Pop stop

This week, after three wildly successful years in the business, Sun Yanzi (孫燕姿) announced that she has decided to take a breather for at least a year.

The Singaporean-born, Taiwan-based singer released six albums in the three years since she burst onto the scene seemingly from out of nowhere. Last week she released her seventh record, called The Moment, which is a compilation with five new tracks and made her farewell concert at last week's MTV show in Taipei.

In the Liberty Times Yanzi has written a farewell journal-style series addressed to her fans in which she says her main reasons for stepping out of the business for a period of time are personal. That's really not surprising at all, considering she's released an album at a rate of one every six months and has been tirelessly jetting around the region for concerts and endorsements.

In her own words, she says "there have been many things" she hasn't been able to savor, and many bad things she hasn't "been able to fully digest."

Fair enough. It's not every star that makes a graceful exit from the business, although Yanzi insists she'll be back.

A going away gift for Yanzi would be her nomination for best female singer in the International Chinese Music Charts (全球華語哥曲排行榜), an award judged and distributed by radio stations in Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Singapore and Malaysia. Whether she'll get the award is another matter, though, because in the same category are Faye Wong (王菲), Tanya Tsai (蔡健雅), Na Ying (那英), A-mei (阿妹), Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) and more.

Curiously, Karen Mok (莫文蔚) wasn't nominated, despite her having won a Golden Melody Award this year.

On the men's side, the category is crowded with big names like Andy Lau (劉德華), Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Jackie Cheung (張學友).

If album sales are a factor in determining who wins, then the smart money will be on Jay Chou, whose newest album moved 80,000 copies in two weeks in Taiwan, which is a lot these days.

One band that isn't on the nomination list for any award is F4, that discardable flash-in-the-pan boy band of last summer. Not that the members care. They've mostly made smooth segues into TV. Last week, Tsai Tsai (仔仔) and Ken Chu (朱孝天) joined up with Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄) for a new show called Love Storm (狂愛龍圈風) that's already the talk of the town and featured Ken in a costume designed to transform him into a fleshy 120kg instead of his usual 70kg.

Audiences also got to see a lot more of TV host Chang Fei (張菲) than they're used to this week when he posed in a speedo for reporters alongside a pair of buff athletic trainers. It turns out that below his Lionel Richie hairline and gawdy double-breasted suits that are his hallmark he's actually pretty cut himself, having lifted weights for no less than 20 years. He's so confident of his physique, he even said he wouldn't rule out posing nude.

As spellbinding as Chang Fei going nude sounds, most people will probably be more eager to see the match-up of Chang Chen (張震) and Gong Li (鞏利) in Wong Kar Wai's (王家衛) upcoming movie. It is apparently saturated with lust-driven scenes filmed, of course, in Wong's sensuous style.

About a month ago, Pop Stop reported on the sad romantic fate of Lin You-wei (林佑威), whose girlfriend at the time was spotted by Next Magazine (壹週刊) cavorting with someone who was supposed to have been just a friend.