R U Watching?

A-Mei

All eyes are on how the Taiwanese diva will follow up her 2009 breakthrough album Amit. For Amit, she had scooped six trophies, including one for Best Female Vocalist, at the Golden Melody Awards last year.

There is no sign here of Amit, the alter ego unveiled on her last record, although her latest offering does display a split personality.

R U Watching? is daringly sequenced, with five ballads in a row, followed by five uptempo songs. Top lyricist Lin Xi writes the words for all the ballads, while A-Mei’s manager Chen Chen-chuan pens the words to the five fast tracks.

Artists would usually mix it up to keep things interesting for listeners with short attention spans. But A-Mei is confident enough that she can draw you in with her big emotive voice. And she does.

The first half works beautifully because of the quality of the material. The opener is a bluesy torch number, What Time Is It Already, while A Dialogue With Myself has her singing a duet with herself. Taiwanese newcomer Yen-J composed They, a sweet tale of romance. And My Dearest has A-Mei musing tenderly about a former lover.

When listeners get to the title track, after the halfway mark, the record’s tempo and character change: The song, with its mysterious, thrilling and shrill strings, sounds like it could be the Mandarin theme song to a James Bond-esque flick.

Should you wish to nitpick, you could moan that nothing in the upbeat quintet of tracks is as exhilaratingly brash as Come On If You Dare from her last record.

That said, A-Mei is unmistakeably at the top of her game and the confidence shows in her delivery throughout. Your loss, if you’re not watching – and listening, to – her.

(ST)