steinfeld? Because I recently rewatched Pitch Perfect 2 and it kind of was nice background music as I caught up with a ton of blog housekeeping and putting together new graphics for the upcoming podcast. At the same time, she’s been on the radio whenever we’re in the car. Lots of reasons but I’m a fan of Alesso so this one peaked my interest and its really grown on me.

我們不一樣 We Are Not The Same – 大壯 Da Zhuang 

A rather sporadic discovery is this song which showed up in my recommended on the home page of Youtube. This song doesn’t only have a singer which has a really nice rough voice which adds to the strength of the song but the song lyrics itself is very well-written and is meaningful especially when the video emphasizes on its content by showcasing different in a certain city in China and the different professions. I love meaningful music that isn’t about love and heartbreak since its really not that frequent that we encounter it nowadays, or I’m just not searching in the right places.

Try – Jay Chou & Patrick Brasca

I haven’t seen Kung Fu Panda 3 yet and I have no idea whether this song was part of just the Asia/Taiwan/China release but its such a fun and cheerful song. Its been a while that I’ve visited Jay Chou music and he has such a high standard for the quality of music that he delivers that its really so great to get back into his newer music. Although I still have some immense love for his debut album or first few ones. He makes this music with like stories in its lyrics but of course, he really writes the music (which I always love the style) and has a great lyricist which I think writes a lot of his songs (at least most of the ones I love). Either way, this one, he teams up with a very young artist who is Taiwanese-Canadian called Patrick Brasca who fits into this songs fun elements.

告白氣球 Love Confession – Jay Chou

I probably should have reversed the song before and this one because its through this video that I found out about Patrick Brasca. The video here is adorable and not to mention, Jay Chou’s latest music that I absolutely love. In this entire Music Obsessions this time around, I’ve been listening the most especially since it makes me want to learn how to sing it. Jay Chou music is hard because of his ability to sing complex lyrics really rapidly. Mandarin is my second language Chinese dialect so sometimes its hard to get it all out however, I loved the challenge and maybe I’ll share a snippet of the singing one day ;).

Before He Cheats – Carrie Underwood

Finally song is Before He Cheats and it has to do very much with the first choice in this list because of Pitch Perfect 2 where the Barden Bellas go for the riff-off and Anna Kendrick follows with this song. Every time I watch Pitch Perfect 2 and it hits that part, I always end up bringing back this song since its really fun in general to listen to and sing.

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