Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰)
Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰)
Warner
It has been quite a remarkable feat, for since Jam Hsiao’s (蕭敬騰) self-titled debut album hit the G-Music charts at No. 1 nine weeks ago in June, it has only been kicked off pole position twice. The singer — who became a household name after he was invited to perform in part of a “penalty kick” showdown (PK賽) in Season One of CTV’s One Million Star (超級星光大道) pop idol “reality” show — has eclipsed fellow Season One alumni Aska Yang (楊宗緯) and Yoga Lin (林宥嘉). Given his album’s almost complete lack of character, this reviewer has been waiting for Hsiao’s name to drop down into the bottom half of the Top 20 for more than a month. But as Hsiao’s ranking shows little sign of slipping, it is time to ponder the reasons for his success.
The power ballad is clearly Hsiao’s favored medium, and within its narrow limits, he is able to use his voice to good effect. Among the metal-tinged riffs, there are a number of more syrupy numbers, with clever shifts of tone and mood — palpitating drum machines in one, tinkling solo piano in another, a few bars of bluesy guitar here and there — but never really straying far from the heavy orchestration of the Mando-pop mainstream. Lyrically, the album is unadventurous, sticking to love songs throughout, though there are occasional sparks of inventiveness, most of them contained in the hit song The Emperor’s New Clothes (王子的新衣).
While individual songs never made much of an impression, repeated listening to the album revealed the secret of its success: it is the ultimate KTV playlist. You have the cloying sweetness of Forgive Me and I Am Crying, the rollicking choruses of The Emperor’s New Clothes and Blues, all shaped with just the right level of technical difficulty to separate the sheep from the goats at the local Cashbox. To perform one of these songs well will certainly get kudos from your mates, but if you just want to belt something out about the despair of unrequited love at the end of an evening of hard singing, these songs will also serve pretty well.— Ian Bartholomew
Chun-Mei Taiwanese Opera Troupe arranged by GTS
White Horse (我身騎白馬)
Singing International Media Company
White Horse, which is subtitled “Off the Hook Taiwanese Opera,” is an arrangement of some classic segments of gezai opera with a mix of electronica, pop music and symphonic elements by Su Tung-ta (蘇通達), who publishes under the name GTS.
An arrangement of the title track was incorporated into a song that won singer Hsu Chia-ying (徐佳瑩) a perfect 25 score in Season Three of One Million Star, and Hsu went on to win first prize for Season Three last week. A comparison of Hsu’s “lyrical version” and GTS’s complete version as it appears in the White Horse album highlights both strengths and weaknesses.
The track in White Horse, with its ardent operatic aria that soars over a full Western orchestral backing, has a cinematic feel, but unfortunately this cannot be maintained, despite the laying on of erhu and other traditional instruments, bells, sonar noise and much else. There are four seven-character lines to be sung, and GTS is not able to do enough musically with the arrangement to maintain interest over its six minute-plus length. In the end it comes across as somewhat bombastic. When GTS put aside the bells and whistles to assist Hsu in her Million Star composition, what remained was an elegant piece of cultural appropriation.
Throughout the album GTS seems to be adding too much of his own rather uninspired effects to a somewhat insubstantial amount of operatic core. His aspirations bring to mind people such as Bhangra artist Bally Sagoo, who worked Indian songs into his clubby electronica, but GTS hasn’t the sophistication to blend the traditional and the modern in a consistent manner. His arrangements have moments of great interest, but not much staying power.
The album won the Best Recording Package at the 50th Annual Grammy Awards for graphic artist Xiao Qing-yang (蕭青陽), and the gorgeous design and its lovely layout of the gezai lyrics and Taiwanese phonetics, rather than the music, is the best reason to purchase this album.— Ian Bartholomew
The Dolittles
The Domino Effect
www.thedolittles.com
In Taiwan’s small but proactive expat music scene, the Dolittles have placed themselves squarely on the map with their engaging modern rock. Formed in 2006 by Changhua-based English teacher Andy Goode, the band has already released several EPs and enjoys a following on its local live-music circuit. The Domino Effect offers a picture of a band with a mature, solid sound.
This six-song EP covers a range of moods driven by catchy tempos and rock instrumentation and is polished with excellent sound and post-production quality. Burning Hemingway begins with dissonant but pleasing squeals from an electric guitar and keeps the listener’s attention with pop harmonies held together by a ska beat. In this respect the band does a nice job of leading you into their world. They use a lot of groove-oriented rhythms, but the songs are focused: pop-rock structures give a sense of drama, particularly on the catchy title track.
Secret Fire is a power-chord rocker with the restrained angst of a Seattle grunge band, and Goode’s voice remains impressively steady throughout this song of admiration. Let the Leaves Fall — one of the EP’s strongest tracks — is a slow and quiet number, with atmospheric guitar effects and convincing vocal harmonies full of yearning and regret. All This Flesh is nice for its textured guitar layers, spacey electronic sounds and tight harmonies, but it doesn’t feel as emotionally dynamic as the edgy Treading Water. Here the band’s instrumentation builds fear and apprehension, giving a vivid feel to the song’s story.
The songwriting deserves praise for its sense of completeness; each tune sounds like it was crafted with great care. With this EP the Dolittles show they can write and perform intelligent and catchy songs. One only hopes that they’ll keep pushing the boundaries of their music.
— David Chen
Fire Ex (滅火器)
Where Am I? (我底叨位)
White Wabbit Records
Fire Ex (www.fireex.net) is a punk band that managed to survive the emerge-crash-and-burn cycle of Taiwan’s underground music scene. They formed in Kaohsiung in 2000 and used to hang out with the Feirenbang (廢人幫), a group of kids from Taichung into punk music, slam dancing and living off their parents. The band cites Green Day as an early influence and revelation of sorts: Hey! A band can play punk music that has catchy melodies and hooks.
The band has taken these elements and honed them into an original sound, which listeners can sample in this four-song EP. The post-rock influenced 3034 is a slow, short instrumental that burns with fuzzy and distorted guitars, drawing out a melody that builds to an emotional crest. The title track Where Am I? (我底叨位) has strong pop sensibility but rocks at punk velocity. With its feel-good chord changes, vocal harmonies and message of feeling lost, the tune could be a future anthem for Taiwanese youth. Lightsome Road (光明的路) also follows a similar formula, but the message takes a more hopeful tone (“Please give me all of your strength, we can face yesterday’s mistakes”), and ends with a Beatles-esque harmony.
With these tunes, Fire Ex displays some of the scrappiness that characterizes the Taiwanese rock spirit. They sing mostly in Hoklo (commonly known as Taiwanese), which further adds a down-to-earth flavor to the music. The EP ends with the acoustic-tinged ballad Good Night! Formosa!, a sad but consoling ode to Taiwan, with its refrain “When the sun comes out again, there will still be good weather.” The song is laced with tasteful synthesizer sounds played by American musician Andy Backer, who recorded and mixed all four tracks. The post-production leaves the EP with a professional-sounding sheen and enhances already-strong songs from this confident band.— David Chen
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