Info

Song: 勾勾手 / Hooking Fingers

Album: 修理愛 / Love Fixing (Buy Album)

Artist: 游喧 / iD

Release Date: November 15, 2008

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Blurb

You’ve probably never heard of iD (游喧) - that’s because she’s a new artist, with this, Love Fixing being her debut album. I’ll get to a more detailed review later, but this particular song, Hooking Fingers (勾勾手) is just so beautiful. I know it’s a really sad song, but really, I like it so much, and it reflects so much on the times. Also check out the music video after the jump, it’s really good too.

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Possibly Related Posts:

• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn
• 魔杰座 / Capricorn Leaked?

Info

Album: 愛的練習語 / Love Exercise (Buy Album)

Artist: 蔡依林 / Jolin Tsai

Release Date: November 4, 2008

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Blurb

Now, we’re not going to make a regular point of covering English songs on this website, but we have a bunch of comments positively wondering about how Jolin sounds like singing English songs.

Essentially, this album, Love Exercise (愛的練習語) - it’s a collection of various English hits over the last few decades and of various genres. It took me a while to look up every single song, but I think I have them down right - I was interested myself in what songs specifically had she covered, since there were a few of which I had not heard before.

Overall, my take is that having the same artist do so many different songs kind of makes it feel a bit bland - it’s nothing on Jolin, but rather, I would think that this should happen for any singer trying to do so many songs. However, I think she does a great job at really trying to capture the essence of the songs.

Just for some comedy, and for any fellow Office fans out there, catch this after the jump of Physical.
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Possibly Related Posts:

• Chinglish: J. WU - 是什麼音樂讓你覺得舒服 / J. WU - What Kind of Music Makes You Comfortable
• Chinglish: 徐若瑄 - So So / Vivian Hsu - So So
• Chinglish: 徐懷鈺 - 等不及 / Yuki Hsu - Can’t Wait
• Chinglish: 卜學亮 - 子曰 / Ah Liang (Charge Pu) - Confucius Says
• Chinglish: S.H.E - Super Star

Info

Album: 後青春期的詩 / Poetry of the Day After (Buy Album)

Artist: 五月天 / Mayday

Release Date: October 23, 2008

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Review By: ashih

Blurb

Lately, it seems like all news has been bad news. Pull down your BBC newsfeed and the top stories blare headlines like “Diplomats seek to end Congo crisis,” “US economy officially shrinking,” and “TV star gets three month ban.” It’s times like these when it seems like music is the only thing that makes sense anymore.

Mayday, or 五月天, is one of those special bands that doesn’t come along very often. But their songs are the ones that make sense. Years after their release, people are still uplifted by tunes like Lockjaw (牙關) and Stubborn (倔強). Show Luo (羅志祥) cited Mayday’s 戀愛ing as his favorite song to sing at KTV. And S.H.E recreated the chorus of Mayday’s 溫柔 just last year, 7 years after the original song’s release. Mayday’s concerts, whether they are held in Taiwan or mainland China, are always packed, with fans screaming their heads off and teenage girls professing their love for Ashin, Mayday’s lead singer. All of Mayday’s albums have made it onto the American version of itunes, perhaps a testament to the musical genius of the group.  With their latest album “Poetry of the Day After” (後青春期的詩), Mayday has been around for almost ten years. Are they still going strong?
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Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn
• 魔杰座 / Capricorn Leaked?

Info

Album: 陸 / Sixology (Buy Album)

Artist: 林俊傑 / JJ Lin

Release Date: October 18, 2008

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Tracklisting:

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Review By: illuminance

Blurb

Following with the sudden flood of new Chinese albums,  Singaporean artist JJ Lin (林俊傑) has released his sixth studio album - Sixology, or 陸 (which is 六 written in longhand for financial/fancy matters). Where 殺手 “The Killa” was disturbing and grotesque, Sixology appears folksy and charming - I love this album truly.
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Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn
• 魔杰座 / Capricorn Leaked?

Info

Album: 魔杰座 / Capricorn (Buy Album)

Artist: 周杰倫 / Jay Chou

Release Date: October 15, 2008

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Tracklisting:

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Blurb

So, Jay Chou’s Capricorn has finally “officially” been released. Quite seriously though, this is the tackiest album cover I’ve ever seen on one of his albums - last I checked, this was a Jay Chou album, not the Taiwanese version of World of Warcraft. Since Capricorn is supposed to be all about sorcery, where’s that at?

As I noted in my really brief note that it had been leaked two weeks ago, there’s not that much that I like about the album. There’s a variety of different styles and directions, but the vocals strike me as rather weak, and there’s not a whole lot of originality in the songs - no song really “sticks,” or makes me imagine playing it over and over again.

That’s not to say there’s nothing that’s interesting on Capricorn - Fragrant Rice (稻香) is still as good as ever, though it’s actually the last track on the album. 喬克叔叔 (Uncle Joker) and 時光機 (Time Machine) I like, but the rest, meh.

Going through midterms now, will post a more through review later.

Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• 魔杰座 / Capricorn Leaked?

So apparently Jay Chou’s new album, 魔杰座 / Capricorn has been leaked - we’re trying to see if it’s really real or just some random stuff masquerading as him… Keep you posted.

Update: Yep, we’re pretty sure it’s real…. Only thing is, first impression wise, it’s really not that good…

Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn

Info

Album: 我的電台 FM S.H.E / FM S.H.E (Buy Album)

Artist: S.H.E

Release Date: September 23, 2008

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Tracklisting:

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First Thoughts

Hard to believe it, but this is actually Taiwanese girl band S.H.E’s eleventh album. Titled 我的電台 FM S.H.E (or simply FM S.H.E in English), it quite the interesting album. In this album, Hebe, Selina, and Ella all take on the personalities of radio hosts and DJs, and present the album as if it was one long radio show. Therefore, that leads to some interesting things - namely, first that you should not turn on shuffle when you hear this album for the first time - it makes more sense to go through it sequentially from the beginning all the way through to the end.

Apart from 宇宙小姐 (Miss Universe) and 沿海公路的出口  (Coastal Road Exit), which we first took a look at in this previous post, there are many other songs of note - in fact, I think overall the quality of the songs are better than Play’s, though there isn’t a single song that strikes me immediately as being easily the most famous song in the album. Personal favorites so far: 我愛煩惱 (I Love Afflictions), 我是火星人 (I’m a Martian) and 酸甜 (Sweet and Sour), featuring brother band Fahrenheit/飛輪海.

This is our first listen at it - our official full-length review will come this weekend. In the time being, sound off in the comments section, and let us know what you think!

Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn

Info

EP: 右手邊 / Right Hand Side (Buy Album)

Artist: 光良 / Michael Wong (Guang Liang)

Release Date: September 19, 2008

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Tracklisting:

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Blurb

Everyone’s favorite melancholy singer, Michael Wong (光良) is back with two new songs, released a few days ago as an EP. I’ll be brief, since I have a lot of S.H.E stuff to write about, but essentially, if you’re in a particularly emo mood right now, go for it. Also, the second song is more upbeat (and features a harmonica quite prominently, yay!) and is a duet with Amguulan (阿穆隆), a Chinese-Mongolian singer.

Check out the music video after the break.

Read the rest of this entry »

Possibly Related Posts:

• 游喧 - 勾勾手 / iD - Hooking Fingers
• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
• Album Review: 五月天 - 後青春期的詩 / Mayday - Poetry of the Day After
• Album Review: 林俊傑 - 陸 / JJ Lin - Sixology
• First Listen: 周杰倫 - 魔杰座 / Jay Chou - Capricorn