Bibi Zhou – Black.Choice.White

Release date: November 11, 2011
Label: Gold Typhoon

Tracklist: White

  1. 黑苹果 (Black Apple) [MV]
  2. 预感 (Premonition) [MV]
  3. 带你去兜风 (Take You for a Ride)
  4. 盲点 (Blind Spot)
  5. 独身主义 (Celibacy)

Tracklist: Black

  1. 对嘴 (Lip Sync) [MV]
  2. 时光预言 (Back in Time) [MV]
  3. 偶然 (Chance or Accidental)
  4. 福尔摩斯 (Sherlock Holmes) [MV]
  5. 月亮的背面 (The Wrong Side of the Moon)

Gold Typhoon is intent on giving their stars a concept of opposites — last year’s The Opposite Me by Jing Chang comes to mind — which seems to work wonders for Bibi. She’s never looked better!

The sound in Black.Choice.White — which is a homonym of Akira Kurosawa’s name in Chinese — marks a distinct path for Bibi. Her sound loses the raw qualities from NOW/WOW, of course, but it combines with the production qualities of Time or i.fish.light.mirror to give us her most cohesive work since her NOW/WOW days.

The White side of the album is supposed to show the “rockier” side of Bibi, which she shows on tracks like Black Apple or, specifically Blind Spot — her strong vocals in that track complement the strength of the song really well. The arrangements of Black.Choice.White are really polished, and you can clearly notice the way Bibi’s voice is evolving as she sounds completely different from one song to the next. For example, in contrast to the strength on Blind Spot, her vocals are soft and delicate on Celibacy, with music by LaLa.

The Black side of the album, on the other hand, is the softer and sultrier side of Bibi, beginning with the velvety Lip Sync, penned by lyricist Yao Ruo Long. On the third track, Chance — so titled from a Xu Zhimo poem (thanks for the tip magicube) and penned by Bibi and music by Khalil Fong — she is at her simplest vocally on the album, reminding us of the old-old-old school Bibi, but the string arrangements seem more complex, with layers of music that never sound too much.

However, the best track from either the Black or White sides has to be Sherlock Holmes. Maybe not lyrically, but the arrangements, as simple as they are — just a piano and some strings accompanying Bibi’s voice, — go amazingly well together. The track also sounds the most like Bibi than any on the album — the tone of her voice so powerful that it could get deep-seeded in your soul.

Then, the grand finale of Black.Choice.White, The Wrong Side of the Moon, penned by lyricist, Tao Le Fei (桃乐妃) and composed by Liu Nuo Qi (刘诺琪). Though the lyrics have nothing to do with what my mind connects it to — at first listen, at least — I think The Wrong Side of the Moon sounds really sexy due to the nearly whispered vocals on the verses. It’s eclectic-sounding like some of her work in her previous album, but with a quality that those songs were missing.

My only true complaint is five tracks per disc seems, well, unfair. But as a whole, Black.Choice.White seems to show Bibi at a comfortable stage in her career, relaxed with her image as an idol and with a broader range in her voice than she’s ever had.

Highlights: Sherlock Holmes, Blind Spot, The Wrong Side of the Moon

Rating: ★★★★☆ 

Preview on Xiami.com | Like it? Get it on YesAsia: China versionTaiwan version

La versión de esta reseña en español esta disponible.

amy

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

9 Responses

  1. ghost says:

    LaLa is everywhere. It’s weird to listen to Bibi’s voice in LaLa style, though. I like Tanya Chua’s tracks though. They don’t exactly feel like Bibi, but it definitely mixes well together.

  2. bibifever says:

    Okay,Bibi’s die-hard fan is coming with a easy trans of Sherlock Holmes …
    Sherlock Holmes
    (composed by talent singer and songwriter GuoDing)

    I prefer a lie than your endless cold silence.
    Our relationship coagulated, stay so still
    Cannot break up,Cannot find a way out
    Time , ridicule, tease

    I thought about it seriously ,why the more i love,the more i feel lonely
    I’ve no idea why our happy moments disappeared suddenly
    Can we be rescued, neither of us say a word
    The story lost its ending.Everything lost its meaning.

    Can Holmes find the one who stole love
    why cann’t i find any clue about it
    cann’t i find out if anyone did anything wrong
    Can Holmes save us
    Love is not able to recognize me
    why alway puzzle me Every hug is painful
    The suspense of love makes me feel lonely while hypnotizing me that this is love.

    Forgive me if i used chinglish in this trans. :p

  3. bibifever says:

    Blind spot

    Eyes are too picky /You care about the distance between our eyebrows /but never see the scenery of souls.
    Noises are too crowded/ You don’t have a moment /to listen to the inner echo.
    There’s no enough time to see the problems between us clearly. You blame everything on fate.
    Repeating your mistakes
    Caring too much about other people’s eyes
    Addicted to the extrinsic emptiness

    Be careful of the dangerous trap
    Love is losing its creed
    Your logics are absurd and ridiculous
    I won’t blindly pander to your fake move
    Oh~ Oh~
    A stalemate of vanity doesn’t make any sense
    Oh~ Oh~
    Shallow hugs / how to feel the heartbeat
    *
    Your love is superficial
    Your lies are so artistic
    Beautiful cold embrace
    Perfect empty smile
    *
    (What a challenge!Ok,i must say that the original lyrics are much better than my translation. XD)

  4. Stellasu says:

    I really love this album as a big fan of BIBI. Chance,Lip syn,blind spot n The Wrong Side of the Moon are my favourite tracks.xD BTW,there’s a mistake in the article:The Wrong Side of the Moon is not penned by female lyricist Xiahan (小寒) and composed by Tanya Chua but Take You for a Ride.xD

    • amy says:

      @Stellasu, sorry it took me a LONG while to get back to this comment. I just updated this post with the new credits for that (thanks for pointing that out) and the links to Bibi’s music videos~ :)

  1. November 17, 2011

    […] one of my favorite songs in the album, which you would know if you had already read my review of Black.Choice.White — which obviously wasn’t my choice of English translation but Gold […]

Leave a Reply to amyCancel reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.