Pop Stop

Maybe, just maybe, the naive notion that music, including even the saccharine tunes of Mando-pop, is safely outside the realm of politics will be tossed out the window after Chang Hui-mei's (張惠妹) latest run-in with Chinese patriots last Saturday. But don't count on it.

The controversy stirred up when Chang, who's better known as A-mei (阿妹), was basically chased out of Hangzhou by a gaggle of banner-waving students. There was, however, some anxious speculation early this week as to which Taiwanese singers may be next to suffer a blockade on performances and endorsements in China, including Lee Hom Wang (王力宏), Jay Chou (周杰倫), Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), Mayday (五月天), Richie Ren (任賢齊), Alec Su (蘇有朋) and Wu Bai (伍佰) all of whom have been accused in at least one Chinese venue of being DPP supporters. Strangely, no one mentioned Samingad (紀曉君), who sang the national anthem at this year's inauguration. Then again, practically no one's ever heard of Samingad even though she's one of Taiwan's best singers who gained what little fame she has the hard way -- by singing in bars at night and holding down day jobs.

As a contrast, and for an example of the easy path to success, look to the new hot band F.I.R., which appeared out of nowhere and is now sitting cozily atop the charts in Taiwan. Their ascendancy has been so vertical even fans are wondering how genuine they are. The Great Daily News (大成報) reported this week on a back-and-forth dispute on Warner Records' Web site about the band lip-syncing shows. Fans spoke up in defense of F.I.R., not by denying any lip-syncing, but by saying it wasn't a big deal after all. And maybe it's not. Lip-syncing is standard practice in the industry anyway.

Holding on to the bottom rung of the pop charts is Jordan Chan (陳小春), whose latest album Black Hole (黑洞) is getting some apparently ineffectual non-stop promotion on Taipei's city buses. Pop Stop caught up with Skot Sukuyama, who arranged one song on the album and was involved in the making of the album from its early stages almost half a year ago, to ask why Jordan's album just isn't taking off. "Basically, it sounds like Frankenstein looks," he said.

While working on the album, the producers provided Sukuyama with some interesting and rather telling guidance on the sound they were hoping to achieve. "They said, `We want it to sound like an elephant and The Matrix," and I was like, "An elephant is an animal and The Matrix is a movie. It doesn't make any sense."

But that's what they wanted.

So that's what they got: an album jam-packed with clashing styles that simply don't come together in a very musical way.

Things looked bad this week for Rock Records, as well, which was featured in a front-page story of Wednesday's Apple Daily (蘋果日報) for facing a financial crisis. The label, which released albums by Mayday, Karen Mok (莫文蔚), Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽), Faith Yang (楊乃文) and other big names in Taiwanese pop, is reportedly under pressure from the courts to return NT$120 million secured in the wake of a failed agreement between it and Cashbox KTV.

A spokesman for the label is reported as saying the affair will be cleared up within a week.