S.H.E – Play (2007 in Review)

May

Album: Play

Artist: S.H.E

Release Date: May 11, 2007

Review By: Moopie

Editor’s Note: Okay, so we all know this album was popular. But how popular? Take a look: In the opening week of sales, Play accounted for 52% of all Chinese albums sold! (The second was a measly 3.7%). Wow. Also, I can’t believe Moopie left out 五月天 and 聽袁惟仁彈吉他, my personal favorites. I’m putting them in as well.

At risk of losing any shreds of my masculinity, I’ll be honest here. I really like S.H.E’s newest album, Play. And I’m being totally serious here: I really like it. Okay, so S.H.E is incredibly commercial and poppy, but who cares. They’ve been accused of being unoriginal and artificial. On the other hand, I’m not embarrassed to admit my eternal devotion to them at all. Especially Ella. (editor’s note: awwwwww……)

中國話 is amazing. Yeah, okay, so some people think it sucks up to Mainland China. Who cares? It’s a really good song. The chorus is cute, catchy, and the lyrics are pretty funny (I mean, Confucius’ words are more and more international? BwahAhaHA!). The wordplay/rap is pretty impressive as well.

謝謝你的溫柔 is great too. It’s an interesting response to 五月天’s 溫柔, which happens to be my favorite song of theirs. S.H.E’s part is pretty mellow, and 飛輪海 manages to do justice to the original, while making it less angry and a lot more poppy. I like the original more, but this one is good in its own way.

藉口 is absolutely hilarious. The music video is basically required viewing. The song parodies/idolizes/imitates basically all of Jay Chou. It’s worth listening to if you’re a fan of Jay, just to see how S.H.E does it. Did I mention they make fun of someone who looks a lot like Jay in the music video? See it. Now.

I’m also a pretty big fan of 說你愛我. It’s positively heartwarming. Of course, this might be because Ella sings solo for a significant portion of the song, and Ella’s voice makes me incredibly happy.
Anyway, I’m going to stop gushing about Play, and just tell you to get your hands on it however you can.

PS. 薔薔, the song about Ella’s dog, is amazing too. It’s not in Play, but you should listen to it too.

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大嘴巴 – 大嘴巴 / Da Mouth – Da Mouth Review

Album: 大嘴巴 / da zui ba / Da Mouth

Artist: 大嘴巴 / da zui ba / Da Mouth

Release Date: November 19, 2007

Review By: illuminance

This is interesting – this group had completely slipped underneath my radar until last week, when I noticed their name on the charts and went to check them out.

Their name is 大嘴巴, or as they like to called themselves, “Da Mouth.” (大 Mouth, get it? Oh, never mind.) They’re nominally from the Republic of China (Taiwan), but their members come from all over the place. From the right is DJ Chung Hua (板本宗華, which is a Japanese name. He’s half-Japanese and half-Chinese), who is, of course, the DJ for the group. The girl is Aisa, (千田愛紗, also a Japanese name. She’s actually Japanese) and the two guys are MC40 (薛仕凌) and Harry (張懷秋) who do the male vocals and rapping. Quite the interesting mix, no?

Anyways, so what do they do? Their music is on the R&B/Hip-Hop side of things, no sappy sentimentalist songs here. People looking for lyrics which will tear your heart apart with grief or sadness (or hope and joy, for that matter) look elsewhere please!

Seriously though, most of their lyrics don’t make sense. Not that that necessarily detracts, for once in a while all of us need some nonsense to cheer us up a bit. As for their beats, well… Take “119” for example. The starting beat is straight out from “My Humps” (incidentally, voted the most annoying song of 2005). So I guess some of their stuff is kind of recycled, which isn’t good.

Yet, the interesting thing is, this album didn’t make me cringe all that much (and believe me, things do make me cringe.) I think that too much of the albums released since October have been so sentimental and slow, so their music is a nice departure from that. One thing stands out especially: Aisa’s Chinese is terrible. Her tones are non-existent, and I highly doubt she understands what she’s singing. Then again, she’s Japanese, and Japanese has no tones. I give her kudos for trying. They use way too much English in the songs though.

So I leave this album with a positive feeling. Give them time, and I think they’ll get better. They indeed did very well for newcomers to the music scene, getting #3 on the charts in a week behind Fish Leong and Show Luo – not too bad at all!

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飛輪海 & S.H.E – 新窩 / Fahrenheit & S.H.E – New Digs

Song: 新窩 / xin wo / New Digs

Album: 雙面飛輪海 / shuang mian fei lun hai / Two-Sided Fahrenheit

Artist: 飛輪海 & S.H.E / Fahrenheit and S.H.E

To Be Released: January 4, 2008

In just two weeks, Fahrenheit is coming out with a new album – Two-Sided Fahrenheit. (雙面飛輪海) Now, normally I would ask the poster “thevantagepoint” to write about this, but she’s currently unavailable, so I’ll talk about it. Fahrenheit is, of course, widely known as S.H.E’s “brother band”, with their same focus on pop and hehe, usually style over substance, as best as most boy bands can deliver.

In truth, I really shouldn’t write about them. I have their album, but I’ve hardly listened to their songs. But I could detect just the hint of 只對你有感覺 (Feelings Only For You) in the beat of this zhuda for their next album, 新窩 . Check it out! The MV is quite interesting, with it looking like an old ’80s television set and all. (By the way, “New Digs” here refers to a new home.)

Update: Full review posted here.

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