Flying To You, Flying To Me
Won Fu Jr
Saint Etienne did it with Up The Wooden Hills (2005) and They Might Be Giants with Here Come The ABCs (2005). Now Taiwan’s Won Fu joins this merry band of musicians in releasing an album for children.
In case song titles such as Ugly Duckling and Woo La La on the record are not clear enough, they also call themselves Won Fu Jr here to spell out who their new target audience is.
But the thing is, Won Fu’s happy, zippy, peppy pop has always had a child-like spirit to it so the new direction is not so much a stretch for them as a perfectly reasonable extension of what they already do.
There is an educational aspect to the album as well: The accompanying DVD has a segment on putting a song together through its various components.
Fans of Won Fu’s earlier work need not fret as they will find much to enjoy here. The catchy Many Geese might be about counting birds but its joyous message is universal and irresistible: “Happiness needs no reasons.” Nor is it just for tiny tots.
Blue Short Pants
Yisa Yu Kewei
Tearless
Meeia Foo
Included in the glittery line-up of Mandopop stars performing at the Rock 30 Singapore Concert tomorrow is newcomer Yisa Yu Kewei.
Impressively, the China singer, who placed fourth in the 2009 edition of the singing competition series Super Girl, showed no sign of nerves when she performed with veteran Bobby Chen Sheng at Rock Records’ celebratory gig in Taipei two months ago.
The label is certainly banking on her to be a breakthrough act – top musicians such as Lee Cheng-fan, Adia and Chang Chen-yue have been roped in for her maiden effort.
The album has a jolt of youthful optimism and charm on tracks such as Dreams Commemorative Day and Blue Short Pants, in which she is referred to as a little cucumber who loves to dream.
Some of the other song choices feel safer and more commercial, though, with Pan Hsieh-ching’s Hope being one of the more noteworthy tracks. In the end, it is hard to get a grasp on who Yu is really.
Malaysian singer Meeia Foo, who came in second on Taiwan’s Super Idol in 2009, faces a similar conundrum. She has an impressive set of pipes but has not quite figured out what to do with them.
The debut album Pink Jukebox (2009) took the easy way out by opting for covers. Tearless opens with Most Afraid Of Cold War and the titular track, both of which seem to box in the 26-year-old as an interpreter of downer ballads.
Then her rocker side gets to shine when she cuts loose on Refuse To Accept and Wah Wah, though a rock version of Sally Yeh’s Walk Cool is misguided.
As these young singers discover, doing well in a competition is only the first step. What comes next is even more challenging.
(ST)