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 – December 2020

Its the last music obsessions of 2020! There’s a lot of songs to get through so I added a little bonus at the bottom just for fun. Its the last one of the year and I wanted to those out. Let’s get straight to business!

暗夜蔷薇 Dark Night Rose – Joseph Zeng
(“The Journey Across The Night” Theme Song)

The Journey Across The Night was a really good series this year. It took forever to be released and then it didn’t really get a lot of views but one that I really loved for its direction. There were some issues with it but I’ll talk about it in a TV binge hopefully soon (I’m working through backlog to prioritize what to write up first for TV binge posts). The theme song is sang by the lead actor Joseph Zeng who really has popped in a lot of places including Netflix Chinese series Take My Brother Away (which I have yet to watch) but he also plays in recently released Hong Kong series Line Breaker 3 (which I honestly need to catch up on the previous 2 season). Either way, this song is really great. I love the mysterious style.

Really Want to Love This World 好想愛這個世界啊 – 華晨宇 Chen Yu Hua

I’m pretty selective about Chen Yu Hua’s music. He has very unique music and this one shows off his very great skills as he does the music but its the lyrics that truly are great. Plus, the melody is a little abnormal so its a rather challenging song in general. The song essentially is one that he said in The Singer 2020 that the wrote during the lockdown in China and its about depression and the inner world of someone who has depression and the message that people should reach out of those they care about with this disorder. Its a really meaning song.

Who Am I 我是谁 – Jolin Tsai feat Jony J
(“The Wolf” Main Theme)

I’ve fallen rather behind with The Wolf since I can see the frustrations that it will get down the road. Call me a pessimist if you would like but my predictions of Chinese dramas are really on point and about 5% of the TV series released nowadays truly surprise me.Still, I will hold my thoughts until I finish the series (which will run into 2021 so still lots of time to see where this all goes). All that aside, The Wolf has a fantastic soundtrack. The main theme is by Jolin Tsai, a singer that I listened to a lot in my college days. Not to mention, she’s paired with Jony J, a rapper that I recently knew about through Youth With You 2 that is truly rather impressive.

亞亞亞 Ya Ya Ya – Joey Yung

Its been a while since I’ve listened to Joey Yung’s stuff. I used to be a huge fan in her early days as a singer until she just started singing similar songs but really technical that I stopped. Thanks to Chinese variety show Our Song (Season 2), her participation resulted in a really great rendition of this song. Its a really fun one. Upbeat and fun..plus, we had a good laugh over her dance in the song. You have watch it for that. Joey Yung does have a great voice though and I do need to get back to catching up on some of her music.

Write A Poem For You 為你寫詩 – 吳克羣 Kenji Wu

This isn’t exactly a new song and the oldest of this list but I used to love this song. Kenji Wu is a king at writing songs to confess love. This song is fantastic and I’ve been relistening to it and its still so great. The lyrics are super romantic as its about a guy learning piano and writing lyrics for a girl he likes. Its a little dreamy and such but still, its a sweet little song. Still as great as when I first heard it.

BONUS: Our Song Season 2 Fave Performances

Young and Dangerous franchise is probably one of the longest running film franchises in Hong Kong and for that, its been accompanying a lot of people with some iconic songs in its soundtrack through its many films. In the team battles, this crew with Jordan Chan (known most for his role in Young and Dangerous films) leads the other guys GAI, Roy Wang and Shilei Chang, calling themselves the Hotpot Heroes as he does this new cover of one of the songs called Super Star in Trouble Times.

Hotpot Heroes does the most recent performance which earns them the final win for their group and pushing two of them directly through to the finals. This one is a great one that does a medley going through popular songs from the different decades using the backdrop of a radio program and the emotions. Its a fun one. Probably means more to me since I liked almost all the songs that they chose and a lot of them were playing on repeat when they were released and songs that I go back to frequently starting from the first song Stupid Child by Andy Lau and ending perfectly for the quattro for Meteor Shower from the original Meteor Garden series by F4. Memories…nostalgia…I just can’t believe that I was supporting Jordan Chan when people argued over this singing and now look at him, still doing so well in the business. This medley is so awesome! I could put so many more of these performances since Our Song Season 2 had a Hong Kong singer in every group so it was quite the treat to see so many familiar songs pop up.

I kind of cheated this Music Obsessions but here it is!
What have you been listening to?

Steve’s Music Mix: Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

I looked forward to doing this week’s Steve’s Music Mix.

If you haven’t been current, Steve at Steve Says has a weekly music mix segment where we use the power of our MP3 players/Ipods and its shuffle mode to determine answers for 3 questions that he asks.

Here are the rules (copied from him):

Each week I will post 3 new questions so…

(1) Go to the music player of your choice and put it on shuffle
(2) Say the questions aloud and press play
(3) Use the song title as your answers
(4) NO CHEATING

Title your post “Steve’s Music Mix – …” and link back to this week’s page.

Post your response in the comment section of that week’s page.

You can check out his post and see other creative answers HERE!

Lets check out what my MP3 whipped up for his questions:

What should I do…?

–> Defying Gravity – Wicked soundtrack (Idina Menzel & Kristen Chenoworth)

Hmm…Defy gravity.  I like that.  Not literally but going against the norm or whatnot.  Maybe it is time to chase some dreams 😉

What I shouldn’t do…?

–> El Tango de Roxanne – Moulin Rouge Soundtrack (Ewan McGregor)

Definitely! I agree! I’m not much of a dancer even if I wished I actually had taken lessons.  So no tango and in the context of the song, I will not be selling my body to no one.

What I will do…?

–> Shadow – Sam Tsui

Become a shadow? Be haunted by someone’s shadow/my past? That second part happens occasionally already but right now is not really the time for it.  Maybe its just reminding me to put my past behind me and focus on the present.

There you go! I have to say, my MP3 was feeling quite depressed this week. Its giving me a ton of slow paced songs and partially musically.

Head over to Steve’s site and give this a shot! Lets see what your music has to say about what you should, shouldn’t and will do 😉 Have some fun! 🙂