Power Station 動力火車
Red 就是紅
Him International 華研國際
It's been almost two years since A-Bon (
The new CD offers something for everyone and certainly puts on a better showing than the national baseball team, for which Power Station's Hit the Sky (
While the older material remains entertaining, it is the newer material that really stands out. With more stress on orchestration, techno loops and grinding guitar reverb, Power Station appears to have opened a new chapter in its celebrated career. Dance-oriented material like Overjoyed (
The more mainstream blues/rock numbers like Happy to Separate (
Will 潘瑋柏
WuHa
Universal
The long-time star of GTV's (
Not that this poor showing dented his career. Along with Jay Chou (
He might not be as big a draw as "Mumbles" Chou (so-called because you can't hear what Jay's singing about), but Will's lyrics can be understood whether he's crooning in English, Mandarin or Cantonese and all his tunes make for a pleasant listen.
There are three distinct flavors to the 10 tunes on WuHa. There's heavy hip hop-orientated tunes, like the title track, WuHa, I Don't Understand Cantonese (我識廣東話) and Diversion (聲東擊西), and there's more mainstream pop hip hop tunes like Happy Worshipping (快樂崇拜) and the album's highlight, the bouncy and feel-good number, Say You Can do It (說到做到). And, just for good measure and no doubt to appease his teenage female fans, Will has thrown in a couple of so-so love songs that don't dent what is on the whole a good mainstream Mando pop/rap album.
Monkey Insane 潑猴
Our Generation 我們的世代
Avex Trax
Winners of last year's MTV Band Hunting competition and the Ho-Hai-Yan Rock Festival, Monkey Insane (
Our Generation (
The album takes no prisoners from the word go and Monkey Insane goes straight for the jugular with a sterling nasty piece of hardcore hybrid hip hop/nu-metal titled Come On, on which the band's two guitars collide in a nauseating feeding frenzy.
What follows are a dozen tunes that pack an equal punch and prove that at least one studio engineer in Taiwan knows where the "oomph" button is on the mixing desk. Along with the fantastic opener, other tunes worthy of mention include the grinding Mendacious (
Various
China Very Coll 很牛逼
Scream
While several of Avex Trax's recent string of releases featuring Chinese bands have given Taiwanese listeners the chance to hear plenty of new and interesting material, if the bands on China Very Cool (
Hanging in a Box's (
China Very Cool is not cool. Post-rock act Thin Man (
The album's only saving grace, and it's a small one, comes from the mohawked ska/punk combo Hey! (
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