Music Obsessions – September 2022

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! I honestly can’t believe its already September and I’ve actually managed to keep up with this segment with actual content. Its a little wild overall. Either way, here we are so let’s go right into it!

Cruel – Jackson Wang

At this point, Jackson Wang really has proven that his variety in his music with his resources has truly grown quite a bit including the music video themselves are really creative. While I can’t say that I love all his music the same level, there’s a certain catchiness to them that jives well. Cruel is pretty good and the video is pretty impressive. I wonder whether Jackson Wang will one day jump into being a director at this point seeing as all his music videos now have a certain fantastical story background.

眼淚落下之前 Before Tears Fall Down – Silence Wang 汪蘇瀧

This summer’s youth romance film, since it seems like there’s always one highlight film of that regard in China is My Blue Summer. The source material for My Blue Summer has already been adapted into 2 separate Chinese TV series before called Unrequited Love both times with the only difference being its network and the cast. While I think that’s kind of pointless, they’ve gone and adapted it into a film as well. Which brings us to Silence Wang’s song which I really liked when he performed it in Wonderland Season 2, a Chinese lifestyle variety show so found the original MV.

寻一个你 Searching You- Yuning Liu刘宇宁
(“Love Between Fairy and Devil” Theme)

One of the hit Chinese fantasy dramas this summer has to be Love Between Fairy and Devil so of course, I’m also watching it right now. Not binging quite the way that I normally would but everything fits so well for me from the cast to the soundtrack. Its theme is by Yuning Liu which I have shared him music quite a bit over the time this segment has been around. Probably one of the newer singers that I like nowadays since the last time I followed someone so intently has be at least a decade ago. Regardless, I’m always happy to watch series and find his song part of the OST. Its a really nice one that matches this series pretty well.

臟藝術家 Dirty Artist – MC HotDog熱狗

Its crazy how time does fly by but MC HotDog was the original first generation Chinese rapper back in my teenage days and its great to see the status that he’s achieved as a hip hop artist. In the last few years popping on music related variety show, there’s a humble side of him that makes him so respectable. In the latest season of Rap of China: All Stars Season, not only did he take all the new generation rappers under his wing in his team, there’s no doubt that during the performances that all these years experience with his writing and the messages he wants in his songs now. There’s a versatility that can’t be duplicated. Either way, he tried to not outshine his other team members most of the time but this song he did himself is probably the best of the show.

粉色海洋 Pink Ocean – 周杰倫 Jay Chou

I’d like to say that Jay Chou’s latest album seems to be all songs paired up with Taiwanese lyricist Vincent Fang who found his popularity writing up the majority of the hit songs from Jay Chou’s beginning albums, so there’s a real taste of nostalgia as this album’s songs remind me a lot of the earlier albums of Jay Chou back in 2000. This music video also is one filmed with Jay Chou’s son so its pretty fun overall. While most of the songs in the recent music videos are pretty good, this one is so light-hearted and positive.

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

Music Obsessions – November 2021

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions! Its November, friends! I can’t believe we’re already at the tail end of 2021. What happened, right? Between a lot of work, a few lockdowns and curfews and realizing how much fun it still is to stay at home and a lot of walks and TV, we’re already almost at the end of the year. Things have slowed down in general for the blog but we’re slowly picking up pace again. Of course, these monthly segments are still hanging on tight! With that said, this month’s music obsessions is not quite as varied but I figured, there’s still some good music especially a few performances pulled from a Chinese variety show that I’ve been catching every week.

一直一直一直，喜欢你 Always Always Always Love You – Xinyi Li 李鑫一
(‘Our Secret’ Main Theme)

The main theme for Chinese youth drama Our Secret matches the plot a lot. Its sang by a decent singer which I think its rather underrated and the song itself is very nice. It is a little simple in its lyrics but does match with the whole series itself. With that said, the main reason of putting this here is that it was played a ton during the watching of the series that it did grow on me and I do want to take the chance to promote Our Secret that I absolutely loved despite youth dramas being very familiar territory. I will write more about this in a TV binge soon.

啊默契 – Yuning Liu 摩登兄弟劉宇寧

Big fan of Yuning Liu in general. This is one of his latest singles and its really good. I honestly don’t have a whole lot to justify. He has a really good voice and the lyrics are decent.

等到花儿也谢了 I’ve Waited Until Flowers Withered Away- 薛之谦 Joker Xue &锤娜丽莎 Cui Na Li Sha
(Performance from Singing With Legends S2)

The next three is all part of the Singing with Legends Season 2. Its a really great music variety show where the older generation singer takes the younger singers in collaboration for various music and later turns into other teams to battle against others. The first one here is the rendition of Jacky Cheung’s popular song. Joker Xue and Cui Na Li Sha does a really great job and actually, Joker Xue’s voice in some part does sound similar to Jacky Cheung’s singing style.

那些年 Those Years – 胡夏 Fox Hu & 林子祥 George Lam
(Performance at Singing With Legends S2)

The second one is probably one of the most popular song performances to break out of this show as George Lam sings Fox Hu’s very popular song and adds a intergenerational feeling to the whole song which originally was about young love but has a different interpretation as men of different ages express their feelings about reminiscing their young loves.

Superwoman – 杨千嬅 Miriam Yeung & 萧敬腾 Jam Hsiao & 张碧晨 Bichen Zhang
(Performance from Singing with Legends S2)

While this group didn’t quite have the desired affect in battle with its counterparts as a whole in the team battles, the collaboration between these three talents singers has a completely beautiful feeling as they balance each other’s tones and voices incredibly well. There’s so much to love about this performance. If there was one word to describe the feeling is a really perfect harmony.

Stand By Me – 梅艷芳 Anita Mui

I know that Stand By Me is a very popular song and its a song that many people do love. However, Anita Mui was the Cantonese singer who chose to change it into Cantonese lyrics. In the face of the biopic for Antia Mui’s life being released, its a great time to share a song that I personally really love of hers among the many songs that she’s had during her short life. Both as an actress or as a performer, she is quite the Hong Kong diva and probably the only one that fits into the diva title. Either way, I’ve been feeling a bit nostalgic lately and flipping through these older songs and revisiting them so maybe next month will have some more, who knows.

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

Music Obsessions – February 2021

Welcome to this month’s Music Obsessions! The past month of crazy work phase was mostly music and TV that offered a lot of background company so suffice to say, there’s a lot that I want to share but then I’ve picked the highlights of my faves. Let’s check it out!

《无华》 No Extravagance- 张靓颖 Jane Zhang &摩登兄弟刘宇宁 Yuning Liu

While I haven’t gotten back to Legend of Fei (but will soon), this ending theme for the series is one of my absolutely favorites of this year so far. I love songs like this plus some of the lyrics and singing really is my cup of tea. Plus, I do like Yuning Liu quite a bit as a singer. Plus, the lyrics itself is fairly romantic and does match the series rather well.

哥本哈根的另一個我 My Doppelgänger in Copenhagen – Fiona Sit 薛凱琪

In recent years, Fiona Sit has definitely showed off the musical talent that she has. Its not saying that she didn’t have it before but when she first started, it was a very cute sweetheart sort of song singing about writing love letters to Keanu Reeves and all that cute stuff. The last few years, whether its the song she chooses to sing and the music videos that she puts together is much more mature (and it makes sense since she is older now) and it matches her so well.

Love Can Change Our Ways – Raffy

I don’t follow a lot of French-Canadian bands but I had caught Raffy at least a decade ago (if not more) and from then, I’ve been following them on and off. Recently, I’ve found them on Twitch live shows and its been a ton of fun which makes for some uplifting way to spend my Thursday and Saturday evenings. It also lead me to discover a song that had slipped through my radar called Love Can Change Our Ways which has such a positive vibe to it and its absolutely awesome.

玩家 Player -曹楊Young ft. 派偉俊 Patrick Brasca

Patrick Brasca seems to always be featured in someone else’s song. His own music is not too impressive in my opinion however, he does pair up with good singers and in some great songs like when he started off in Jay Chou’s Love Confession or in the Kung Fu Panda 3 song and now, his most recent is with Young Cao, a singer that I actually don’t listen to a lot of but he does have a decent voice. This song is pretty cool overall. I like the rhythm of the whole thing.

Blue – Justin 黄明昊

My latest fave is Justin Huang’s Blue. Its really odd because when Justin was in Idol Producer, I didn’t really think that he deserved as much popularity as he got. I think he ended the show ranked in 2nd but after that, he really shines through the variety shows he picks (and he is in a lot of them) and then still has time to make music and even in another variety show shared how he was accomplishing his dream of creating his own clothing brand. For someone that’s only 20 (or 21, I can’t remember), that’s pretty impressive. With that said, his songs are really hit and miss at times. The last few definitely more hits though. This one is super chill in rhythm, almost like in a relaxing lounge and then the lyrics are really good (and some of it fairly young love sort of cute).

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

Music Obsessions – April 2020

April is upon us! 2020 is going by crazy fast and spring is already here! The world’s a bit crazy right now but its why music is so important! At least for myself, I have coincidentally been watching a lot of music-related variety shows, making this Music Obsessions a little more padded than normal. I just can’t choose and really want to share it all! Its different music genres and a little slow and a little fast as well to give it a little balance. Hopefully you will like it!

GOOD NIGHT – Lil Ghost 小鬼

We start off with something fun and light. Lil Ghost (Linkai Wang) previously a member of Nine Percent, released this song back in 2018 however, I only caught this because of variety show Our Song. Lil Ghost is one of the most talented young rappers in the Chinese music landscape that really has a lot of potential and while I might not have seen it so much in Idol Producer, the many variety shows that he’s been in really shows off his personality as well as his talent. At least on-screen, he brings a lot of positive vibes and that’s really great.

Half Moon Serenade 月半小夜曲 – Hacken Lee 李克勤 & Charlie Zhou 周深 (“Our Song” performance)

Hacken Lee and Charlie Zhou’s every single performance in Our Song was all my favorite so it all comes down to which song I love personally a lot and my favorite song of Hacken Lee (definitely in top 5 singles) goes to Half Moon Serenade and they do a fantastic job here. Its how their voices play off each other really well and also how they manage to pair together so well.

Remaining Years 餘年 – Sean Xiao 肖戰

Sean Xiao has been through a rather ridiculous situation in my opinion early in March, right when I started checking out his stuff, peaked by interest after Who’s The Murderer and then his stellar performances in Our Song and my interest in checking out The Untamed eventually (but haven’t yet). I ended up finding this song that I’ve put on repeat a whole lot. He is a very talented singer who started out in a boy group XNINE but ended up pursuing an acting career nowadays but he still has really good voice. Remaining Years is a song in last year’s series Joy of Life (that I also didn’t see but my mom is currently watching) and its really the song and how it sounds that I find has a hard element to learn how to sing.

The Younger Me 少年 – Wakin Chau 周華健

Wakin Chau is more like my parents music but I grew up as a little girl listening to him and knowing a lot of his song in the 80s and 90s. So many memory songs and he has a unique voice that you can just recognize right away. His latest album took him years to put together and the lyrics here (while not written by him) is incredibly meaningful and kind of grabs me everytime. I’ll translate the Chorus and ending verse:

Some people we don’t see again, Some dreams have been forgotten
I sing every song to keep the happiness
Some roads are hard to walk, Some pains take a lifetime to heal
I can still smile and live

Sometimes its too late to settle, The years have passed before your soul
Fortunately there is a little faith, Accompanying us to go through everyday
Don’t forget your heart’s younger self, The wild and brave younger self at the start

100 Ways – Jackson Wang

Adding an English song to the mix! Jackson Wang makes some pretty fantastic music videos. While I can’t say that I love a lot of his music, mostly because I’m pretty picky with his style of music. However, 100 Ways is definitely my fave so far and the one that I’ve replayed the most. Its upbeat and fun. The lyrics is a tad repetitive but the whole song’s rhythm and beat just works so catchy!

我说了算(I Have the Final Say) – Nicholas Tse, Jam Hsiao & Karry Wang
(Me to Us performance)

Me to Us is a great variety show that has really only started. Putting together Nicholas Tse, Jam Hsiao and Karry Wang, the former two who I know more than the latter. Nicholas Tse wrote this song for the first performance of Me To Us as they all sing it together. Its just all kinds of awesome. I can’t fangirl over the fact that I just thought back that its been 20 years that I’ve been a fan of Nicholas Tse and his performance is every bit as fantastic now than when I first heard his songs in 2000 (maybe even 1999). Not to mention, this song is so fun and powerfully rock!

When I Met You當遇見你  – Yuning Liu 劉宇寧
(Ending Theme “Skate Into Love”)

I kind of debated whether to put this here since I might end up using this video as a part of the TV binge when I finish Skate Into Love but you know what, I truly have been lately the most obsessed with this one. I have shared a few of Yuning Liu’s songs before and this one is also really cute and romantic and fits this series a lot. There’s some great singing going on here from Yuning Liu as well.

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

Music Obsessions – May 2019

Welcome to the next Music Obsessions!

Its been a long and tough month with a lot of music by my side. There were quite a few new discoveries and I really had a lot of fun just listening to a lot of new stuff. However, I’m keeping it fairly constricted here to keep things on track plus, some of the music I’ll leave for next month if its still on my list. 😉

Evidence 證據 – 楊乃文 Naiwen Yang

The Singer 2019 revealed me to Naiwen Yang who is a Taiwanese singer more in the indie vein. Her music is pretty good and while she isn’t the more popular choice in the competition, this song that she performed is really good. The lyrics and the vibe of it all is the style that I personally like.

Expose 揭穿 – 黄子韬 Z. Tao

My recent obsession in terms of TV series has to be The Brightest Star in the Sky. Its about to end but the last few weeks watching it is just great. Plus, it tells the story of a singer trying to be recognized for his talent and not just his appearances. I feel like there’s a lot of similarities to the main male lead in reality however, it shows off a lot of his own music outside of his EXO days. One of my fave songs in the TV series is this one.

两人份美好 – 李俊毅 (Ending theme of “Put Your Head On My Shoulder”)

The other series I’m really into these days is Put Your Head On My Shoulder, a series spinoff from A Love So Beautiful (review) which adapts another story from the original source’s author. I love the ending theme a lot. Its cute and fun and they did a music video with snippets of the series which I think is worth sharing.

Wait a Minute – 乐华七子NEXT

I’ve been going back to check out how some young groups and celebrities started off from last year’s Idol Producer show and while the winners of the show ended up being Nine Percent boy group. One of the entertainment companies, Yuehua Entertainment ended up putting together their 7 competitors who made it pretty far in the show into their own group, which is pretty awesome since they are each very talented in their domain, whether vocal, rap or dance but also quite well-rounded to be able to do a decent job in their other areas as well. Either way, this song is fun.

装模作样 Pretending – 摩登兄弟刘宇宁 Liu Yuning

So..I’m not watching this series but I like the singer, Yuning Liu who sings this one and because of that, I like the song, the lyrics and the rhythm of it all. There isn’t a huge reason behind it. I found this song randomly and spontaneously.

That’s it for this music obsessions!
What have you been listening to lately?

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?