Music Obsessions – December 2022

A little late for this month’s Music Obsessions! Hard to imagine we are at the last one of this year. While I already got my Spotify Wrapped, I decided to do that with my final year round-up at the end of this month and do a little runthrough for January. Either way, there are still some good music that I’ve discovered or re-discovered.

恐懼蠶食心靈 Fear Eats The Soul – 鄭欣宜 Joyce Cheng

Joyce Cheng has really improved in her singing. While I’m not exactly a fan of all her music, I’ve been following her music more and more. Not only are her music videos done really well but the music itself from her voice and the emotions are all there. It really helps carry the song. This song and the way she sings it is quite a good match. Its nice to see that she’s able to embrace a lot of different music styles since I’ve shared probably three of her songs in Music Obsessions and each one has been different from the other.

比莉卡厲害 Billie is Incredible – Billie

A rough idea of what the song probably would be in English. I’m not quite sure the exact translation. This song is the main theme from Netflix Taiwanese series Mom Don’t Do That that aired a few months ago. The series itself is fantastic and I will be talking more about in an upcoming project that I will launch at the beginning of 2023. I’m in preparation mode as of the beginning of November and working hard to get things ready for January launch. Either way, this song is simply a lot of fun. The series is a ton of fun as well. Its happy and upbeat and that’s why its here.

烏梅子醬 The Dark Plum Sauce – 李榮浩 Ronghao Li

I honestly don’t listen to enough of Ronghao Li’s music. He writes some pretty great songs and none of that I’ve ever discovered have been bad. Its all pretty great ballads. This one actually feels a little bit of early Jay Chou from the music video to the rhythm itself. Its something that I’m rather nostalgic about since that was part of my teen years when music was the main emotional support. This song’s lyrics are also super sweet much like its title.

好想約你 – Gigi 炎明熹

This year’s new addition to my list of new artists that I think are pretty good is Gigi who was Hong Kong TVB’s Star Academy Season 1 winner. Its pretty nice to see there’s still some talent since most of the time when I listen to any new artists from Hong Kong shows, its all very disappointing. This song is pretty fun and cute and matches her age. Her voice reminds me really good female singers in the 90s which seems like its lost nowadays. Either way, the youthfulness of the song makes it so feel good.

藍奕邦 Pong Nan – Happy Prince 快樂王子

I wish that there was a better video for this song but I don’t talk about Pong Nan enough since from the beginning when he was making music, I loved a lot of his work. Most of his song’s lyrics are meaningful and thoughtful. It has this nice touch of intricacy that I’m a big fan of since it feels like its a rarity. As I was researching for this post, I learned that this song was actually the main theme song for a play.

Bonus: 我比从前更寂寞 I’m Lonelier Than Before – 陈慧娴 Priscilla Chan & 杨坤 Yang Kun
(Singing With Legends S4 Performance)

I’ve shared this song in a previous Music Obsessions (probably a few years ago) which is a pretty popular song of Yang Kun’s which he wrote during his depression and talks about the feeling of depression. Its a song that paired up with his distinctive voice is amazing. Truly heartfelt and deep. This time for the Singing With Legends show, he pairs up with Priscilla Chan to sing it together and it speaks volumes in a different way. Thinking about it, it sure is time to do a post for Priscilla Chan’s music (if I remember to do it next year).

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

Music Obsessions – February 2019

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! The past month included a whole lot of Nicholas Tse and TV series theme songs and then the past 2 to 3 weeks have been all about the songs performed on The Singer 2019. It makes it a little hard to decide what really did stand out because of the sheer amount of music that I listen to on repeat. Just saying, its going to be heavy on The Singer 2019 because its the music I’ve been really into lately. Plus Chinese New Year is right around the corner so somehow Chinese music fits here really well.

Abyss 深淵 – Nicholas Tse 謝霆鋒 feat. Jackson Wang 王嘉爾

I could choose a ton of Nicholas Tse’s older music which essentially has been going on repeat on my end but he recently dropped his newest single. Perhaps a new album is on the way at this pace. He has had a good few singles in the past year or so. Either way, I like this one well enough. Not my favorite but this one is pretty cool.

我比以前更寂寞 I Am Lonelier Than Before – 杨坤 Kun Yang

I’ve always heard of Kun Yang but never actually a lot of his music before but The Singer 2019 really made an impression with me when he did his first performance. It wasn’t as well received by the audience voters there but to me, I thought it really showed such a depth both his voice and just emotions and it had a good balance. I’ve been trying to check out more of his music but his three performances have all been so unique and awesome so I just decided to share the first one that impressed me.

劉宇寧 Yuning Liu – 讓酒 (Tomb of the Sea Song)

Yuning Liu is someone recently on my radar even slightly before The Singer 2019 on Happy Camp. However, although he got beat out by ANU (which I will post some of their music next time), I felt like the version of the song he chose is fantastic so I went looking for some other songs and landed on this one, which isn’t a cover but a song in a TV series from last year (that I didn’t see but is on my radar). I really like the depth of his voice as well. There’s this nice pop vibe to it but also this husky rougher bits that really give it his own uniqueness.

我們 Us – 吳青峰 Tsing-Fong Wu

Playing both the MC of The Singer as well as a competitor is Taiwanese singer-songwriter. I hadn’t followed his music since his days as lead of Sodagreen, which is a little while back since it was at the tail end of when I was listening to Taiwanese music before falling out of it for a little bit. Hearing him now especially his version of Eason Chan’s Us is really good. I actually had never heard this song before but the lyrics is fantastic especially the fact that he connected with this song in a way that I can relate to and the lyrics that rings out to me: “My biggest regret is that your regrets is related to me.”

Your Love 你的愛情 – Escape Plan 逃跑計劃

Escape Plan is a Chinese indie rock band. Well, its obvious that they have talent but still, it seems perhaps that they are in the wrong competition or that indie rock is still too new in China. Its my personal opinion of course. It may be on the rise but they stuck with singing their own songs for the first two rounds which resulted in them being the first performers to leave the competition. Sad because I really like how this song turned out. Escape Plan is definitely on my radar especially when they made a comeback performance and covered Bruno Mars’ When I Was Your Man. Personally, I think they did good to stick to themselves and their style with their own music but if they did something mainstream like Bruno Mars for one of the performance, they might actually have stayed around longer. Who knows, right?

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