A MEI MEI

WEN ZHANG

POWER STATION

 VARIOUS

GO GO & ME ME

HUANG PIN YUAN

THINK

 TO BE CONTINUED

GOODBYE MY LOVE

WE HAVE FISH

SAY FOREVER 

HEARTLESS 

The sister (Saya) and cousin (Raya) of A Mei, collectively known as the duo A Mei Mei, have come out with their third Mandarin album.  Altogether there are eleven tracks including the fast title track "Think". 

A unique thing is that two solo EPs of Saya and Raya have been released at the same time as this album.  These EPs each contain four solo tracks which are also included in the album.  This means that if you only like either one of the members and not the duo as a group, you can opt to buy the EP rather than the album. 

EP of Raya    EP of Saya

BACK TO TOP

Veteran singer Wen Zhang has just released his new Mandarin offering after a four-year absence from the music scene.  Produced by himself, this album contains four new songs and six cover versions.  The interesting thing about the cover versions is that all the tracks he chooses are originally sung by female singers, such as Faye Wong's "Red Bean" (or Hong Dou), Karen Mok's "He Doesn't Love Me" (or Ta Bu Ai Wo), Xu Jing Chun's "Love Is Longer Than The Road" (or Lu Chang Qing Gen Chang), CoCo's "Past Love" (or Wang Ri Qing), Winnie Hsin's "Learnt" (or Ling Wu) and Shunza's "Coming Home" (or Hui Jia).  As for the new works, the first single is the ballad "Dust" which is also the theme-song for the movie "A Time To Remember" starring Leslie Cheung.

If you have RealPlayer , click below to preview four of the tracks.

BACK TO TOP

MUSIC STYLE : ROCK / BALLADS / FOLK / BLUES

OVERRIDING THEME : LOVE

Power Station (or Dong Li Huo Che) has come out with their fifth Mandarin album.  Produced by Liu Tian Jian, Jeff Xu De Chang and Peter Wong, the ten track album sticks to the duo's winning music style, namely a fusion of rock & pop.  

The first single cum title Track 1"Goodbye My Love" is a retro-feel rock piece which has been brilliantly infused with energy by both guys.  It is written by an uprising song-writer Xie Ming You (the same guy who has co-written Valen Hsu's "Don't Say Goodbye").

The second single Track 2 "Innocent Eyes" is a slow-rock ballad which is also the Mandarin theme song for the latest movie by Luc Besson "The Messenger : The Story Of Joan Of Arc" starring Milla Jovovich and John Malkovich.  However it sounds overly-dated for my personal liking.

There's a few other slow-rock ballads here (something which PS is good at) which promote repeat listening.  They include  Track 4 "One Who Doesn't Cry" and Track 6 "Wounded Sweat".  It is worth noting that both songs are composed by another promising song-writer Zhou Jie Lun (whose past works include Billie's "Slave Of Love", Kan Kan's "The Tears" and the charity song "Snail" sung by What's Music artistes).

This new release features quite a few uprising song-writers.  Besides the afore-mentioned Xie Ming You and Zhou Jie Lun, there's another guy by the name of Ah Xuan.  Judging by the quality of his work here, namely Track 3 "Let It Be", this is one musician to look out for in the future.  Not only is it highly recommended by Power Station themselves, it is also my personal favourite.  It has a folkish-feel to it and sounds very refreshing and friendly.

There's no question about Power Station's vocal power.  Whether it's loud rock or soft ballads, they sound equally good in them.  This applies even when they cross-over to other music genre like folk (Track 3 "Let It Be") and blues (Track 9 "Cruel Angel" composed by the duo Chen Jian Ning and Chen Zheng Qing).  In the current Mandarin pop music scene where there's not many artistes who possess the suitable vocals to sing rock (think Chyi Chin and Andy Hui), you can always count on Power Station to deliver their stuff. 

BACK TO TOP

This is an album which has only eight tracks and feature four dudes who appear as comic demons on the cover and are collectively known as Mo Ting Chi Kuang : they are singer cum musician Huang Da Wei who represents "Mo" as in he wields magic (or Mo Li) over music, singer Nicholas Tse (or Xie Ting Feng) who is "Ting" as it forms part of his name, singer cum composer You Hong Ming who is "Chi" as in the devotion (or Chi Xin) he has towards music and lastly musician Huang Zhong Yuan who represents "Kuang" as in the strong power of his voice (or Kuang Liang Gao Ang).  

The first single is the light folk-rock title track "We Have Fish" which are sung by all the four guys.  The remaining are solo numbers and include Huang Da Wei's hit "You Made Me Drunk" (or Ni Ba Wo Guan Zui), Huang Zhong Yuan's composition hit "Won't Say I Love You" (or Jue Kou Bu Ti Ai Ni) originally sung by Ronald Cheng and You Hong Ming's work "Doesn't Matter" (or Wu Suo Wei) originally performed by Tanya.  Nicholas Tse writes and sings the only Cantonese song here "Sound Of The End Of Century".

BACK TO TOP

MUSIC STYLE : FOLK / BALLAD / LITE-ROCK

OVERRIDING THEME : LOVE

Another newcomer to the music scene, this time it is a pair of siblings duo "Go Go & Me Me" (pronounced as Gor Gor & Mei Mei, which means older brother & younger sister).  Some background data : the elder brother Go Go is Chen Zhong Yi while the younger sister Me Me is Chen Qi Xuan; both are giants in terms of height as Go Go is 187cm while Me Me is 175cm; Go Go mainly writes the songs while Me Me sings; Go Go also acts as the pianist & keyboardist; both are still currently studying;  and they are discovered by Sony Music when they won the first prize in the song-writing category of a 1998 competition organised jointly by MTV and Sony Music.  This is the same competition in which newbies like Jolin, Jiang Mei Qi and Hou Xiang Ting were discovered and while Sony Music, being the organiser, has the first right to sign on any of the contestants from this competition, Go Go & Me Me was the only lucky pair to be hand-picked by Sony.  Hmm ....... wonder how the Sony executives are feeling now that Jolin has turned out to be one of the hottest and best-selling newcomers this year.

Altogether there are ten vocal tracks and two instrumental numbers in this debut offering, out of which seven of the vocal songs are composed by Go Go.  The album is produced by Chen Rou Jing and Jin Tie Zhang.

Sony has enlisted a Western song-writer Russ Ballard (who has written songs for 911 & Santana before) to co-write the nice ballad title Track 2 "Say Forever" whose lyrics and arrangement are supposed to evoke a Christmas feeling (and I must say they have succeeded in doing so).  Being the first single, they have flown specially to Tokyo to shoot the music video.  There's also a soothing piano instrumental version of "Say Forever" performed by Go Go (Track 12).

Like "Say Forever", the light-tempo and a bit-alternative sounding Track 7 "Rainy Day" is composed by someone else, namely two people by the name of Peng Jin Hui and Xie Yu Shu (note : the latter is the same person who has sung a controversially named duet "Some Women Cannot Be Touched" with Lin Zhi Xuan).

One song that I like is the airy and breezy second single Track 1 "Heaven" (composed by Go Go and written by Chen Rou Jing) which is complemented by Me Me's fresh-sounding vocals and musician Jiang Jian Ming's haunting guitar-playing.  An instrumental version of "Heaven" is enclosed here too (Track 11).

I'm impressed by the consistent and competent quality of Go Go's seven compositions - they are melodious and catchy - here's one talented song writer to look out for in the future.  Some of his other works include the ballad Track 3 "I'm Like You" and the friendly country-folk Track 4 "Said You Will Give Way To Me" which is the only song here whereby one can get to hear his vocals in proper.

Me Me's vocals are pleasant and clean-cut.  For a newcomer, she has handed in an above-average performance.  A worthy mention is that her interpretation of the only English Track 8 "It's Enough" sounds natural and is a cut above those by many other Taiwan singers who are often hampered by their less-than-perfect English pronounciations.

Overall an easy-listening debut album that leaves an impression.  There's a comment from the album sleeves that says "...... what draws our attention is not their physical heights but rather the extraordinary heights that they achieve with their musical talents ........", I couldn't agree more.

BACK TO TOP

After close to three years, Huang Pin Yuan has once again released his brand new Mandarin album.  Containing ten tracks, his new offering is produced by, among others, Jonathan Lee, Jeff Chia (or Jia Ming Shu) and Chen Zi Hong.

The ballad title track "Heartless" is the first single and is composed by himself.  According to Rock Records, it is supposedly ten times more listenable and "durable" than his all-time hit "How Could You Bear To Make Me Sad".  Other songs include a mid-tempo R&B number "Why Love You So Much" featuring a vocal dialogue by Karen Mok, another ballad "You Are Always By My Side" and a retro-feel dance track "Rubber Flower".  Huang Pin Yuan also wrote a composition duet "Marriage Ad" for his friend Victor Huang Pin Guan (the bespectacled guy from the duo Wu Yin Liang Pin), hoping that the latter can settle down soon.

If you have RealPlayer , click below to preview four of the tracks.

BACK TO TOP