Amy’s 2015 Music Highlights
10. Grimes – Art Angels
*Maybe you’ve got more luck than me with this playlist. Almost everything is blocked.
Hey, Giacomo! You got me at “Our decade’s equivalent of 1995’s Post by Björk,” though I must admit it’s more poppy than I anticipated, but I like it. I was immediately more drawn to the album as soon as I heard Aristophanes in Mandarin, which took me off guard.
Get it on iTunes, Google Play, or Amazon
9. Henry Huo Zun (霍尊) – Tian Yun (天韵·霍尊)
Henry Huo (or Huo Zun) is a young guy that has swept television music contests— first, he placed in the Top3 of the show Asian Wave (声动亚洲) back in 2012. Last year, he won the first season of the original-song competition Sing My Song (中国好歌曲), for which he composed the super-hit song Rolled-up Pearl Curtain (卷珠帘), which was deemed “the best song of the year” after being performed at CCTV’s Spring Festival Gala (中国中央电视台春节联欢晚会).
To top that, of course, months later he participated in the first season of New Opera Show (国色天香) [LeTV][YouTube], where he played the role of a Nan Dan (男旦) in Peking Opera, for which he was named The Drama King of the Year (年度”戏曲之王”).
The album, which I’ve roughly translated to Heavenly Song, contains ten tracks that tend to be quite traditional in composition. It goes even further of Zhongguofeng than any of Jay Chou’s Chinese-styled songs.
The only catch is that I’ve only been able to get this album on Xiami, which I know some people have issues accessing.
8. Hua Chenyu (华晨宇) – Salt of the Earth (地球之盐)
Hua Chenyu was the winner of the third season of the Chinese boy-singing contest Super Boy (快乐男声), which is the counterpart of the female version Super Girl (超级女声). But boys are generally boring, so I never watched the show. What takes bonus points from the album is the seriousness of the release— two months ago, when the album was released (and when I got it), it was called Salt of the Earth (地球之盐), just like the lead title single.
Now that I check it again online, it had a different cover and it’s now called Yilei (异类), which roughly translates to something that is strange, unusual or different. The fans have translated the song as “Alien,” but I went for the more positive “Unique.”
Same problem as above, only available on Xiami.
Albums I really liked this year were in no particular order: Marina & The Diamonds – Froot; Du Blonde – Welcome Back To Milk; IU – Chat-Shire and A-Mit – AMIT2. I also really enjoyed Björk’s Vulnicura and discovering Suiyoubi no Campanella and Gesu no Kawami Otome. :)
:) I also enjoyed both IU’s and AMit’s — there’s also a bunch of Indian soundtracks I enjoyed. Particularly Amit Trivedi’s Shaandaar, and A.R. Rahman’s Tamasha.
I really liked ‘Tamasha’, too! :) Will now check out ‘Shaandaar”. Thanks :)
Thanks for introducing me to “Zipang!” I’ll work on my year-end posts after I try to catch up on movies for the poll. But some favorites in music were the latest album by The Dead Weather the debut album of the …punk soul? group Algiers, the gothic organ folk rock “Come Wander With Me/Deliverance” by Anna Von Hausswolff, various tracks from Battles’ latest album, some psychedelic rock from Pridjevi, and “Motherfucker” by Faith No More. I liked the looks in Shiina Ringo’s latest videos but the music didn’t quite catch me. I really liked Ga-In’s “Paradise Lost” but I felt a little betrayed when it seems like some of the choreography was copied without credit…
Always a pleasure! Suiyoubi no Campanella is bit long, no? xD There’s a lot of Zipang’s out there… one of them the punk rock opera that Yu Aoi did a couple of years ago, which I’m trying to find online subbed….
It’s hard to list albums because many artists are just releasing singles or minis, and then after two-tree years of touring, they release an ‘album’ that contains all those tracks… so when it’s time to come up with a list, they all seem kinda last year. Happened to me with Shiina’s. I wasn’t a big fan of GaIn’s mini, I liked Paradise Lost enough, but it sorta got lost for me.
Will be, of course, queuing your picks for listening~
Good to see Grimes at #10 😃