Archives For sodagreen

It’s out, it’s out! You know what to do~

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I’ve just published a list of 100 songs in Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but also Cantonese… and maybe Hokkien… can’t be sure of that) that’s a great cheat sheet for anyone wanting to show off their knowledge of the scene. There’s definitely a wide variety of artists, so you’re sure to find something you enjoy.

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Visit YAM Magazine for the list with a link included to the YouTube playlist.

Happy new year, everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts last month. To make up for it, here are five posts so you can catch up to my 2013 and to get you going this 2014.

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This year’s season of The Voice of China is a bit on the meh side compared to last year’s. Some good talents, but not as awing as some of last year’s. This battle for Wang Feng’s team, though, from Simon Chung (鐘偉強) of Hong Kong singing it out with Beijing-based Bi Xia (毕夏) with the classic Hey Jude was pretty emotional.

The whole father/daughter interaction going on, because Simon took the time to guide Bi Xia through the song and Bi Xia’s knowing what he’d done for her makes the whole elimination process all the more painful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzTgyORzEAA

Other battle highlights~

From Na Ying’s team:
Yi Guang Nian (毅光年) Vs. Sheng Yin Yue Tuan (声音乐团) – I Surrender (没离开过)

From Amei’s team:
Zhang Xin (张新) Vs. Liu Zi Chen (刘籽辰) – What’s the Trouble in your Mind (你在煩惱什麼) + We Are Young

It’s been roughly… four years. Give or take. It’s been a good ride, and it’s still going strong… so we still got a long way to go. Guys, if you would’ve gotten me at my “good” times, you’d be millionaires by now. Back when I was in high school I bought anything I could… even if I only like one song- I would have bought your whole album for that one song. I’ve got around 30 physical album with music in Mandarin — that’s roughly 7 albums a year… which is about an album every two months. Trust me, it’s not a bad deal.

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Plus, imports are expensive…

All of the albums’ artists have their tags on the blog except for SingerSen. I haven’t talked about her much on this blog… yet. But maybe one day in the near future, I’ll add her own tag.

This is also not counting the music DVDs xD so there’s a couple more.

As a fan, I think I’ve been good to Chinese music fandom.

I can’t believe Ella got married. I mean, I can believe that Selina would — I had a whole year to realize that — but, YOU KNOW, it was Ella. Did you think Ella would be getting married? In any case, did you think Ella wouldn’t be the last one getting married?

The more you know~

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My feet are killing me… again, and we just did the famous Taipei 101 building that has the fastest elevator in the world — the Guinness World Record says so — clocking at about 1km per minute or 60kmph.

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I gotta admit. I got a little choked up with this music video, and I’m totally pumped for Sodagreen’s upcoming new album… also titled What is Troubling You (你在煩惱什麼) — which, I have to admit~~~ comes at a bad time when Bibi is coming up with her new album and the Brown Eyed Girls are coming up with her nifty-licious repackaged Sixth Sense.

Did I tell you? I pre-ordered Sixth Sense and I ate it up like a sucker.

What makes me even more of a sucker, however, is that I had just pre-ordered the repackaged version too. Alongside Bibi’s new album.

Anyway, this new wonderfully sad and strangely uplifting music video comes from the brilliant mind of Muh Chen Yi Ren, from GrassJelly Studio — who also worked on my favorite Sodagreen MV… Incomparable Beauty [MV]. When these two get together, they make magic.

The lyrics seem… simple. I mean there’s not much lyrics… but I’m having issues with the double negative hahaha. I guess this is going to be my next Chinese class then!

Pinyin will do until then!

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Am I starting a series? Nah… I don’t think I can come up with a Jpop list xD

Unlike the Kpop list which it focused 99% of the time on dance pop friendly tracks that went beyond American commercial pop, this “Cpop” list is… not really pop.

Popular music in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China (but mostly Taiwan) tends to be pop/rockish flare. Sure there are dance pop friendly, but even they have moved or are moving more towards pop/rock. They also love indie flavor, and accept not particularly attractiveness in their idols… even though there are some very good looking people who are immensely popular.

To be completely honest, compared to Korea’s pop music charts, Chinese music charts have a broad variety. But then again, compared to Japan’s pop music charts (which is comprised of AKB48 and Arashi xD), even Kpop charts (mostly 2NE1 and Big Bang now that DBSK is gone) seem to have some variety. xD

So this list of great Chinese music includes varying genres from R&B, pop/rock… more rockish, ballads (regular and of the indie type), etc. once again listed by year of release.

Again, it’s a bit weak on the earlier years… but you are welcome to make suggestions (for any year). A few guidelines would be that they cannot be too indie (I couldn’t fit Cheer Cheen or Mavis Fan in the list because they don’t feel completely pop, if you know what I mean), must include MVs (so songs released as singles), not older than late 90s.

Also… song must work as MV too. So no awesome songs but tacky videos. Sorry.

[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL0C06C35FA9FC1C64&hl=en_US”]

YouTube link.

What do you like about the Cpop industry?

Who are your fave artists?

My purty iTunes Library~

April 22, 2011 — 4 Comments

I’m a dork, you can’t deny it.

I’m a dork, and I’m proud of my -mostly- tidied up iTunes library.

As with my CDs, and my DVDs… a little bit of books, and mostly with computer files, I like to know where my things are. Of course, iTunes makes it way easy to keep things organized with their “copy to folder” and “keep things organized” options, but then we’ve got album covers, song names, artists names… and music can get a little messy.

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