Amy’s 2016 Music Highlights

6. Eli Hsieh (謝震廷) – Progress Reports (查理)

Another 2016 discovery— Eli Hsieh is the very young and most recent winner of this year’s edition of the Golden Melody Awards for Best New Artist [1]. His awarded work? This album, of course, titled Progress Reports [iTunes]. And Light (燈光) isn’t even the best song in the album, though it’s great musically and lyrically.

You can find half of the album on Hsieh’s YouTube channel.

5. Leonard Cohen – You Want It Darker

If we’re talking about lyrics here, we all gotta love Leonard Cohen (may he rest in peace~).

If you are the dealer, I’m out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I’m broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker We kill the flame

You can get You Want It Darker on iTunes. “I’m ready, my lord.

4. Jambinai – A Hermitage

Shout out to Jenna for introducing me to Jambinai, forever and always!

I know a lot of people find it hard to get into hard rock / metal, but it appears that it’s even harder for them to get into the traditional aspect of Korean classical folk music. xD I know it can get screechy, but you really ease into the sound. I used to not be able to listen to Chinese opera, either~~~

Jambinai is like nothing you’ve ever heard before because this is purely a Jambinai sound, and why it’s so uniquely modern Korean.

You can get A Hermitage on iTunes, but it’s also available in CD and Vinyl through the Bella Union website.

3. Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy – Mirzya

I haven’t gotten the chance to watch Mirzya yet, even though the reviews just pretty much crushed it and I think it lost a lot of money, despite the hype. I still want to watch it. The album in itself is a perfect musical journey, often described as “you can make a whole episode of Coke Studio with just the songs in the album.” For those who don’t know, Coke Studio is an acoustic show presented on MTV India and Pakistan (there’s two versions), which features a number of performers on each episode singing traditional tunes with amazing new arrangements and incredible voices.

It’s really great, you can check many of the videos on YouTube, including the Coke Studio official channel. Many of them are subtitled, romanized and have original lyrics. It’s totally messed up my by-language iTunes library. FYI, Zeb features in a few of the episodes [1][2].

I’m usually not a huge fan of composer trio Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy — composed of Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa — but they really deliver here musically. Each one of the songs is a powerful gem with amazing rhythm, melody and vocals. Gulzar lyrics are just the cherry on top, you can check some of the translations over at BollyMeaning, who are probably the best Bollywood lyric translators around~

You can get the Mirzya OST on iTunes.

amy

YAM Magazine editor, photographer, blogger, translator and part-time web designer. Film junkie, music junkie… and lately series (a.k.a. TV) junkie.

4 Responses

  1. Julyssa Diaz says:

    I am extremely surprised Mamamoo didn’t end up on spot 1. I came here thinking that. Only damn reason I even bothered to check your list haha. There is still hope for you!

  1. December 23, 2016

    […] Without further ado~ happy listening! […]

  2. December 29, 2016

    […] with my late schedule [1][2], I went the extra nerdy mile to put together my list and made a spreadsheet to help me order my […]

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