Taiwanese band Sodagreen’s (蘇打綠) album Winter Endless (冬未了) leads this year’s nominees for the Golden Melody Awards — Taiwan’s version of the Grammy Awards — with eight nominations, including Best Mandarin Album, the jury said on Friday.
The album also earned nods in the categories of Best Song of the Year, Best Composer, Best Lyricist, Best Musical Arranger, Best Album Producer and Best Band, with Sodagreen’s lead vocalist, singer-songwriter Wu Ching-feng (吳青峰), scoring two nominations for Best Lyricist.
Winter Endless is Sodagreen’s 10th studio album and the last of four concept albums created as part of the band’s Project Vivaldi. The project began in 2009 and was inspired by composer Antonio Vivaldi’s concertos The Four Seasons.
Photo: CNA
The four albums were recorded and produced in Taitung, London, Beijing and Berlin. The final album was a collaboration between Sodagreen and the GermanPops orchestra.
Singaporean singer-songwriter Chua’s Aphasia and Taiwanese pop diva A-mei’s (阿妹, also known as Chang Hui-mei, 張惠妹) AMIT2 have also been nominated.
In the category of Best Mandarin Female Singer, A-mei and Chua are each seeking their fourth Golden Melody Best Female Vocalist award against competitors Peggy Hsu (許哲珮), Julia Peng (彭佳慧), Huang Qishan and Su Yunying (蘇運瑩).
Meanwhile, Singapore’s J.J. Lin (林俊傑) is to vie for his second win in the category of Best Mandarin Male Singer. The other nominees in this category are Malaysian Chinese singer Namewee (黃明志), China’s Li Jian (李健) and Taiwan’s Ko Chih-tang (柯智棠) and Matzka.
The Lifetime Contribution Award is to go to 64-year-old Taiwanese singer Tracy Huang (黃鶯鶯), who has released more than 50 Mandarin, English and Cantonese albums since the 1970s and is known for her songs Crying Sand and Sending My Love Across Time and Space.
Jury representative Chou Chien-hui (周建輝) said one of the biggest highlights this year is the level of sophistication and diversity of albums by new artists, some of who have been nominated in the categories of Best Album and Best Singer.
Several mainstream singers have shown their ambitions to use innovative techniques on their latest albums and to challenge themselves, despite already being commercially successful artists, Chou said.
He said another feature of this year’s nominees is the humanitarian spirit of many of the works and their focus on the environment, feminism, youth and other social issues.
Independent music and bands are also becoming more sophisticated with many outstanding works coming from China and Southeast Asia, Chou added.
This year, 482 albums and 11,177 works were submitted for award consideration, and 128 nominated works are to compete in 26 categories at the 27th Golden Melody Awards to be held at the Taipei Arena on June 25.
The coast guard drove away 567 Chinese boats and seized seven illegally operating in Taiwanese waters in the first six months of this year, the Coast Guard Administration (CGA) said yesterday. They mostly operated near Kinmen and Penghu counties, resulting in fines totaling NT$1.7 million (US$52,440), it said. Three ships — two near Kinmen County and one near Penghu County — were detained in January for illegally crossing the border, while one ship each was detained near Kinmen in February and Penghu in March respectively, it said. The ship seized near Penghu in January was the Yun Ao (雲澳), detained by the CGA’s
Military photovoltaic projects have been found to have used Chinese-made devices blacklisted by the government, including Huawei Technologies Co routers, the Ministry of National Defense’s Armaments Bureau said on Thursday. An ongoing investigation has identified the illegal use of 128 current transformers, two routers and a data reader at the Hungchailin Army Base, Pinghai Navy Base and Tri-Service General Hospital’s Songshan branch, it said. The devices were manufactured in the Chinese factories of German solar energy equipment supplier SMA Solar Technology, Taiwanese electronics manufacturer Delta Electronics Co, Chinese electronics manufacturer Huawei and Taiwanese industrial PC maker Advantech Co, the bureau said. The bureau’s
The entire Alishan Forest Railway line is to reopen for the first time in 15 years on Saturday, with tickets to go on sale at 2pm today. The historic railway from Chiayi to Alishan (阿里山) is finally set to reopen after the completion of the final No. 42 tunnel, Alishan Forest Railway and Cultural Heritage Office Deputy Director-General Chou Heng-kai (周恆凱) said. It is to run on a new timetable, with four trains daily, he said. The 9am train is to depart from Chiayi Railway Station bound for Shizilu Station (十字路), while the 10am train departing from Chiayi is to go all the
Beijing’s recent provocative actions against the Philippines in the South China Sea were partly meant as a “dress rehearsal” for the invasion of Taiwan, former US deputy national security advisor Matt Pottinger said at a Heritage Foundation forum in Washington on Tuesday. Beijing’s blocking of a Philippine resupply mission on June 17 with unprecedented violence had multiple implications. “What they’re doing is trying to demonstrate that they can blockade, create a sense of futility and discredit the idea that the United States is going to help not only the Philippines, but by extension Taiwan,” Pottinger said. Pottinger was referring to a clash