In a competition in which mainstream artists with strong sales dominated, Adia (
The best album went to newcomer Jay Chou (
Na Ying (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In the eyes of the music industry, where money is the bottom line, the male nominees are small potatoes compared to the women. "Females have much higher recognition," said Perry Ko (
Taiwan's top seller at Tower Records in 2000 was Faye Wong (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"The market for female singers is much, much bigger than the market for the guys," said Ko. "There's kind of a weird split. Female pop singers get both guys and girls buying their albums, but male pop singers only get women buying the records."
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In a predictable award ceremony, in many categories, winners seemed to be selected on their record sales, with mainstream artists pushing out less famous names. A massive crowd attended the gathering, held for the first time in the event's 12-year history in Kaohsiung. The broadcasting rights for the event, which for the last three years have been held by TVBS, were taken for the first time by ETTV.
In an early surprise, Sun Yan-zi (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Occasionally lapsing into English, the Singapore native said she was "surprised," "very happy," and that she appreciated the support and friendship of the other nominees.
Sun's fame has grown rapidly over the last two years, and a career comprised of only two CDs and a string of TV commercials has been sufficient to make her a star.
The conservatism of this year's Golden Melody Awards was further revealed by Chiang Hui's (
According to Ma Nien-hsien (
Sticky Rice was praised at the beginning of the award ceremony by Kaohsiung mayor Frank Hsieh (謝長廷) as "representing a new element in Taiwan." Despite this, the trend toward picking big names was working against the group. Last year, there had been criticism that many of the winners were relatively unknown in the mainstream, and this year judges seem to have gone out of their way to pick only those groups that have been moving CDs in the stores.
Speaking after receiving their award, Ah Hsin (
While there were good crowds attending the event, some members of the public did give voice to the idea that such mainstream festivals did not altogether reflect their musical interests. "I like Jay Chou (
Liu Chia-chang (劉家昌), one of Taiwan's most prolific writer of golden oldies, received a lifetime achievement award. As the writer of the hit In Praise of the Republic of China (中華民國頌) and other patriotic songs, he spoke about how, under the DPP government, people now tiptoe around the name "Republic of China." This caused some embarrassment for the presenter of the award, the deputy director general of the Government Information Office.
Another usually minor category was for Best Classical Music, in which category the soundtrack for Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was knocked out of the competition because it was not pure classical music, according to the judges. Officials said that a new movie soundtrack category may be incorporated in next year's event.
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
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“This is one of those rare bits of TikTok fitness advice with a lot of truth behind it,” says Bethan Crouse, performance nutritionist at Loughborough University. “Sometimes it’s taken a bit too literally, though! You see people chugging protein drinks as they’re scanning out of their gym.” Crouse recommends the athletes she works with consume 20-30g of protein within 30-60 minutes of finishing a resistance training session. “The act of exercising our muscles increases the breakdown of muscle proteins,” she says. “In order to restore, or hopefully improve them — and get gains such as increased muscle mass or strength —
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