Ten Chinese Albums to Brag About
2008 – Crowd Lu – 100 Ways for Living (100種生活)
What do you do when recovering from a bus running over you? You learn to play the guitar, of course! You write catchy music, dork yourself up and release your debut album, 100 Ways for Living, and then be crowned Best Newcomer and Best Composer at the most important award show in your country.
At least that’s what Crowd Lu — also known as Lu Guang Zhong — did when that happened to him. It’s been nonstop from him ever since. He makes people happy, and that’s a rare thing in a world so cynical. He obviously writes about love, but also sings about the complexities of life — check this translation of his song for 100 Ways for Living.
Crowd also sings in Taiwanese dialect (thanks to his grandpa), gibberish [Opera #2, 1], and even some Spanish because he graduated in Spanish literature in University. You can catch him singing “Uno, dos, tres” or saying “Que te pasa.”
By the way, he’s survived an accident twice already.
Listen to Crowd Lu’s debut album on Xiami.
Other 2008 suggestions: Mayday – Poetry of the Day After (後青春期的詩) [Xiami], Sandee Chan – If There’s One Thing that Matters (如果有一件事是重要的) [Xiami]
I disqualified Joanna Wang’s Start from Here for being mostly an English release, but if you have the chance to listen to her do so. Because she’s under Sony, her albums are not on Xiami.
2009 – Yuguo – Babel (巴别塔)
This is it. The last album on the list, and probably one of the hardest to find in English websites. Yuguo doesn’t get talked about much on regular websites, unless you follow one on Chinese indie music. They are a blip on the market, being one of the few Chinese indie bands that can actually make a living making music — which turns out pretty darn awesome.
Babel is their sophomore album, following their successful Lost Paradise (失乐园). They haven’t released a new album since then, but in 2010 they released the amazing EP for Those Words I Want to Say to You (那些我想对你说的话).
I didn’t find a single cut of the album on YouTube, so this version from their Shanghai performance album will have to do.
You can listen to Yuguo’s Babel on Xiami.
Other 2009 suggestions: A-Mei Chang – AMIT [Xiami], Chang Shilei – Niu China, Lala Hsu – LaLa [Xiami], Wang Feng – Belief Flies in the Wind (信仰在空中飘扬) [Xiami].
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That is it!
How many albums from the list had you listened to before?
If you could suggest ten albums to someone not familiar with the Chinese music scene, which albums would you include?
I’m so glad you picked Faye’s Fable to “brag about,” Amy.
While Restless sure is an exceptional album by Western music standards, Fable has a special place in Faye’s discography in that the first five tracks constitute a mini-saga about the Buddhist beliefs of life, love, and destiny. Equally important is the fact that they were all composed by Faye herself, and so this mini-saga does serve as a prototype of the original Faye sound …
And here’s my favorite track from this saga, The Cambrian Age:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x5u00t_faye-wong-long-time-ago_music
@Adrienne Lew, if it’s Chinese music we’re bragging about… Faye’s gotta be there. It was either Fable or her 2001 release or Jiang Ai… in the end, had to pick one.
What about the others? Who would you choose?
@amy, there’s one more album you might want to take a look at if it’s Faye’s Cantonese album we are talking about: Di Dar (1995). The title track, Vacation, Lost, and Shooting Stars were kind of trendsetting and pretty much defined Faye’s mystically tragic yet beautiful style of music.
As for other singers, I would say it’s between Eason Chan and Jay Chou. Because of my personal bias towards rock, I’d prefer Eason over Jay (who’s strength is in producing Mandarin-style R&B).
Here are my picks from these two singers’ discography:
Eason Chan – Blurting Out
http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/EZlw-q5syq4/
Jay Chou – Williamsburg
@Adrienne Lew, I actually got almost all of Faye’s discography, and I have listened to Di-Dar :)
I’m a little surprised… or maybe not, that you life Jay Chou. Hahaha. I don’t usually like his R&B style, but I definitely like his ballads. I also have a weakness for his country boy style hahaha.
I’m not that familiar with Eason’s body of work, but then again… I have LOADS to catch up with~
No pick of ten albums?
@Amy, haha — no, Jay isn’t exactly my taste. But objectively speaking, he does rule in the Mandarin world of music in Asia … so I feel that I needed to pick a song or two from his discography that has this little extra something in it — like Williamburg. I love that he mixes the organ sound with the R&B beats. But between him and Eason, I’d say in a sense Eason could have been a lot more creative but is unfortunately bounded by the preference for traditional Cantopop style “karaoke” showpieces on the part of many music fans in Hong Kong.
Speaking of this, there’s an album by Jan Lamb that’s pretty “non-mainstream” … “Thirty-Something.” And here’s my pick from that album:
http://divadamrau.blogspot.com/2011/01/karaoke-singing.html
(I refer you to my blog coz there’s also the English translation — which is the whole point of this “pop song” … :P)