Emerging pop singer/songwriter Iris Lin (林綾) is that rare songwriter who made the leap from writing TV jingles to a career in pop music.
Lin, who released her debut album Love, Journey (真愛的旅行) to widespread acclaim in 2009, is performing at Franz & Friends (法藍瓷音樂餐廳) in Taipei every Friday night this month. Her repertoire includes her own songs as well as covers, and tonight she’s adopting the theme of “travel.”
Having studied classical music since the age of 6, Lin graduated from National Taiwan Normal University and worked as a high school music teacher before joining a commercial production company as a jingle songwriter.
Photo Courtesy of Sony Music
In 2009, two of her songs — Love, Journey and Right Beside Me (在我身邊) — were chosen by Mazda as its commercial theme song.
“As a commercial jingle writer, you have to understand the plot twists,” Lin told the Taipei Times after her performance at Franz & Friends on Friday last week. “I usually write longer versions of the songs and let the director shorten them.”
Lin’s demo tape of 11 commercial theme songs landed her a contract with Sony and led to her debut album, on which she wraps her warm, saccharine voice around melodious Mando-pop ballads set against a soothing piano background or sassy bossa nova rhythms.
Lin is currently working on her next album, which will feature two of her commercial theme songs from this year. Lin is serving as the spokeswoman for Purelove Alliance Taiwan (青少年純潔協會) and sings the theme song A Pure Heart (純潔的心) for the association, which campaigns for the rights of underprivileged youths. In February, Lin performed Love Together as the theme song for the Taichung Lantern Festival. Lin’s sunny, girl-next-door appeal and syrupy vocals make her the ideal spokeswoman for inspirational campaigns.
The pop songstress says she relishes J-pop and wants to craft her next album in the genre’s warm ballad style. She envisions the work as “musically therapeutic” and calls it “forest-like.”
“I am someone who is trained in chamber and orchestra music,” Lin says. “I love classical and pop music at the same time. I want to create classical/pop cross-over songs for my next album.”
At last week’s performance, Lin proved herself a competent live performer by delivering love odes with her laid-back, assuaging vocals. While her covers of songs made famous by female pop divas such as Maggie Chiang (江美琪) and Tanya Chua (蔡健雅) are predictably within her range, Lin also delivered a surprisingly entrancing cover of Jay Chou’s (周杰倫) End of the World (世界末日).
“In a music restaurant venue like this, it’s essential to perform some familiar hits for the audiences to get into the mood,” Lin says.
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