Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰)
Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰)
Warner
It has been quite a remarkable feat, for since Jam Hsiao’s (蕭敬騰) self-titled debut album hit the G-Music charts at No. 1 nine weeks ago in June, it has only been kicked off pole position twice. The singer — who became a household name after he was invited to perform in part of a “penalty kick” showdown (PK賽) in Season One of CTV’s One Million Star (超級星光大道) pop idol “reality” show — has eclipsed fellow Season One alumni Aska Yang (楊宗緯) and Yoga Lin (林宥嘉). Given his album’s almost complete lack of character, this reviewer has been waiting for Hsiao’s name to drop down into the bottom half of the Top 20 for more than a month. But as Hsiao’s ranking shows little sign of slipping, it is time to ponder the reasons for his success.
The power ballad is clearly Hsiao’s favored medium, and within its narrow limits, he is able to use his voice to good effect. Among the metal-tinged riffs, there are a number of more syrupy numbers, with clever shifts of tone and mood — palpitating drum machines in one, tinkling solo piano in another, a few bars of bluesy guitar here and there — but never really straying far from the heavy orchestration of the Mando-pop mainstream. Lyrically, the album is unadventurous, sticking to love songs throughout, though there are occasional sparks of inventiveness, most of them contained in the hit song The Emperor’s New Clothes (王子的新衣).
While individual songs never made much of an impression, repeated listening to the album revealed the secret of its success: it is the ultimate KTV playlist. You have the cloying sweetness of Forgive Me and I Am Crying, the rollicking choruses of The Emperor’s New Clothes and Blues, all shaped with just the right level of technical difficulty to separate the sheep from the goats at the local Cashbox. To perform one of these songs well will certainly get kudos from your mates, but if you just want to belt something out about the despair of unrequited love at the end of an evening of hard singing, these songs will also serve pretty well.— Ian Bartholomew
Chun-Mei Taiwanese Opera Troupe arranged by GTS
White Horse (我身騎白馬)
Singing International Media Company
White Horse, which is subtitled “Off the Hook Taiwanese Opera,” is an arrangement of some classic segments of gezai opera with a mix of electronica, pop music and symphonic elements by Su Tung-ta (蘇通達), who publishes under the name GTS.
An arrangement of the title track was incorporated into a song that won singer Hsu Chia-ying (徐佳瑩) a perfect 25 score in Season Three of One Million Star, and Hsu went on to win first prize for Season Three last week. A comparison of Hsu’s “lyrical version” and GTS’s complete version as it appears in the White Horse album highlights both strengths and weaknesses.
The track in White Horse, with its ardent operatic aria that soars over a full Western orchestral backing, has a cinematic feel, but unfortunately this cannot be maintained, despite the laying on of erhu and other traditional instruments, bells, sonar noise and much else. There are four seven-character lines to be sung, and GTS is not able to do enough musically with the arrangement to maintain interest over its six minute-plus length. In the end it comes across as somewhat bombastic. When GTS put aside the bells and whistles to assist Hsu in her Million Star composition, what remained was an elegant piece of cultural appropriation.
RSS