Info

Album: 崇拜 /  j’Adore (Buy Album)

Artist: 梁靜茹 / Fish Leong

Release Date: November 9, 2007

Tracklisting:

1. 崇拜
2. Ces’t la vie
3. 每天第一件事
4. 會呼吸的痛
5. 101
6. 一秒的天堂
7. 給未來的自己
8. 知多少
9. 生命中不可承受的輕
10. 三吋日光
11. 原來你也唱過我的歌
12. 崇拜 (Hidden Track)

Review By: Ting

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Blurb

Our favorite Malaysian Chinese singer is back to give the awesome year 2007 a final blast. Her last album ‘Kissing the Future of Love’ toyed with the bitter sweetness of adolescent love and with classics like ‘Qinqin’ 親親 (kiss kiss) and ‘Xiao Shou La Da Shou’ 小手拉大手 (Little hand holding big hands), it was arguably her best album to date. Now, Fish’s brand new J’Adore is a similar narrative of love with her typical ballads galore. But instead of doting on adolescent crushes, the heroine of J’Adore leads us through a different journey of introspection, with a tinge of melancholy.

In the first track, ‘J’Adore’, we are led into a girl’s retrospection of an obsessive love by a mesmerizing and echoing solo voice: ‘I lived in your existence…you squandered my affection.’ It is perhaps fortunate that she did not stay in the frustrating relationship for long, for she finally resolved to ‘understand’, ‘leave’, and ‘live in her own existence’. Perhaps the theme of futile sacrifice (which appeared repeatedly in songs like ‘Silk Road’ and ‘Amnesia’) is already much clichéd in Chinese pop, but the fact that the same track is used to conclude the album as a hidden track is worth noting. Listeners who are familiar with Chinese rhetoric would realize the symbolic significance of this bracketing repetition – to begin is to end, and to end is to begin. As the girl decides to move on, we can hear a train revving up, waiting to depart again.

It may be a little far-fetched to dismantle a generic mando-pop album into a bunch of cultural symbols, but the reference to the famous Tang poem ‘Spring Dawn’ in ‘Zhi Duo Shao’ (you know how much…) is too obvious to ignore. The original poem by Meng Haoren conveys the poet’s sense of loss after witnessing the damage done to his flowerbeds after an early rain in Spring. The last line ‘等待中花落知多少’ (how many flowers have fallen during my waiting) is almost a direct transplant from the poem, and a very appropriate one too. Alas, all that yearning for cultural melancholy. Is it not exciting to see more and more artists tending towards中國風？

Of course we can never expect Fish Leong to settle for less, which is why we have songs like ‘Ces’t la vie’ (That’s life) and ‘會呼吸的痛’ (breathable pain) to give an exotic flavor to the album. If we only pardon Fish’s nonnative pronunciation and focus on her innovativeness – at least she did not attempt to read the French prologue by herself like some other artists did with Polish and Russian – ‘Ces’t la vie’ is a commendable track. ‘會呼吸的痛’, on the other hand, is almost reminiscent of the French composer, Richard Clayderman’s ‘Ballade pour Adeline’. The fluid yet steady piano accompaniment to the melody in the first half of the song is nothing short of delightful. Again, as a song about resignation and regrets, ‘Breathable pain’ definitely worth your time.

Then we land upon ‘生命中不可承受的輕’ (The Unbearable Lightness of Being), taking its famous name from Milan Kundera’s classic novel to hopefully make the Chinese music chart in the next couple of weeks. The execution of the first verse is most excellent: a brisk prelude followed by several slow lines that are occasionally paused to make love a montage (‘愛成了蒙太奇’). The descending chords of the chorus are nonetheless characteristic of Chinese pop; if you liked ‘Amnesia’, you will love this song.

Wait, Fish’s experiment with cultural hybridity does not stop here. Her eleventh track ‘原來你也唱過我的歌’ (So You Also Sang My Song) came as a real surprise to her Cantonese fans. Because not only is it sang in Cantonese and in canto-pop style, it is also an anthology of all her famous tracks such as無條件為你(Go unconditional for you), 勇氣(Courage), 分手快樂(Happy Split-up), all skewed together in the S.H.E.藉口‘Jie Kou’ style. What a nice way to thank your fans Fish!

Apparently, there is a little bit of everything for everyone in this new album. If you prefer the cuteness of Fish’s previous album, try ‘101’; if you are an avid fan of F.I.R., ‘一秒的天堂’ might be a nice way to get used to Fish’s vocal qualities. Although there are no more glass chapels and idyllic beaches for us to fantasize about, ‘J’Adore’ is good enough for our romantic appetite.

Videos

Lyrics

1. 崇拜 / j’Adore

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2. Ces’t la vie

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4. 會呼吸的痛 / Breathable Pain

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5. 101

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6. 一秒的天堂 / A Second of Heaven

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9. 生命中不可承受的輕 / The Unbearable Lightness of Being

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11. 原來你也唱過我的歌 / So You Also Sang My Song

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