Info

Album: 不，完美 / Imperfect (Buy Album)

Artist: 李玖哲 / Nicky Lee

Release Date: August 28, 2008

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Blurb

Nicky Lee is quite possibly the most “soulful” of all the Mandarin singers out there - I just can’t come up with a better description of his style. Sure, his pronunciation is a bit off, and it sounds odd at times, but hey, he tries, and credit should be given where credit is due! So here he comes with his fourth Chinese album - 不，完美, or Imperfect.
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• 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
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Info

Album: 原來我不帥 電視原聲帶 / Pretty Ugly OST (Buy Album)

Artist: Various Artists

Released: February 1, 2008

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Blurb

When I first heard of 原來我不帥, starring JJ Lin - I thought, that actually makes sense. In an age where many people become famous music artists simply because they look good (both in the East and West), JJ Lin actually stands out as one of the not-so-good looking ones. (Some say Jay Chou as well) However, his musical talent is unquestioned, and as I have made clear in other blog posts around here, I think that looks should never be a limiting factor in determining someone’s talent.

So the OST to this TV series has one new song by JJ himself -  期待你的愛, and some other songs by Nicky Lee, Hu Ling, and Kym. An interesting playlist.

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• 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

Song: So So

Album: Vivi And… (Buy Album)

Artist: 徐若瑄 / Vivian Hsu

Released: September 19, 2006

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Review

Fifth of our coverage of great Chinglish songs, this leads us to 徐若瑄, or Vivian Hsu. An opinion my friends and I ended forming was that Vivian Hsu is like Catherine Zeta-Jones - sure, they’re old (Vivian’s 32, and Zeta-Jones 38) but they still look damn hot. (Feel free to disagree)

So, even after over a decade of acting and singing (and modeling for photoshots), her last studio album, Vivi And… (released in 2006) had many great songs - another favourite one of mine is 小女, but it’s not a Chinglish song so we can’t feature it here. But So So, featuring Nicky Lee (李玖哲) - I remember having a heated debate with classmates over whether he could speak Chinese or not… Turns out he can, of course, though in So So he primarily raps in English, and the most Chinese he speaks is “I Say Baby過來給我抱抱.”

I love this song - especially how the lyrics are structured, with two of the same words to accentuate “so-so”. Be sure to also check out Vivian’s incredibly sexy music video as well.
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• 蔡依林 - 愛的練習語 / Jolin Tsai - Love Exercise
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• 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

Song: 想太多 / Think Too Much

Album: 想太多 / Think Too Much (Buy Album)

Artist: 李玖哲 / Nicky Lee

Release Date: October 16, 2007

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Blurb

Nicky Lee (李玖哲) is actually not from Taiwan, nor Malaysia, nor China. He’s actually a Korean-American, and is a relatively recent entry to the Chinese/Mandarin music stage. He first gained recognition for his album last year, “Baby Is Me” (Baby 是我), and appeared in many songs with other artists like Vivian Hsu’s “So-so” and 阿沁’s (Real of F.I.R.) “記得愛.” (Remembering Love) In these songs, he has shown he is indeed good at many different genres of music, and his new album “Think Too Much” is a good indicator of that. (Of course, the translation of 想太多 as “Think Too Much” is Chinglish at its best.)

While the later songs in the album are primarily R&B (including one featuring Vanness Wu, called 小胖子的一天 (Little Fatty’s Day), the first and title track is probably the most soulful song I’ve heard for some time. Viewers will notice the abnormal amount of violence in the music video - random slapping, kicking cakes, throwing dishes all over the place.

And unlike other songs, this is a song about past love not fulfilled, not current or future love. I find that also particularly hard to find in Chinese music, generally.

If anyone can identify the Korean actress in the music video, please let me know in the comments! Thanks!
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• 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