Music Obsessions: July 2021

Another month has passed by! Its time for the next Music Obsessions! A decent mix this time from Cantopop to collabs and c-pop. All of them pretty fun!

Raining – Lil Ghost

Lil Ghost is one of those new musical artists from idol shows that really have constantly surprised me. First with his rap and hip hop music when he first debut solo after Nine Percent and then when he joined the second season of Our Song where he paired up with Coco Lee and probably learned quite a bit. Which leads to his latest music which is a change in style focusing more on his singing vocal abilities than his rap. I think there’a still some room for improvement but overall, the style and vibe from the music is so uplifting that its so happy to listen to.

The Way You Make Me Feel – 莫文蔚 Karen Mok

Big fan of Karen Mok right here. She has such a unique voice and singing style. Plus, nowadays cantopop is slowly losing out on quality (in my opinion) so when singers from the 90s and 00s come out with new music, its so awesome. I really like the style of her latest music videos which are so happy and positive.

Happy For You – Lukas Graham (feat. 衛蘭 Janice Vidal)

I have been listening to Janice Vidal again who I think doesn’t put out enough music and is pretty underrated. Refer to last month’s music obsessions when I shared “It’s Okay To Be Sad”. Here she does a collab with Lukas Graham for his song Happy For You and adding in that cantopop lyrics and style which a lovely mesh.

Zoom – R1SE

I’m still going through a bit of a ending phase as R1SE disbanded this past month. While I think they had good potential and whatnot, the different members seem to be popping up here and there whether its TV series or variety shows, etc. In time we will see how the members will do. However, as their farewell album’s main theme, ZOOM is a pretty good song. Cool and fun and pretty much shows off how this boy group is really good. Honestly, I think that after Nine Percent, this group is pretty solid. If only this year’s Youth With You group had formed, it would maybe have been another potentially solid one. With that said, I’ve gone on a tangent…

时光少年 Back to Youth – 胡夏 Fox Hu
(Flourish In Time’s Main Theme)

Ending it on the main theme song for Flourish in Time which is playing on Tencent right now and one that I’ve grown to like a lot. I left it on the side a little so that I can binge the last few episodes and not have to wait it out for the ending episodes. Fox Hu is renowned for being a singer of theme songs (although he has proved that he is capable of much more) and this song is pretty good. I like both the lyrics and melody and lot. It fits this kind of schoolyard romance.

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

Music Obsessions – June 2021

The next Music Obsessions is here! The past month has been a little all over the place but there was some decent music overall. I’d say there’s a good mix of music this time around and a few are theme songs from recent movies and TV. Let’s go!

No Regrets 不遺憾 – 李榮浩 Ronghao Li

No Regrets is a theme song for a recently released film called My Love based on Korean film On Your Wedding Day. I’ve recently been listening to more of Ronghao Li as he has some really good music and writes pretty decent music and lyrics. This one is pretty nice in terms of lyrics and song.

It’s Love 是爱 – 何洛洛Luoluo He/張凌赫Linghe Zhang/顏安 An Yan/常斌Bin Chang
(Love Crossed – Ending Theme)

Okay…so I have to admit that I added this mostly because I’ve been absolutely in love with this series. It has a pretty unique premise and even for having some fairly new young cast, the acting is decent. It definitely feels like there’s some deliberate overacting for the “villain” character to create subtle comedy. I’ll talk about the series in a TV binge when its done. However, this song is the ending theme for Love Crossed. I have to also admit that I’ve been rooting for He Luoluo since his first appearance in Produce Camp 2019 and then in R1SE so its nice to see him expanding to TV and then using his singing and dancing abilities for this song. As a side note, I honestly feel like Youhug Media is trying to create the new “F4” using these guys called the Y4 in the series, especially with R1SE disbanding soon, it would make sense to get another boy group for He Luoluo. If you don’t know what F4 is, its a Meteor Garden reference.

這世界那麼多人 Empty World – Karen Mok 莫文蔚

Karen Mok is one of my absolute favorite singers. She has such a unique voice so I’m always excited when she releases a new song. This time its a song for a recently released Chinese film Love Will Tear Us Apart. I honestly think the movie sounds like pretty familiar Chinese romantic dramas and its with the guy in The Wandering Earth so maybe it’ll land on Netflix at some point. Its all speculation of course and if this becomes available online then I’ll check it out (which is hard since Chinese films are super hard to find and the minority filter through to international platforms. Either way, point is, this song has amazing lyrics that really hit me in the feels: “This world has so many people, so lucky that I have a us”.

好想好想你 Missing You – G.E.M.鄧紫棋

G.E.M. has been making frequent appearances on my music obsessions now. She’s been making some good music that I’ve really enjoyed plus the music videos has such decent production value as well. This one is a pretty simple song. No fancy techniques or whatnot but its such a comfortable song to listen to that I can’t but to play it repeat.

It’s OK To Be Sad – Janice Vidal 衛蘭

The latest song that’s been playing on repeat for myself that really hit me quite hard is this amazing and meaningful song. I think the title says it all and actually reminds me a lot of how I’m feeling sometimes. It doesn’t have translation for the song but I think if you watch through the music video itself, you will get a good idea of what its about and then by the time you get to the English lyrics at the end, then that’s pretty much where it hits the hardest. You can see below:

It’s okay to be sad
It’s okay to lose your mind
Life is not a childhood fantasy
Sometimes it appears to have no mercy
You may wanna pretend
But the way you laugh
Is a tragedy
It’s okay to be sad
It’s okay to lose your mind
When life brings the darkest misery
Let it be your strongest energy

彼方世界 -R1SE
(Dance Practice Version)

As R1SE is disbanding in a month or so, it seems fitting to share some of their music from the farewell album. For myself, its one of the groups that I watched this group debut from start to end from the Produce Camp 2019 so to me, this group has been quite a standout group whether its the music that they put out to even how the individuals has also spread out to participate in other things (music, variety shows, TV series, etc). They’ve had their own hardships especially with the pandemic cutting in between their limited time group, still, there is no doubt that this group is pretty good in terms of their dancing abilities and music production skills. They are fairly well-rounded. Its a pity that they have to end and I almost thought that they would get an extension but then they’ve also had a fair bit of bad publicity for some of the members from what I’ve skimmed here and there, but then that seems like the general trend nowadays for any idols that debut or want to debut. As for this song, I think its pretty good plus the dance is very well done and actually the dance transitions spell out each of the members first letter of their name which is pretty creative. Consider this a little bit of an extra!

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

Music Obsessions – June 2018

Welcome to the June 2018 Music Obsessions!

Its been quite the month. There’s been a whole assortment of music that I’ve been listening to. Hopefully, you will enjoy it! 🙂

Done For Me – Charlie Puth (feat. Kehlani)

Somehow Charlie Puth seems to have a formula for catchy songs. The lyrics are actually quite similar in most of the time, its about some form of unloyal woman or breakup or broken/toxic relationships. Whatever it is, with pop music, I tend to listen to it for the fun beats than for the lyrics. Done For Me is a pretty fun one. Actually, my husband and I are pretty hooked on it so what can I say? We seem to can’t break out of Charlie Puth Top 40 songs.

Give It Up – Mike Williams

Now, this new Mike Williams video and music of Give It Up is a fun one. It  has some awesome beats and really gives this fun summer vibe. There are very specific songs that have the formula to match a season and this one definitely gives off those wonderful vibes and it makes me super happy to listen to.

愛死你 Love You to Death – Karen Mok (feat Alan Kuo)

I’m positive that I’ve talked about Karen Mok before but this lady is spectacular. I mean, she’s done some great work in Stephen Chow films but her singing talent and her voice is just so unique. Hence why there are two selections here because they are two very different style. This one is hardcore and is with Alan Kuo. And the second one…

If You Love Me, Raise Your Hand – Karen Mok

The second one here is fun and jazzy, full of saxophones and positive energy. I’ve actually been singing and humming this a lot. Actually, the other day I caught myself moving along with the lyrics here which is about raising your left hand and raising your right hand and nodding. Luckily, it wasn’t somewhere public so didn’t quite make a fool out of myself.

我們的愛沒有錯 Our Love Is Never Wrong – 胡夏 Fox Hu

Talk about an accidental find. I was just looking for something, probably Leehom Wang or Karen Mok or the songs from TV series Miss Rose (which I’ll post about soon) and then ended up seeing this one. And its turned out pretty cool and has me wanting to look for this series. I actually have never watched a Chinese TV series (Taiwanese is not the same thing). They  have a lot of them on Netflix and I’m going to one day. But if you do want to get a really authentic experience, their historical TV dramas are fantastic. And I don’t like reading about history much so it shows how great its done. Anyways, this song is really great especially because it seems like it would be a sad song but they give this change in tempo after the first bit and gives a nice upbeat feeling and I guess hope for this love he is singing about.

God of Cookery (original title: 食神, 1996)

Back in the 2018 opening post, I talked about injecting more foreign films with a particular focus to catching up and revisiting Hong Kong cinema. I’ve been thinking about a Foreign Friday segment for a good while (years probably) but never found the motivation. We just passed our 7th blogiversary here and its a fine time to embrace what I truly love. Hong Kong cinema was what started my journey into movies and so it makes sense to make it a much bigger presence here. With that said, the rigidness of when to post on a particular day is still on the back of my mind but maybe I’ll get that going once I get back into a groove of reviewing Hong Kong cinema.

To kick things off (and mostly because, I had a chat about it with AC Film Club HERE) is 1996 comedy by Stephen Chow, God of Cookery.

God of Cookery (1996)

Director: Stephen Chow

Cast: Stephen Chow, Karen Mok,  Vincent Kok, Man-Tat Ng, Stephen Au, Nancy Sit, Kar-Ying Law, Suet Lam

The most renowned and feared chef in the world loses his title of God of Cookery because of his pompous attitude. Humbled, he sets out to reclaim his title. – IMDB

God of Cookery happens somewhere in the middle of Stephen Chow’s successful 90’s career. I would call him the Jim Carey of Hong Kong because his humor is very much in line with how Jim Carey would be. Its absurd and nonsensical and the foundations of what is called “mo lei tau comedy”. However, Stephen Chow’s humor might be lost in translation at times however he excels at making up for it with his comical expressions. Coming from myself who grew up with Stephen Chow and speak Cantonese rather fluently, I can definitely appreciate his humor more than the Western world however, as we’ve seen with both Shaolin Soccer and Kung Fu Hustle, he’s a talented comedic actor and while those films differ slightly from his Hong Kong career, it definitely should be ones that will give you an entry point to look at his older works and see if you can find the appreciation for it that I have. The God of Cookery is a nice place to start. He shows off his love for Hong Kong, combines elements of food and martial arts and shows off his successful pairing with Man-Tat Ng who is a partner in crime for many of his 90’s movies. At the same time, you see the likes of Karen Mok and for those more familiar with the older Hong Kong movies, some other talents sneak in there both as cameos and supporting roles.

I’m not going to lie that God of Cookery did take a second viewing to love it more. There is a lot of silliness here and it does get very over the top. Just take for example that the the arrogant cook that starts off the movie has some incredibly insensitive comments meant as humor followed by a rough treatment of the people around him. However, it also emphasizes the character here, also called Stephen Chow. However, the God of Cookery does get dethroned by his arrogance and picks himself back up with a nonsensical product called Pissing Beef Balls and a ragtag group of Temple Street vendors which are funny and awkward in each of their own ways. Alongside of that,there are some funny cameos from some known names in the Hong Kong industry like Nancy Sit and Kar Ying Law who have been around for a while that take on a nice comedic character.

However, the charm of the film does go to the God of Cookery himself and his female counterpart, Turkey (played by Karen Mok). The friendship that started it off and how he realizes her admiration from him and his distaste towards her because of her disfigured face does make for some over the top humor here. Of course, there is a decent superficial element to this as while Stephen Chow does fall for the character eventually, the added bonus is that she has made herself pretty in a turn of events. However, the quirky character that Turkey is makes for some fun bits as she bursts out in a familiar Cantonese song that talks about loyalty, friendship and comraderie, A lot of Stephen Chow’s movie humor is within his dialogue and his puns that will get lost with the western audience unfamiliar with language however, there is also a decent bit of unspoken humor just through his funny reactions and expressions.

Odd, quirky, absurdity and over the top humor is what Stephen Chow movies are about. It captures both the characters and has a rather light-hearted journey of redemption in many cases. The creativity and the dialogue is actually quite vulgar however it also hits a lot of the essence of the Cantonese language and its crafty and clever use. Stephen Chow and Karen Mok are fantastic is this. While I do have to say that even as a fan, it took me a second viewing to fully appreciate it, there is quite a bit to love and enjoy if this is a type of humor that appeals to you. As I always say, humor and comedy is very different for everyone so it really depends on what you like.

Music Obsessions [September 2017]

Welcome back to September’s Music Obsessions!

Its rare to have My Weekly Adventures segment precede this one back to back. With the last month’s personal life taking me for a long time emotional ride, I’ve been drowning in a lot of music. There was a splurge of going back to some of the older stuff I used to listen which is mostly Hong Kong pop from 80’s and 90’s maybe even to early 2000s. Its been a lot of variety from EDM to hip hop to just about everything, making this month a pretty hard one to narrow down. Anyways, here’s the ones I’ve been going back to a lot.

Divination – KSHMR & No Mondays

Its always nice to start off these obsessions with some electronic music. I love KSHMR. They’ve had some incredible music and its fantastic. This one is pretty good also.

Kings and Queens of Summer – Matstubs

I have this feeling that I heard this on the radio but then, I’m not so sure. However, it was an accidental find but I like the beat a lot.

飛 (Fly) – LMF

I’m almost positive that I’ve shared LMF songs some time in the past however, there was a chat recently with my Game Warp co-host that brought about a talk about hip hop music and while Hong Kong hip hop is not a popular thing as there’s only a few selected few that have done well and are actually decent, LMF is the one that I’d like to say brought this genre to Hong Kong. They aren’t together anymore but they made some great music. This one is one of my faves. Once I start, I just listen to it on repeat.

Tout laisser tomber – Raffy

The newest selection on this list goes to the new song by a Quebec artist/group called Raffy. They have very awesome and fun music. This new one is upbeat and positive and I like it a lot. It makes me happy when I listen to it. Can’t really ask for more.

I Do – Karen Mok

Karen Mok has been in some movies here and there and for those more familiar with Hong Kong movies may recognize her especially in some Stephen Chow movies. However, she is also a singer and a pretty unique one at that. I love her voice a lot. This is one of her newer tunes, I believe and the video is super cute. Its great.

Body Like A Back Road – Sam Hunt

I like Sam Hunt a lot. This song has a really nice beat. I’m not so sure about the lyrics but its a fun listen just for the music itself.

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

Music Obsessions [April 2016]

Can you believe a month has gone by already? I always look forward to the monthly Music Obsessions! There’s always something new or old to listen to.

I have to say that this month might not be so adventurous for all of you unless you like foreign music. After that last karaoke session with my best friends, I’ve found myself falling back in love with listening to some Taiwan/Hong Kong music.  There were still some English music that I just haven’t been able to get out of my mind.  This month’s Music Obsessions will be rather a mish-mash of selections!

Also, I think this is a fixed thing now.  First Sunday of every month will be dedicated to Music Obsessions segment.  It will be a post with 5 to 6 videos (like how the last few months have been done). No more funky titles but rather just monthly issues. What do you think?

Work-Rihanna ft Drake (cover by Citizen Shade & Kurt Hugo Schneider)

I’m not much of a Rihanna fan but that’s besides the point.  I HATE the original of this song but the cover is a completely different story. Citizen Shade have amazing vocalists that just make it so much better.  In any case, I love listening to this so much!

Tao Tai Lang (淘汰郎) -Show Lo

I’m on a high after The Mermaid and it made me want to revisit Show Lo’s music.  If I could find his Taiwan TV dramas, I’d be doing that also but then, all of those are in another drive and I don’t know where I put it. This song is one I used to like and mostly because I enjoy watching the whole dancing bit. He’s know for his dancing in Taiwan, among his many talents. The song title in literal translation is like, Eliminated Guy. Something like that…

Ghostbuster (Original Mix) – CastNowski x WZRD

I’m a huge fan of house music.  Its my go-to, especially after a hard day of work or like late Friday night.  Its great for background writing music.  CastNowski is a fellow Quebecer and he followed me on Twitter and shared this link with me for this track and let me tell you, its pretty awesome! I love the beat drop at 1:12

**I can’t help but sidetrack to talk about how I’m really useless at social media and despite my best efforts to try to make use of my Twitter account…its really not doing much except for retweet all those lovely posts my awesome blogging buddies post up on their sites. I love doing that because they are awesome writers.  On that note, maybe thats what I have to do..just reach out 😉 **

Let’s continue, shall we?

你把我灌醉 (Intoxicated) – G.E.M.

One of the many discoveries from karaoke with my best friend is G.E.M.  While I’ve heard of this singer before, I’ve never paid much attention to them.  Apparently, I was wrong because she has style and talent. Its pretty amazing. Her voice has just incredible texture and range. This is a remake of a popular song back in 1990s (might be 80s, I can’t remember). I love it so much!

The next (and last) two selections are also ones I discovered when I was at karaoke because my best friend is much more updated on the world of Taiwan/Chinese music.

想你的夜 (未眠版) Miss You Tonight -關喆 Grady

如果沒有你 – 莫文蔚 Karen Mok

I know its a lot of Chinese music this time but they are melodically really nice.  I like them a lot. There is always an electronic music choice just because its a nice mood booster and well, cover and whatnot because those appear on my list.  A little change from the normal but its a good change, right?

Happy Sunday, my lovelies! Hope you enjoy!
What music have you been replaying lately?