It's Time

Stefanie Sun

The sticker on the album proclaims that Stefanie Sun is not out to seek a breakthrough.

Instead, she just wants to be the best she can be.

It lets you know not to expect a radically different Sun on her first album in four years.

And initially, it does seem like business as usual. The slow-burn electronica of A Voice Within harks back to Matured from the album Leave (2002), while Tomorrow’s Memory is the latest in a long line of optimistic hit ballads, including My Desired Happiness from the 2000 album of the same name.

After all, why mess with a template that has worked for 10 albums? When a track such as KKY (the Mandarin title Kong Kou Yan means “empty words”) is so irresistibly catchy, who cares that its light rock leanings had previously been explored on First Day, off 2005’s A Perfect Day?

Of course, the other thing that remains constant is her unique, mesmerising and evocative voice. It is a pleasure to hear it again on new material.

One thing to nitpick would be that Sun has not raised the bar this time around after setting such high standards with her last comeback album, the statement- making Stefanie (2004). That saw her exploring different sounds on songs such as Slowly and Seed, composing the two tracks and writing the lyrics for one.

Listen more closely to this album, however, and the Sun who declares It’s Time seems to have matured after going through trials and tribulations. She sings on A Voice Within: “What’s with me, it’s like I’m trapped/Time is packed but my heart is empty/There was a day that time stopped/That I discovered only when the heart is free can there be/True happiness.”

And on Time And Tide, she sings: “When the wintry night grows warm, when the ocean is no longer that blue/When the moon’s pure white grows dark/It just means that happiness is no longer that simple.”

It is always tricky reading meaning in lyrics though, particularly when she co-wrote the words with lyricist Francis Lee for only one track, Fool’s Kingdom. This is probably the first song from the album heard by most fans. She sang it during her The Answer Is... Stefanie Sun world tour in July 2009.

Back then, it suggested that we would hear more of her own music and words on this album. While Sun did play a bigger role on the record, it was as producer rather than songwriter. Next time perhaps?

One More Time, One More Chance

Tiger Huang

Taiwanese pub singer Tiger Huang’s (left) Simple/Not Simple album in 2009 was a popular, acclaimed comeback that introduced her to a new generation of fans. So, it’s tempting to read her new album’s title and the first track off it to be plugged, Come Again, as an invocation of commercial lightning to strike twice.

While nothing here touches her manifesto torch song Not So Simple, the album is still worth investing in. There is more variety here beyond the whiff-of-the-familiar ballads such as the Tanya Chua-penned Come Again and the Ricky Hsiao-Daryl Yao number Let Nature Take Its Course.

The bouncy music hall opener Love Out Of The Box, the rock of Say It Do It and the sassiness of Does Not Bark prove that her smoky, husky vocals are versatile enough to handle a variety of material.

And on the ballad Exchange, Huang reveals her tender side: “My God-given stubbornness, you exchange it with your gentleness/To my insomnia habit, you say goodnight, may sweet dreams never end”.

There is poignancy here that lesser and younger singers cannot hope to muster.

(ST)