Music Obsession: November 2019

 

Its hard to imagine that I survived the crazy that was October and in a blur, we have arrived in November. Surprisingly, I find some really fun music to get through all of the crazy which is great because music is what keeps me alive in my downtime. I’m just going to jump right in. Some of this was found through some of the little events I went to during the past month, others are just randomly in Youtube when I had time to peruse my subscribed channels.

Let’s check it out!

Flip – Theo 朱正廷

Its no surprise that out of the nine members of Nine Percent, well, the ex-Nine Percent now, my favorite member ever since the Idol Producer show is Theo. He is a fantastic dancer and even when I watched him in the different variety and reality shows, he just has a great personality, so I’m happy to see him finally coming out with his own EP.

Senkyaku Banrai 千客万来 – Daoko & Miyavi (‘Diner’ Main Theme)

I watched Diner during Festival du Nouveau Cinema. You can find the review HERE. Its one of my top 5 films of the festival which pretty much tops the movies and a part of its style has to go to its great soundtrack. While I couldn’t find a ton of the music, I did find its main theme and its very awesome music video. The video is full of energy and a fantastic bridge part that just elevates the entire song even more. Its great!

Bomba – UNINE

As Nine Percent disbands to their separate path, 2019’s group to come out is UNINE from Season 2 of Idol Producer. While I didn’t finish the show and now its locked for iQiyi subscribers only (which I’ll get back to eventually), UNINE is a group that I’m seeing their members show up in different reality and variety shows lately so I looked a little more into their music. I can’t say that I think the members are as talented as Nine Percent but UNINE does have a nice balance of talent and Bomba is a pretty fun song while I was looking up their songs. Plus, they are just a few months old as a group so they still have time to put out more stuff.

Call of Heroes 危城 – Shin 信

We are going back a few years now to 2017 as I rediscover this song which I’ve never actually added onto my Favorite playlist on Youtube. Shin is a really great singer and as I watch him and his daughter in the Chinese variety show When I Grow Up currently, its actually made me want to revisit his music as he is incredibly talented. One of my favorite songs from him, other than the song that put him on the map, is this one.  A lot of high energy music this time but I’ve always been a fan of songs with the traditional Chinese music sort of flair mixed into it.

帥到分手 –周湯豪 Nick Chou

So..I fell out of the Taiwanese music scene for a while and as I start diving back in to catch up TV series and movies and such, I’m also obviously getting back to music and the most random find which just appeared on my Youtube suggestions was this song. Don’t know this singer, never heard of this song but it looked fun so I checked it out and its been just playing on repeat. I do have to say that some angles of him looks like Jackson Wang and his style reminds a lot of Alan Kuo. Apparently, I’ve missed some good stuff. I’m not sure if its the lyrics or the tune or the energy but its really good and once I catch up with some other stuff, I’ll be going back to hunt down more of Nick Chou’s songs.

都是你害的 All You Did – 畢書盡 Bii

In the whole Taiwanese drama catch-up phase and after a really fun conversation with my good friend visiting from out of town, I ended up FINALLY starting up Bromance which made me want to rediscover Bii who plays a supporting role in the drama. Bii actually is a pretty decent actor but he is a phenomenal singer. He writes his own songs and you can see the growth he has had from the first time that I listened to his music to now, which I have a pick of his for next month probably.

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

Music Obsessions – July 2019

We’re at the next Music Obsessions! Passing the halfway point and its been a fun month of discovering a lot of new music and whatnot, mostly inspired by the variety shows and TV series that I’m watching. There’s quite the mix here from rap to pop to boy groups to upbeat and fun. Hopefully you will have fun and discover something new!

Let’s check it out!

別叫我達芬奇 Don’t Call Me Da Vinci – Lil Ghost 小鬼

Kicking off one of the members of Nine Percent’s single that came out in April (I think). Because of Beautiful Youth, I had a new appreciation for his talent since he didn’t quite appeal to me when I was watching Idol Producer. While I’m not exactly into his rap style, I like this one a lot. Its been on my mind a lot and its very catchy. Not to mention, after watching Beautiful Youth, I like his personality so I’m looking forward to see what other music he comes up with.

3201公里 3021 Miles- 费启鸣 Qiming Fei

Talking about Beautiful Youth, this is one of the songs for the show sang by one of the members. Ever since watching Lipstick Prince, QiMing Fei has been on my radar. He has a really nice voice except he hasn’t quite had a lot of original work yet. He does mostly covers but this one is an original song and its really nice. The perfect road trip song, I’d say.

Rule Breaker – Nine Percent

Because of Idol Producer and Beautiful Youth, its without question that they have some link to the Nine Percent music and showcase a few of their songs. In the process, I discovered this one which I like quite a bit. Its upbeat and highlights on all of their strengths as both dancers and singers and rappers. So far, I’d have to say that this group is pretty well-rounded talent as one of the groups to come out of these boy band training camps/competition although I’m not sure the concept behind why the group disbands after a certain time frame (which is in October of this year, I think).

R1SE – R1SE
(MIB: International Promo Song for China)

The most recent group to come out of these training competition things is R1SE from Produce Camp. I was a tad skeptical about this show at the beginning but I’m going to admit that while I think a few of the members have some training to be more well-rounded in their skills, there are some that are quite impressive. Plus, they do have the attitude for it. They’ve only been a group for a little while and have this one song which is being used as the China promotional song for MIB International, which you can’t expect anything less when you have Tencent being the production unit for the show in the first place. Still, its an upbeat song with some badass-ness to it.

Let’s Shut Up & Dance – Jason DeRulo, Lay Zhang, NCT 127

Man, it seems Idol Producer has really gotten into me lately. The host of Idol Producer is Lay Zhang and he was at the MET gala lately and after some more research, he was actually in a collaboration with Jason DeRulo and and such. Its pretty awesome because he’s very talented, especially in the dancing area. Plus, his songs are always a ton of fun and really catchy like Sheep and Namanana. His latest song is Honey which I like but still getting into it.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions!
I have a lot of new music so I bumped some of it to the next round-up (since I’m sure music is the lesser priority in the coming month).
What have you been listening to lately?