After my prior reminiscing into memorable songs, decided to continue and indulge in some of my favourite tunes and musicians, from when they were still at the now-defunct alternative rock record label 魔岩/Magic Stone, especially their collaborative works.
Here is a song from one of 楊乃文-Faith Yang’s early albums, with music and lyrics composed by 张震岳-Ah Yue.
我給的愛-The Love I Gave
The simple tune and lyrics, with the 10×4 even lines and repetitive refrain, actually makes this song a good choice for learning mandarin; and it is simply breath-taking.
This song is like a test of Faith Yang’s mesmerizing alto voice and she seems to be singing the song in only a single breath. You can feel how the even cadence of the guitar undertone and beat (played by 张震岳-Ah Yue; and he also ghost-voices in the middle hauntingly) first measures against Faith Yang’s singing in even pace, but towards the end almost seems to be struggling to contain Faith Yang’s rising (but always controlled) emotionality.
Faith has some good lungs.
——————————————
And here is a rare and treasured clip. 陈绮贞-Cheer Chen and 杨乃文-Faith Yang sharing a stage and a song for the first time.
This was during 陈绮贞’s concert where Faith Yang makes her appearance as the mystery guest.
Cheer Chen & Faith Yang – Concert 2006
In the intro leading up to Faith’s entrance, 陈绮贞 was singing one of the songs that she wrote for Faith, 漂著/Floating. You can really see how different their delivery styles are, yet both are very compelling singers in their own ways.
The above clip also has a bonus 30secs at the end where you get to see them singing and bopping to a hippy Faith Yang song, 靜止/Stilled.
And here are the music videos of the songs:
漂著/Floating
[composed by Cheer Chen, performed by Faith Yang]
靜止/Stilled
[composed by Flowers, performed by Faith Yang]
(which suspiciously sounds like a sampling of The Cure’s Friday I’m In Love; but its all good)
——————————————
And this is quite possibly the music video with the most number of Taiwanese musical artistes together: 张震岳-Ah Yue’s 雙手插口袋-Sticking Both Hands In My Pockets.
雙手插口袋-Sticking Both Hands In My Pockets
张震岳-Ah Yue here caricatures the state of the music industry, as a low-level gofer (errand-boy) on the set of a music studio. Joining him in guest roles are various other artistes of the 魔石/Magic Stone record company. Wu Bai, of the rock band China Blue and big brother of Taiwanese rock, weighs in as a short-tempered and cigar-chomping producer behind the instrumentation and controls. Faith Yang, true to form, stars as a haughty and imperious big-name star. And Cheer Chen comes in as a dorky and clueless props-girl !
While funny, the video is also a sad and rather prophetic foretelling of 魔石/Magic Stone’s impending doom (it closed in that same year), with this line from Ah Yue in the song:
“Nowadays anyway, no matter how its done, only a few records are sold”
——————————————
Of course, I’m saving my poet-fairy 陈绮贞-Cheer Chen’s songs for later…
Late Monsoons... 