hen Chou Huei (周蕙) released her first album a decade ago, she was widely expected to become one of the four lesser “Queens of Heaven” (四小天后) of the Chinese-language music scene along with Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) and Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒).
Dubbed the “bel canto diva” (美聲天后), Chou — who performs every Tuesday this month at Brown Sugar — is a talented singer with a voice that can take on many colors. Even her most conventional Mando-pop ballads have a degree of controlled elegance that can be quite appealing in contrast to the overblown sentimentality of the genre as a whole. But in 2003 a contract dispute derailed her career and forced her to take a four-year hiatus from the music industry.
“Had I followed up on the success of my first album and released an album every year for the past decade, I would have become a really egocentric person,” Chou said. “I was forced to take a break ... it’s allowed me to become a better singer because I understand the kind of frustrations the average person has to deal with.”
Chou spent 2004 traveling around the globe and returned with a new perspective on life, one that is reflected in her choice of album titles. Her 2002 release is called Lonely City (寂寞城市). Her 2007 album is titled Blossom (綻放).
Chou’s four-part “mini concert” at Brown Sugar is called Listen With Your Heart Chou Huei (醉心聆聽周蕙). Each Tuesday night she will choose 14 songs from a list of 20 to perform. The set includes some of her own hit ballads; two Shanghai-era oldies, Barbecued Pork Bun (叉燒包) and I Want Your Love (我要你的愛); Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance and Kylie Minogue’s Can’t Get You Out of My Head.
“These two [Shanghai] oldies are naughty and lively songs. I chose Lady Gaga and Kylie Minogue’s songs because I personally listen to dance songs,” Chou said during a rehearsal last week. “I think it’s important to change the mood for the audience a few times during the evening.”
Chou achieved fame overnight with an animated music video of her delivering a crystalline cover of Hong Kong pop diva Faye Wong’s (王菲) Promise (約定), but she did not show her face on an album cover until her fifth album of original material, which was released last year.
Contrary to her shy and introspective public persona, however, in private Chou is upbeat and even mischievous at times.
“I once fell off the stage while performing in China. My agent’s face totally turned green,” she said. “I just laughed and climbed back on the stage.”
Chou says she listens to an eclectic range of music including dance, rock and trip pop. “I listen to Lady Gaga to study her,” she said. “Many people see her as an entertainer who’s famous because of her bizarre antics, but I see her as an entertainer with substance who is worth emulating.”
Chou is now her own producer and is currently screening songs for her next album.
“I want to show my quirky side more on the next album,” she said. “It will be an album based on the theme of city life.”
Feb. 17 to Feb. 23 “Japanese city is bombed,” screamed the banner in bold capital letters spanning the front page of the US daily New Castle News on Feb. 24, 1938. This was big news across the globe, as Japan had not been bombarded since Western forces attacked Shimonoseki in 1864. “Numerous Japanese citizens were killed and injured today when eight Chinese planes bombed Taihoku, capital of Formosa, and other nearby cities in the first Chinese air raid anywhere in the Japanese empire,” the subhead clarified. The target was the Matsuyama Airfield (today’s Songshan Airport in Taipei), which
For decades, Taiwan Railway trains were built and serviced at the Taipei Railway Workshop, originally built on a flat piece of land far from the city center. As the city grew up around it, however, space became limited, flooding became more commonplace and the noise and air pollution from the workshop started to affect more and more people. Between 2011 and 2013, the workshop was moved to Taoyuan and the Taipei location was retired. Work on preserving this cultural asset began immediately and we now have a unique opportunity to see the birth of a museum. The Preparatory Office of National
China has begun recruiting for a planetary defense force after risk assessments determined that an asteroid could conceivably hit Earth in 2032. Job ads posted online by China’s State Administration of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defence (SASTIND) this week, sought young loyal graduates focused on aerospace engineering, international cooperation and asteroid detection. The recruitment drive comes amid increasing focus on an asteroid with a low — but growing — likelihood of hitting earth in seven years. The 2024 YR4 asteroid is at the top of the European and US space agencies’ risk lists, and last week analysts increased their probability
On Jan. 17, Beijing announced that it would allow residents of Shanghai and Fujian Province to visit Taiwan. The two sides are still working out the details. President William Lai (賴清德) has been promoting cross-strait tourism, perhaps to soften the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) attitudes, perhaps as a sop to international and local opinion leaders. Likely the latter, since many observers understand that the twin drivers of cross-strait tourism — the belief that Chinese tourists will bring money into Taiwan, and the belief that tourism will create better relations — are both false. CHINESE TOURISM PIPE DREAM Back in July
RSS