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 – 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 – December 2018

A bit of a change this December. While I usually have this month’s Music Obsessions completely dedicated to holiday music but I decided to do a separate post for it closer to Christmas since I have some other stuff I’ve been listening to. So here we are!

Like a Boss – KURA

We’re back to some more hardcore music than the last two months. KURA’s latest track is absolutely catchy and I’m loving it so much.

謝霆鋒 Nicholas Tse – 青空 Clear Sky

I’ve been a fan of Nicholas Tse’s since a long time. While he hasn’t been doing much in the past few years, its nice to see that the past year or so, he has been getting back to his roots and making some really meaningful stuff. This song gives tribute to Hong Kong. Its absolutely fantastic.

Pin Zhou 周品 – Angels & Demons 天使與惡魔

All Out of Love has ended as this post goes up. A little near the end was when we started looking back at another plot line and that is when this song showed up. I honestly think its a great song on how its performed and the lyrics and just everything about it.

一笑傾城 – Love O2O Main Theme

Netflix just picked up Love O2O, which is a 2016 Chinese TV series which I binged in the most epic way. Its fun and awesome and sweet and just all the best adjectives I have of it. With that said, the soundtrack is also fantastic. This one is awesome and is sung by a few of the supporting actors and its so fun and matches the TV series tone so much.

Tangled Love – Theway Zhang [An Oriental Odyssey Opening Theme]

Hands down my obsession for the second half of November in terms of TV series. I usually avoid TV series set in ancient China unless it has some historical drama value because those ones done by China is really good and mostly accurate, except for a few dramatization. However, this one is based on a fantasy novel. As you all know by now, my TV series are chosen based on some kind of link of the previous TV series that I watched so I started to watch this because its main lead (who I never thought was the main lead since his parts are fairly sparse) Yecheng Zheng that I liked in Love O2O as a supporting role is here. Its pretty lighthearted and quirky for the most part.

This wraps up this month’s Music Obsessions!
Before we hit 2019, look out for the music obsessions special for Christmas Music soon-ish!