Alright~ Bibi taking on My Heart Will Go On kinda took me by surprise — have no idea who’s on the guitar — but I like the arrangement they did to the song kinda straying from the actual song, because very few can give Celine Dion a fresh spin.
Bibi oversang a bit, coz I have the inkling that she was trying to cover up for something~~~
DUDE, his English. I don’t mind that you mispronounce one or two words, but all the lyrics sound like gibberish. It’s completely distracting, and a pity that had to turn out this way because it’s a really refreshing arrangement.
You all know that I like Brown Eyed Girls. I actually spent a huge chunk of my trip to Taiwan listening to Brown Eyed Girls’ albums (especially the first two), and then I realized something. I LOVE JeA, like… so much.
But I have a confession to make~ I didn’t really “get” her at first. To be honest, I was way too distracted by GaIn to notice anything, but as time has passed by… I finally get it. JeA, you’re amazing just the way you are. I’m sorry I took you for granted when I first started listening, but now I have a deep-seeded respect for you (as a person) and your talent. Your voice is beautiful, layered with feelings and experience that just flows towards your audience. Thank you for sharing your talent with us.
Julyssa posted FINKL’s MV for Now, and I just couldn’t help and YouTube some more because… well, I really miss Hyori. LOL I really can’t believe how little she has aged (REALLY), as well as how with time… Hyori seems to have less and less clothing. LOL
She looks fantastic with a lot of clothing, to be honest. Like with the outfits in this Comeback Special performance~ she really should make a total turnaround for her comeback this year. I wonder what she’s planning~
When I was in Taiwan… in one of those nights I used to watch the news, I remember watching one note where they were talking (or, I guess… complaining) about how some “people” of the communist party where loaded with money, so MUCH money that women were able to showcase their Marc Jacob bags (priced at $20k USD apparently). The guilty parties? Gong Li and Song Zuying.
Bitch, please. Those two can afford their own Marc Jacob purses. They’re divas. They may be part of the party… because — come on, who DOESN’T belong to the party? You gotta be part of it to be a working actor or musician.
And if those two don’t buy their own purses, they get them as gifts. That’s how life is for this kind of people. No need to make it news-worthy complaining about the loaded communists. LOL
ANYWAY. I “met” Song Zuying when she performed at the Beijing Olympics (like ALL the other artists I met in that event — 谢谢，北京~). She sang with Placido Domingo and I totally heard her name, thinking she was Korean — come on, it totally sounds Korean when you sound it out~ xD Afterwards, I’ve seen her in several CCTV events and eventually got accustomed to her voice. She’s one of those people you just gotta WATCH when she performs live.
One of my favorite songs of hers is Love my China (爱我中华) — which some translate as (I’m looking at you CCTV) Our Love for China or I Love China — don’t be fooled. It’s Love my China and it’s about the 56 ethnicities in China and how they all sing their love for the country. It’s a VERY patriotic song, like… too much. But it’s so freaking catchy. Specially in the CCTV broadcast where I first heard it.
Her performance is the quality of Madonna LOL — it’s a big performance, almost unlimited budget coz it’s for the party… and Song Zuying may lack the sex quality Madonna has (because, COME ONE~), but she totally has that air of a magnificent diva. You may not like her political option, but my gosh~ she’s fantastically classy.
She even does it with regular versions of the song with a western chorus and a western audience [1]. Her voice has a magnificent quality once you get accustomed to its tone. However, I like her the best when she goes full-on Chinese with me. LOL Like in this crazy big performance of Good Days (好日子) [1] she did for the 60th anniversary of China. It’s incredibly… sentiment rousing. Them Chinese patriotic songs are good. LOL
See, this would be a mega-talent post if NHK would only let me embed Shiina Ringo’s performance at the latest Kouhaku, but no~~~ they gotta make things difficult.
Anyway, I think I may have died a little and gone to heaven. One of my wishes from last year may be coming true or something. Faye Wong singing new material — for New Year nonetheless — it’s like the creative muses got together and made Shiina Ringo and Faye Wong perform so close to one another, some babies may have been born with no talent at all because the concentration of it might be too much. LOL
as per usual with Faye Wong stuff, I have no idea what this song may be call except for Yuan (愿) which can mean “desire, wish, hope, willing, ready” — take your pick. You can listen to the studio version here.
The live version is… off, apparently Faye — diva and all – recognized she messed up a bit. I’m really blaming her time off stage, but it doesn’t matter… I can just LOOT AT HER. THAT STAGE. That stage is stunning beyond words. I can salivate looking at that stage and love that I can see it in high definition… there are just no proper words to describe it.
Most importantly~ did you catch adorable Mana-chan performing? If you didn’t, the Maru Maru Mori Mori performance blended with the Arashi/Disney performance and anything with Disney is full of win for me. I found you this link on Nate.com of the Disney performance.
Mana-chan also had the most graceful fall on stage, that I swear it’s going to last all year and be name Most Graceful On-Stage Fall of 2012~~~ which wasn’t even 2012, but just for the sake of upload times, it was.
I don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve watched Sunny a lot of times since I first saw it. However, besides catching me singing to Boney M’s Sunny [1] — which both my parents are also doing just because they caught it on the background and got stuck with the song.
Actually, I’m lying – my dad has seen Sunny three times already. He loves it.
Anyway, besides singing that… and Tuck & Patti’s Time After Time and all the other songs, I’ve gotten a knack for singing NaMi’s Round and Round (빙글 빙글) just because of that infectious “bingeul bingeul” in the song. LOL
Even better! There’s a wonderful old-school vs. Sunny version mash-up!
Ahh… Meisa Kuroki — you know I have a soft spot for you? Somewhere deep in my brain there’s my subconscious telling me that you have potential. Then, the snarky part of me bursts out laughing when I see you in you music videos (and avoid your live performances)… and I swear I don’t mean to laugh. It’s just something that sort of happens.
I don’t remember when I first watched this clip, but I remember I saw just a bit of it — the first two lines — on CCTV. Maybe it was during the 10th anniversary of the Macao Handover, but I remember the little girl singing.. it was just that, and then they cut away. At that time, I spoke no word of Mandarin (or Cantonese, or any dialect),my mother was watching with me as she listened to it and translated. She turned and told me “you know my name is not Macau, that is not my name.” — A sudden rush of emotions came over me.
I have no idea why that line was so powerful to me, I literally had to go to my room because I felt a little dust bugging me and my tears forming.
That was then. I have no idea what got me tonight — must be The Flowers of War business, I always get like this when I read a lot of negative press against China since the Olympics LOL. Anyway, I went on a hunt for that song because I didn’t know what it was called, and my mother didn’t grow up in China singing it so she had no idea it was a popular children’s song.
Called the Song of the Seven Sons – Aomen (七子之歌-澳门)… apparently there’s a Taiwan version as well, but it’s not as hip [1]. I thought there might be 7 versions of the song for different regions that were part of China or something xD
Anyway, a really GOOD translation of the lyrics is hard to find, but I managed to find a good one without doing any translating work (because I’m so lazy like that) but a lot of googling. Chinese, pinyin and translations after the break!
