He looks so fabulous here standing on a chair lol So 1st day of CNY & saw sum darling little girls dressed in chinese clothes complete with embroidery & frog buttons. They looked sweet but the point is they dun dressed like that all the time. It will be fun for CNY but they probably prefer cutoffs & little tops. Actually felt the whole celebration of CNY is reaffirmation of chinese roots. CNY songs the epitome of what chinese music is all abt. No matter how modern Chinese ppl become they still dun forget how to celebrate Lunar New Year. So I honestly dun feel we Chinese ever in danger of forgetting our roots. To be honest, sometimes we are a bit too proud of our roots :P
Nobody can be perfect all the time, nothing is always the best, there must always be room for improvement so one must be able to accept criticism else how on earth can there be improvement? But I know ppl still get pissing mad even tho just airing my views on my own little blog ^__^ I criticise David heaps of time but dun mean I dun love & support him but still I do see flaws in him.
He is not a vry natural singer & get nervous when asked to sing impromptu. He always remind ppl that its not 'rehearsed' even tho he usually sound better than most other singers. Probably he is such control freak that he need the perfect environment in order to perform. I do wish he is able to 'let go' more like Eason Chan who is an extremely natural singer & is not afraid of sounding unrehearsed. To ppl who r not his fans, I realised that David can come across as arrogant & preachy heehee but that's the way he is. He will not pretend to be the kind of bashful, modest, no-opinion idol singer that the Chinese public seem to want.
I cannot say his songs are totally original but this is true of most music written today, however his music is less 'manufactured' than other singer/composers. I am not saying Susan Says is an unoriginal song, I like it a lot & understand why he mixed in Chinese opera. After all he was brought up by a Chinese opera singer, its in his 'roots' ^__* but at least he stop short of putting his mother or any other Chinese opera artist into his mv or worst, have his mother sing the chinese opera bit. Do you know what I mean or perhaps you dun or nvr will. He just used Chinese opera cos it suited the song. If ppl listening to the song felt that its representing Chinese music & help them discover their roots then wonderful but somehow dun think that was his intention.
Of cos he is by no means the first to use Chinese opera in his song, Shin already used it in One Night in Beijing. He is also not among the first to use chinese instruments in his songs, actually lots & lots of chinese songs used chinese instruments. Just go listen to Teresa Deng & Sally Yeh. Perhaps what ppl think is original & fresh just rehashing old ways of making music sound chinese. But we cannot keep looking backwards just cos we want to reaffirm our roots. Progress is inevitable just like we no longer wear chinese clothes with frog buttons. So in music we should try to accept that 'westernised' is not always a bad thing. Like hanyu pinyin, if its chinese it should still be acceptable.
Hm ... seemed Chinese censors has decided to ban Memiors for fears sex scene between Zhang Ziyi & Ken Watanabe might ignite anti-Japanese feeling. Oh well guess they can read the book ... wonder if its translated into chinese? Found the latest release by Banana Yoshimoto the other day, such a cute title 'Hardboiled & Hard Luck':D
He looks so fabulous here standing on a chair lol So 1st day of CNY & saw sum darling little girls dressed in chinese clothes complete with embroidery & frog buttons. They looked sweet but the point is they dun dressed like that all the time. It will be fun for CNY but they probably prefer cutoffs & little tops. Actually felt the whole celebration of CNY is reaffirmation of chinese roots. CNY songs the epitome of what chinese music is all abt. No matter how modern Chinese ppl become they still dun forget how to celebrate Lunar New Year. So I honestly dun feel we Chinese ever in danger of forgetting our roots. To be honest, sometimes we are a bit too proud of our roots :P
Nobody can be perfect all the time, nothing is always the best, there must always be room for improvement so one must be able to accept criticism else how on earth can there be improvement? But I know ppl still get pissing mad even tho just airing my views on my own little blog ^__^ I criticise David heaps of time but dun mean I dun love & support him but still I do see flaws in him.
He is not a vry natural singer & get nervous when asked to sing impromptu. He always remind ppl that its not 'rehearsed' even tho he usually sound better than most other singers. Probably he is such control freak that he need the perfect environment in order to perform. I do wish he is able to 'let go' more like Eason Chan who is an extremely natural singer & is not afraid of sounding unrehearsed. To ppl who r not his fans, I realised that David can come across as arrogant & preachy heehee but that's the way he is. He will not pretend to be the kind of bashful, modest, no-opinion idol singer that the Chinese public seem to want.
I cannot say his songs are totally original but this is true of most music written today, however his music is less 'manufactured' than other singer/composers. I am not saying Susan Says is an unoriginal song, I like it a lot & understand why he mixed in Chinese opera. After all he was brought up by a Chinese opera singer, its in his 'roots' ^__* but at least he stop short of putting his mother or any other Chinese opera artist into his mv or worst, have his mother sing the chinese opera bit. Do you know what I mean or perhaps you dun or nvr will. He just used Chinese opera cos it suited the song. If ppl listening to the song felt that its representing Chinese music & help them discover their roots then wonderful but somehow dun think that was his intention.
Of cos he is by no means the first to use Chinese opera in his song, Shin already used it in One Night in Beijing. He is also not among the first to use chinese instruments in his songs, actually lots & lots of chinese songs used chinese instruments. Just go listen to Teresa Deng & Sally Yeh. Perhaps what ppl think is original & fresh just rehashing old ways of making music sound chinese. But we cannot keep looking backwards just cos we want to reaffirm our roots. Progress is inevitable just like we no longer wear chinese clothes with frog buttons. So in music we should try to accept that 'westernised' is not always a bad thing. Like hanyu pinyin, if its chinese it should still be acceptable.
Hm ... seemed Chinese censors has decided to ban Memiors for fears sex scene between Zhang Ziyi & Ken Watanabe might ignite anti-Japanese feeling. Oh well guess they can read the book ... wonder if its translated into chinese? Found the latest release by Banana Yoshimoto the other day, such a cute title 'Hardboiled & Hard Luck':D
6 comments:
I think David did an awesome job with his impromptu singing on the CNY show :)
David varies his music a lot and there are some songs that I don't like either heh.
But back to the topic of Chinese music I understand what your trying to say, I know what you mean about looking into the future. But that in no means we should forget out past.
I've lived in Los Angeles all my life, and I never liked chinese music because the people I heard, Jolin, S.H.E, etc had nothing special about them. They sounded like American music except with chinese lyrics. It wasn't until I discovered people who were more unique like Leehom and David tao that I realized that there was more to the Chinese industry than people who couldn't sing but could only dance. I felt those two had awesome talent, and I really like Susan Shou and XZDRY.
The reason Teresa Teng is different, is that although she may use chinese elements, her music doesn't APPEAL to the teenagers nowadays.
I think r/b and hiphop is universal, but I don't think that a culture should be " westernized?" Why be westernizd when we can have our own r/b and hiphop?
For example Latin music, they have reggaeton, which is Spanish hiphop. it's hiphop but it isn't westernized.
I don't think adding chinese elements means that we arn't willing to face the future. We are, we're all embracing new styles, such as hiphop and r/b. But just becuase we have some of our own identity in it does not mean we arn't willing to move on. catch my drift?
Lol wow my message was really long. I respect your opinion, but I felt like offering my own. Nice blog btw :)
one night in beijing is originally done by Bobby Chen (Chen Shen), not Shin.
happy new year btw ;)
I wish we Thai would used more Thai instruments into our music like Chinese~ I don't really feel much for Thai instrument coz the sound lack something but I still feel its uniqueness that will remind us of what we have :)
I wish they could modernize it abit & make it more 'creative' than just being 'traditional' [ppl here hates to listen to traditional musci still they can't except changes]
I'd bow to whoever could mix old sound with the new & make a great music :) coz it's all about the 'music' right?
almost forgot~ one of the most original song by David is 'My Anata' aleast for me anyway :P
coz if I havn't came across this funny-lookin' MV with Chinese-Japanese lyrics [& the meaning-oh-so-clever btw] then I'd never even realise there's such talent in the Chinese Mandarin music scene~!!
I must stop my overload DT fangirl XD
Hi Anon, plse post as long as you like, thank u so much for yr views however u still dun get my meaning but its ok. Thank Reb so much for yr correction which kinda illustrates what I was trying to say. Must find out more abt Bobby Chen, he sounds so interesting. As usual blogging abt David always let me know more abt the origins of chinese music. Of cos the young dun listen to Teresa Deng anymore but doesn't mean she has become irrelevant, the same with Bobby Chen. I kinda guess you r Leehom fan, anon, he is very creative but unfortunately I dun quite like his latest album, however Shangrila was really nice. Anyway welcome to the blog. Hiya Zoe I luv when u r DT overloading :P
I'm a Leehom fan, but I'm more of a david fan. I didn't get into LEehom until his latest GSYX album which I really liked because it allowed me to listen to opera..which I usually despise..without feeling bored. :)
I like Leehom more for his fast songs than his slow songs, that is why I didn't like his earlier albums like Forever's First Day. But I like his newest album because it's catchy. I like it better than Shangri-la :)
But back to David. I think it's kind of hard to "modernize" traditional music because in a sense it isn't traditional anymore once it's "modernized". But I do believe that it is possible to INTEGRATE traditional music into modern music and that's why I really like the whole oriental, old opera feel that DAvid has in Susan Shou.
Post a Comment