Music Obsessions – October 2022

Another month has gone by and we’re in October. With the Halloween Marathon kicked off this week and feeling like things are relatively on track, its time to take a little moment and share some of the music I’ve been listening to in the past month as well as a few songs that’s been gradually added to the baby lullaby repertoire because my baby apparently listened to Chinese pop music in my belly and now thoroughly enjoys being put to sleep to that.

143 – Nana Ouyang 歐陽娜娜

As I’ve been watching a variety show with Nana Ouyang, I’ve been deep diving into her music lately. Its been a while since The Best Of You was released that I liked and shared previously, her latest release is one that I’ve really enjoyed. While its nothing too spectacular in terms of lyrics, I think what works really well as I listened to a lot of her music that her voice is very soothing and relaxing to listen to. I have a few other of her songs in rotation but this one does stand out to me.

舊日回憶的山丘 – 容祖兒 Joey Yung

Nothing like a jump back into time as I’ve recently been thinking about this song. Not quite sure why but its one of the earlier Joey Yung songs that I’ve always loved a lot both for its lyrics and its rhythm. Its also one of the songs that I’ve loved singing the most.

分手快樂(獨唱版) Break Up Happily – 梁靜茹 Fish Leong

The newest addition to this month’s lullaby session for our newborn has been this one. Fish Leong is one of my favorite singers ever so its not a surprise that a lot of her songs have entered into this month as I’ve been just following the songs I like to sing to my little one.

勇氣 Courage – 梁靜茹 Fish Leong

Can you see the theme that my brain thinks in terms of artist so of course, this month also had another Fish Leong song in the line-up! A little fun fact that I actually performed this one on stage for Chinese School performance back in mid-2000s (can’t remember the exact year anymore).

And of course, we have one more which is my absolute faves from Fish Leong below…

Fly Away – 梁靜茹Fish Leong

无与伦比的美丽 Incomparable Beautiful – Call Me By Fire S2 Performance

I usually don’t like sharing performance versions but Call Me By Fire S2 is back and I’m loving this year’s line-up even more than last year’s. I’ve never heard the original of this song before but this rendition is so touching mostly because its so romantic and the fact that I’ve been a big fan of the two people in this relationship since my youth days. It meant a lot to me even if it had nothing to do with me personally. Either way, the song title says it all and the performance was so beautiful.

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

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 – September 2018

Another month has gone by in 2018! Time for the monthly dose of music obsessions! A lot of random spontaneity this time around!

Lie A Little Better – Lucy Hale

If you did catch up with my last What’s Up episode, I talked about revisiting Pretty Little Liars. Which isn’t weird because as I was putting together posts and searching up some names and whatnot for Pretty Little Liars, I came across an article about Lucy Hale talking about how she wrote this song with Drew Van Acker on her mind which for those who don’t know plays a role in Pretty Little Liars and is a gorgeous guy who she has some romance/connection with and well, I personally ship them super hard. Either way, since I hadn’t heard this song or any of Lucy Hale’s songs, I decided to give it a go. Its not the best country music I’ve heard but I think its a cute and fun one. Its growing on me quite a bit.

Dear God – Hunter Hayes

I’m a huge fan of Hunter Hayes and its been a few years since he’s had music (or so it would seem for myself) but this year has seen him popping up again. I love the lyrics and the rhythm of this song as a whole. Really good stuff!

Spark – F.I.R.

If you follow me the Facebook page (you can check it out here), I wrote an extensive post about this one. The Outsiders was a breakout hit for Taiwanese TV series like maybe 10+ years ago and saw the rising of some big Taiwanese stars who went on to make some other movies and progress in their career paths with Blue Lan (I reviewed Easy Fortune Happy Life series HERE) and Dylan Kuo for starters and then also gave the rising of this 3 person rock band called F.I.R. They are honestly the real deal with great vocals and amazing composition talent for all their songs. Unfortunately, it almost felt like their fame came as quick as it left sadly. But now, its nice to see a revival of sorts for The Outsiders in movie form  and they got back F.I.R. to do the main theme song called Spark. I love it so much and have to find some way to see this movie eventually!

我在呢 (I’m Here) – Tank

A complete coincidence that we land on back to back songs for TV series. I’ve actually never heard of this one (as I don’t follow it as much as I did when I was in CEGEP (our 2 years between high school and university)). Tank doesn’t seem to make so much music anymore but I’ve always loved his stuff so I love the fact that this one is a slower, more romantic song and I still like it a lot. Reason being, I’m usually more captivated by his faster songs.

Rumors – R3HAB & Sofia Carson

Freshly released selection right here! Rumors was released this week. If you’ve been following this segment, you know that I love R3HAB. He is a great DJ producer or whatever you call it. It took a little moment to get used to Sofia Carson’s vocals here however, it kind of grew on me as the beat and rhythm went along and it just jived together awesomely.

Tribute to my Dad
Classic Cantonese Pop

80s Canto Pop is really awesome. Well, look past the really cheesy music videos, they still hold so much beauty in both the music and lyrics together. Lisa Wang is a significant pillar in the Hong Kong landscape and she’s done some great music. This is honestly just an example. Either way, if my dad was alive, he’d be celebrating his birthday tomorrow and while I’ve dialed back on getting these posts too personal, I’ve been thinking about things a lot and really wanted to share one of the many 80s classic songs that we used to listen to on car rides and that I still love to listen to and sing to every once in a while. I mean, I could’ve used Cantonese Opera but I’m sparing everyone a long video and their eardrums especially if you aren’t accustomed to it.

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

Music Obsessions [June 2017]

Another month has gone by and its been a rather fun music month over here. Maybe not quite as much as the last month since there were some great finds. However, May was pretty awesome as well. Hopping into June, we have some good music sitting around.

Let’s check it out!

Partners 拍檔 – Claire Kuo (Refresh Man Opening Theme)

Refresh Man is a Taiwanese series that I’m absolutely in love with. I was going to do the TV binge but I actually ended up starting to watch it again…so that is going to happen probably after the second viewing although I’m watching it rather leisurely. It showed me to Aaron Yan who I realized was an actor & part of a boy band that I caught on to about ten years when he first started and really liked but kind of fell of my radar when I took a break from Taiwanese series and music.

KO One – Tank (KO One Opening Theme)

The TV series that started out Aaron Yan and the boy band that he was part of, Fahrenheit, was KO One. Its this quirky fun series that I loved. It combines a lot of fantasy RPG/combat gaming things with a fun awkward humor that worked for me. I loved his character in it. I couldn’t believe that watching Refresh Man would be such a nostalgic trip back. Now, I have a few Fahrenheit tunes in my list as well as the KO One and the sequel’s theme as well. Although this wasn’t sang by Fahrenheit, Tank is a really great singer. His songs are always very powerful and a lot of fun. I’m hunting down one that I can’t remember the name of but I loved a lot. Hopefully, I’ll figure it out eventually.

Troublemaker ft Flo Rida – Olly Murs

An absolute odd bag this month. I heard this song on the radio and remembered that I used to like it. Its super catchy and even though I’m not a Flo Rida fan, I still like this song quite a bit. Its a lot of fun.

Something Just Like This – The Chainsmokers & Coldplay (Cover by VoicePlay feat. J None)

Not exactly sure what the original sounds like but I love VoicePlay. They have a great vocal balance in their group. They pull off some great acapella tunes.

There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back – Shawn Mendes (English + Spanish cover by Leroy Sanchez)

I like the Shawn Mendes original version. In fact, its been the first song in a while that I found through the radio. Shawn Mendes has been an young singer that has surprised me quite a bit in his songs and the music he makes. However, I have a soft spot for Spanish, the language in general is one that I love a lot. I still hope to get back to improving it. Either way, Leroy Sanchez is one of my new Youtube discoveries. He has a pretty good voice and his last few covers has been rather impressive. This one has been playing a lot.

That’s it for this Music Obsessions round-up!
What songs have you been listening to a lot lately?