Music Obsessions – March 2021

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions! March is here and this past month felt like there was lot of music..but in reality, there actually wasn’t. Either way, still a few things to share!

My Love – 乐华NEXT

Big fan of the boy group Next who don’t release a whole lot of new singles as a few of them do have their own individual music as well, however when they do, its always really cool performance. I do like the rhythm of the song overall.

Shake That Brass – Amber Liu
(Produce Camp 2021 Performance)

I could have used the original music video for Amber Liu’s Shake That Brass but I actually prefer this performance so here we go. One of my discoveries from Produce Camp 2021 is their mentor Amber Liu who is rather talented and cool. This song is so fun!

戒菸 Quit Smoking – 李榮浩 Ronghao Li

After mentioning a mentor for Produce Camp 2021, I do have to mention one from Youth With You 3 and its one of the trainee first ranking performances that lead me back to this song. I had heard it before but never really paid a lot of attention to it. Not sure if its a current mood or whatnot but somehow, I really like it this time around and its been on replay quite a bit. Plus, the music video is done really well.

HIP -Japanese ver.- MAMAMOO

A Japanese trainee group performed this song as their first ranking on Produce Camp 2021 and it was pretty fun so I hunted down the original. I just love the rhythm and style of the song. I haven’t really watched the music video much but the song itself is super fun to listen to. I’m starting to realize that a lot of upbeat music is making my list this month. I guess it has to do with the fact that its keeping my energy level high.

非你不可 Just U – 謝霆鋒 Nicholas Tse & 泰山樂隊 Tarzan

I don’t know if anyone remembers last year when there was the band competition show called Me To Us which I absolutely loved and shared some of the music at the time. Its why this song means so much more because the winning band Tarzan finally gets a new song and its with their mentor Nicholas Tse, who for those who frequent here know I’m a mega fan of for the last 20 years or something.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
I rather quick one this time but hope you enjoyed!
What have you been listening to lately?

Music Obsessions – February 2020

Welcome to February 2020! Its time for the Music Obsessions to kick off this month! I usually take February as a love song expose of sorts but somehow this time, this time is a bit of a mix. The starting and ending song are more up-beat but nothing related to love however, the middle stuff is all about love stories as they are all theme from movies or TV shows. Let’s take a look!

Daydreamer 白日夢想家 – Vision Wei 魏晨

If there’s anything that I love from discovering the amazing Who’s The Murderer, its how it adds in so many great celebrity investigators and the best one that I’ve found is Vision Wei who is great in the variety show but at the same time, it gave me the motivation to look up his music and so far, this one is absolutely fave. Its upbeat and fun and the video isn’t is done really well. Its one that makes me all happy and a great way to kick off this Music Obsessions.

A Kind Of Sorrow 有一種悲傷 – A-Lin

I haven’t seen the actual movie, More Than Blue that this song is for. I am hoping to watch it at some point as it looks really good. A-Lin is a phenomenal singer with great vocals. Her voice is just exceptional and emotional. I love listening to her music and this one is no different.

天地無霜 (Ashes of Love Main Theme) – Andy Yang 楊紫 & Allen Deng 鄧倫

I’ve already expressed my obsession with Ashes of Love. This TV series really is amazing. I’m working on the TV binge but at the same time, the main theme is this wonderful duet from the main leads who are not actual singers but actually do a great job. Its captivating whenever this song appears in the series as well. At the same time, there is a solo version for just Allen Deng which is equally great. Allen Deng is my biggest discovery from the show and I’ve been finding traces of his musical talent and not just his acting talent. For fun, here is the solo version:

Don’t Cry 不哭 – Rocket Girls 101 Sunnee 火箭少女101 楊芸晴

I’m not a huge fan of Rocket Girls 101 in general. They have some okay songs but I can’t say that I’m completely behind their music but individually, some of the members are very good as they branch off to do their own things. My fave vocalist in the group does go to Sunnee who is unique in herself and as I look up more of her music after watching her participating in Masked Singer China, its definitely had some great finds. My fave goes out to this promotional song for the movie version of Cry Me A Sad River. I haven’t seen the movie but the TV series was one of my top series of 2019.

Blah Blah & WYTB – NEXT (Zhejiang New Year’s 2020 Gala Performance)

Ending it off on a high note, I wanted to open with NEXT as its more upbeat. I might have shared WYTB and maybe a snippet of Blah Blah before but Blah Blah is one of my favorite songs from this group. I think Yuehua Entertainment really found gold with putting this group together as a part of them definitely have the idol stars. Of course, it helps that they got a great gig with having a reality show for Mango TV called Master in the House that shared a bit of who each of them are and their aspirations, giving each of them a chance to learn from some great musicians and celebrities in the music industry. They are all very well-rounded and I can see great things in the future for them. They are only like 1.5 years since the creation of the group so still lots of time to get even better.

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

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 – May 2019

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions!

Its been a long and tough month with a lot of music by my side. There were quite a few new discoveries and I really had a lot of fun just listening to a lot of new stuff. However, I’m keeping it fairly constricted here to keep things on track plus, some of the music I’ll leave for next month if its still on my list. 😉

Evidence 證據 – 楊乃文 Naiwen Yang

The Singer 2019 revealed me to Naiwen Yang who is a Taiwanese singer more in the indie vein. Her music is pretty good and while she isn’t the more popular choice in the competition, this song that she performed is really good. The lyrics and the vibe of it all is the style that I personally like.

Expose 揭穿 – 黄子韬 Z. Tao

My recent obsession in terms of TV series has to be The Brightest Star in the Sky. Its about to end but the last few weeks watching it is just great. Plus, it tells the story of a singer trying to be recognized for his talent and not just his appearances. I feel like there’s a lot of similarities to the main male lead in reality however, it shows off a lot of his own music outside of his EXO days. One of my fave songs in the TV series is this one.

两人份美好 – 李俊毅 (Ending theme of “Put Your Head On My Shoulder”)

The other series I’m really into these days is Put Your Head On My Shoulder, a series spinoff from A Love So Beautiful (review) which adapts another story from the original source’s author. I love the ending theme a lot. Its cute and fun and they did a music video with snippets of the series which I think is worth sharing.

Wait a Minute – 乐华七子NEXT

I’ve been going back to check out how some young groups and celebrities started off from last year’s Idol Producer show and while the winners of the show ended up being Nine Percent boy group. One of the entertainment companies, Yuehua Entertainment ended up putting together their 7 competitors who made it pretty far in the show into their own group, which is pretty awesome since they are each very talented in their domain, whether vocal, rap or dance but also quite well-rounded to be able to do a decent job in their other areas as well. Either way, this song is fun.

装模作样 Pretending – 摩登兄弟刘宇宁 Liu Yuning

So..I’m not watching this series but I like the singer, Yuning Liu who sings this one and because of that, I like the song, the lyrics and the rhythm of it all. There isn’t a huge reason behind it. I found this song randomly and spontaneously.

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