A Musical Archive

I think its bout time i revive this sinking blog -P

My last paper was on Monday, giving me a week of hols b4 college starts again.. (now 4 days left). Not much of a holiday tho. I've been sleeping at irregular hours like 4 in the morning, and waking up at 11 am.. having this sense of time freedom to do whatever i like at whatever time since its d holidays. Days when I do not have a car, I'll just eat whatever there is in the kitchen for lunch.. bread, biscuits, whatever..

One word to sum my current condition.. Hippy =)

That aside, I was switching on the radio as I drove home after my last paper on Mon. Hitz was blaring out some noisy boring song, Mix was playing its usual same old melodies... so I switched to My Fm. And my I couldn't tell identify any of the artistes or songs! Think the last time I was into Chinese songs was during secondary school times! =O Felt soo outdated! Given that, I'm not a fan of the current Chinese boy bands nor the cutesy sounding female artistes.

Speaking of which, there were some bands/artistes which I've grown to like in high school. Some i stopped listening to, some still do:

(In chronological order of when i started listening to them)

1) Michael and Victor Wong (Guang Liang & Pin Guan) (1998-2001)

Victor and Michael

The first Malaysian artistes to go "international' in the Chinese music industry. Not sure when I first heard them, maybe in primary school =P Once I heard their songs, like I was instantly hooked on. My all-time favs are 想见你, 掌心,天使 and 朋友.

Sadly they disbanded and now we see Guang Liang being ahead of Pin Guan in terms of popularity and awards. Poor thing, I've always preferred Pin Guan =P

2) S.H.E. (2001-2003)

Hebe, Ella, Selina

I was hooked to their early albums especially their 1st "女生宿舍" (Girls Dorm) and 2nd 青春株式會社 (Youth Society) where we have this karoke version CD and my sisters and I used to take on the roles on Selina Hebe and Ella. And dunno why, they always make me sing Ella's lines, cuz "apparently" i have a lower voice... -_-; but sometimes I sneakily sang Hebe's lines to prove that my voice ain';t that low! x)

I stopped listening to their songs, when they became more lala-ish, dressing and song wise. Everything became so cutesy till I couldn't stand it. Nevertheless, they are current songs of theirs which are pretty nice, which I only hear if recommended =P

3) F4!! (2001-2002)

Ken, Jerry, Vic, Vanness

They're no Fantastic 4, Friends 4, or Forever 4 watever... but Flower 4!! xDDD No idea how someone could come up with the name..but thank God the group remains known only as F4.

This Taiwanese boy band was made popular after the Meteor Garden series. And seriously, their singing and acting sucks. But you know la, boy bands are made to be "idols" with their good looks..and that time I found them adorable, (esp Ken Zhu!) and their songs were actually quite catchy hehe. And together with my girlfriends, we would cut their lyrics from newspapers or mags, paste them in a book, and sing them =P However the craze died down when the band disbanded. Honestly, they weren't as great as we hyped them out to be haha. Now I sometimes still play their songs when I need something to sing-along with.

4) F.I.R (2004-2005)

Comprised of Faye, Ian and Real (weird name). Faye's the singer with an amazing good vocals and fantastic pitch, Ian is the band leader, keyboardist and composer, and Real is the super kuasa electric guitarist who can sing too! (He has some solo albums now).

Heard their songs on the radio, and fell in love with songs like "Lydia", "Wo Men De Ai" and "Fly Away". Seriously I really admire this band, as their songs are all self-composed and are really good! Unlike the usual soppy Chinese ballads we hear on the radio, their songs are more geared to electric rock and pop rock genre.

5) Stephanie Sun- Singapore (all throughout)

Man, this lady here posseses one the most unique voices I've ever heard! Love love love her voice! I don't actually follow her albums, but only her hit songs like 天黑黑, 完美的一天, The Moment, and my fav- 遇見! Then there's a duet she did with Tanya Chua called 原点 which still remains as one of my fav songs of all time. For me, she is one of the female chinese artistes with the best voice around =)

6) Lin Jun Jie (JJ Lin) (2004-2006)

Another Singaporean artiste I like. And also one of the rare singer/song writers in the industry. I don't exactly follow all of his songs, but only the good ones haha. My favs include 一千年以后, 江南, 会有那么一天, 简简单单.

And now the 2 artistes which I truly admire for their work and talent:

7) David Tao (2003 to present)

Someone first recommended his songs to us, so we bought his 2nd album then - Black Tangerine, and ooo..and I became an instant fan! His songs are also self composed, and the genre is mainly R&B, pop to a bit of rock. Reallly soothing melodies. I can't list what songs I like, cuz I like all of them! =P I usually pop in his cassette or CDs when I neeed to destress. He was my fav Chinese artiste until this guy came along..

8) Wang Lee Hom (2000s to present)

Tadaa~! My fav artiste of all time and of cuz the most good looking one! x) But, there's more to this guy than his looks, for he is multi-multi-talented! He plays about 10 instruments, speaks many languages, has a 4.0 CPGA, learned Mandarin only when he was 17.. and now has written and composed over 10 albums of Chinese songs by himself!

And I just found out one thing bout his songs... Most of his heart-wrenching love songs were actually written for his ex-girlfriend whom he met in college. 唯一 (Only One), 如果你聽見我的歌 (If You Heard My Song), Mary Says and many others were written about her. Besides, Forever Love was written when his ex was engaged. And Kiss Goodbye I assume, is probably bout him saying goodbye to her. Doesn't sound like he has gotten over her tho...but its soo touching... =(

Besides his ballads, his last 2 albums tracks were in the "Chinked-out" genre, which he self-coined.. meaning a blend of hip-hop and Chinese trad music, which made his songs sound real interesting!

I went for his Heroes of Earth concert last year, and though I sat at the last rows of the stadium, and he was like a 5 cm figure, I was just floored by his melodic voice. Melted is the word =P Click this link for my review on d concert:

http://weblog.xanga.com/huieye/575351480/lee-homs-heroes-of-the-earth-concert.html

Ahhhh...I think I'll stay a fan as long as his music is goood =)

And before this post becomes a Lee Hom tribute, reviewing these artistes brings back lots of fond memories to me. Most of their songs I've not heard for a long long time, and while writing this, they are playing in my head again! Albeit, with forgotten lyrics =P

A reason I've not really listened to Chinese music for some time, is because every new artiste is just an emulation of another, and they all sound the same to me. Hopefully, a new breed of talent would descend from nowhere and sweep me off my feet like these few have =)