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Actresses Sing for Film

June 7, 2010 | Posted in Mainland China,Movies,Music,Taiwan, Tagged , , ,

This coming summer will see many high profile films arrive in Chinese theaters, with big names attached. Many of these have theme songs sung by the actors themselves, backed by famous composers. One of these films of Zhang Yang’s (known for films like Shower) Driverless, an ensemble romance that includes Wang Luodan. She sings the theme Love Without a Driver, composed by one of China’s top music producers Zhang Yadong. The other is Kwai Lunmei, who sings for Xue Xiaoli, who despite being a first time director, has managed to snag not only Kwai, but talent like Jet Li and Wen Zhang (Narrow Dwellings) for his debut film. Kwai sings the theme song, composed by Joe Hisaishi.

Wang Luodan – Love without a Driver

Kwai Lunmei – Ocean’s Heaven

Back to Live – Best of MTV True Live

May 8, 2010 | Posted in Indie/Rock,Mainland China,Music,Stage,Taiwan,Television, Tagged , , , , , , , , , ,
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SuperVC and Laure Shang on MTV True Live

In a world where music can be produced with computers, and singing often means lipsynching, there’s something precious about live music – especially on TV. MTV True Live is a series that I’ve really enjoyed. It has the perfect atmosphere for live music (not that it’s really live since we’re not there) – enough audiences for artists to get excited in, but not concert-like, so the artists can really feel comfortable and interact with the music and band.

Artists who have gone on include Yoga Lin & Jeno (Jade) Liu, Kay Tse & Chen Chusheng, Jane Zhang & Zhang Yadong, Zhang Jie & Tan Weiwei, Laure Shang & Super VC and Shin & Li Yuchun. Some highlights from each show, including Jane Zhang’s beautiful cover of Sting’s Fragile, cute duets between Yoga Lin and Jeno Liu, and a powerful duet by Tan Weiwei and Zhang Jie. Laure Shang and SuperVC’s episode is not on YouTube, but you can watch it on tudou here.
Extra points for figuring out what  all of the pairs have in common other than the boy-girl pairings!

Jane Zhang with Zhang Yadong:
Fragile (Cover of Sting) ft Zhang Yadong and Impressions West Lake Rain (印象西湖雨):

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Tian Yuan Talks 80s Chinese Authors at Kobe U. in Japan

July 14, 2009 | Posted in Indie/Rock,Literature,Mainland China,Music, Tagged ,

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While searching for when Hopscotch lead singer/actress Tian Yuan was going to release her latest album because last I head it was supposed to be this  “summer”, I came across the fact that she recently went to Kobe University to talk about 80s generations authors in China. She studied at the Beijing Foreign Studies University,  (the one that Happy Camp host He Jiong teaches Arabic at) and she’s put out books both in English and Chinese including Double Mono, which was recently translated and released in Japanese.

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eeMedia does Red Songs badly

July 14, 2009 | Posted in Mainland China,Music, Tagged , ,

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Instead of talking about the good albums that have been released,  I’m going to talk about one that was a disappointment, because it was one of the ones I was most looking forward to this summer. I love Red Songs. It doesn’t really matter in my opinion that they were “Red” propaganda, nor is it fair to the people who worked on them to ignore them as such. Especially those  pre-Cultural Revolution, because I think some of China’s finest composers came out during that time, including my favorite Chinese composer of all time, Lei Zhenbang who was just genius.

Then eeMedia began releasing songs from this album one by one on Sohu’s website.  And one by one my excited died. This album just sucked, largely due to poor song choice and bad producing by Zhang Yadong. That’s right, Zhang Yadong produced this album and he sucked at it.

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Chloé Wang Has Her Eye on the Chinese Market with Her First MV Uh Oh

May 24, 2009 | Posted in Mainland China,Music, Tagged , , , ,

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Someone commented in an earlier post there were many artists in Taiwan that spoke English in contrast to China. I think  partly that is because their established music industry allows TW Americans musicians to try their luck with reasonable expectations of success. However as China’s market gets bigger, more Chinese Americans may want to do the same thing. One of the first  could be be Chloé Wang  (汪可盈) , a teenage singing phenomenon hailing from Chicago, U.S.A. born to a Chinese father with Shanghai roots and an American mother. She’s  been recording in Beijing and has already performed in Chengdu as seen in the video below.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwRXjpv60-Y]

Thirteenth Month Record Label to Tackle a Rock and Roll Stage Drama

May 10, 2009 | Posted in Indie/Rock,Mainland China,Music,Stage, Tagged , , , , , , ,
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Poster for "That Night, We Make Music"

One of the bigger record labels in China for indie/folk/rock, Thirteenth Month, has taken one of the first steps into branching out into the stage, in “That Night, We Make Music”, a  rock  stage drama that is an outlet for their frustrations. On April 22nd they held a press conference where everything was set up as a funeral to express their outlook on the current music industry.

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Hunan TV's new program showcases new artists

March 20, 2009 | Posted in Mainland China,Music,Television, Tagged , , , , , , , , ,
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Who cares if we get eliminated every round? We

One of the biggest criticism of Super Girls was that it lets out singers with little or no training and shoots them to fame. Hunan TV’s new program aims to change that. “jie jie gao sheng/mix-box,” a spin off of the word “going up a step everytime,”is a competition between (somewhat) new artists from different recording companies every week. The show will serve as a platform for companies to showcase its already trained artists.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g04rBnKVh8c]
Jiayou! Little Caterpillar by Japanese-Chinese group Caffe In

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Faye Wong and Chris Li Yuchun releases new music

March 3, 2009 | Posted in Interview,Mainland China,Music,Non-Chinese,Taiwan, Tagged , , , , ,

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How do Faye Wong, an undisputed diva of Asia, and Chris Li Yuchun, the controversial and popular ”Asia’s Hero” relate to each other?

In a recent TV show, Zhang Yadong, one of the most distinguished music producers in China, and the man most associated with both’s music,  made the following comment comparing the two artists:

Those singers that everyone thinks is great, I really don’t see how great they are. Artists need their own style. Chris Li Yuchun is very similar to Faye Wong in many ways, especially in their unique musical personalities.

Zhang Yadong released the  first Chinese album that features a producer rather than a singer last month.  In the album, released on the internet only and titled “Ni Liu/flowing backwards,” Faye Wong sings song “I love you,” the theme song of a movie of the same name.  This is her first new song in over five years.

I love you – Faye Wong
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP9jtKbUnhE]

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Long Kuan – The Queen of Lohas

December 16, 2008 | Posted in Indie/Rock,Mainland China,Music, Tagged , ,

Long Kuan is another one of those female singer songwriters who has been making the world more beautiful with her voice and her music, and in this case more literally. After three years of absence from the music scene she is releasing an single promoting environmental protection, called “Queen of Lohas”. LOHAS (Lifestyle Of Health And Sustainability) is a demographic that refers to the market of those who support sustainable living, “green” ecological initiatives, a growing demographic in China.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zV2CL05nLtE]

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Super VC Comes back with new CD in December

November 16, 2008 | Posted in Indie/Rock,Mainland China,Music, Tagged , , , ,

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It’s been a while since I talked about music that wasn’t boybands, vocal groups, whatever you’d like to call them so when I saw this article I grabbed at the chance to translate even though Super VC is not one of my favorite Chinese indie rock bands. But they are getting quite popular in China’s rock scene, and were at the Modern Sky Music Festival earlier this fall along with some of the bigger players. They have a pleasing, soothing sound and this major release two years in the making, with 7 MVs (can they really be called indie anymore?) will no doubt please their fans.

Article about the release, MVs and more Beatles-like pictures below.

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