Exclamation Point

Jay Chou

Singers such as Mavis Fan started out doing children’s songs and then spent years trying to be taken seriously as artists. Meanwhile, Mandopop king Jay Chou has decided to move in the opposite direction.

He has described his 11th release as being “more for the kids”.

And from the nautical cartoon-inspired CD cover design to the music video for the title track which unfolds like a frenetic videogame, one is left in no doubt whom this record is aimed at.

It is a strategy that has paid off as Exclamation Point debuted on top of the Mandarin albums chart in Taiwan, with the lion’s share of 48 per cent of sales.

The opening title track kicks off with siren wails and a rock swagger that leads to a chorus which sounds as though he is swearing. How fun for the kids, how lame for the grown-ups.

Princess Syndrome is like a warmed-over version of Sunny Otaku off 2007’s On The Run album, and the lyrics even include “sunny otaku”.

Hydrophobic Sailor is kind of cute, but he has sailed these waters before with tracks such as Cowboy On The Run (also from On The Run) and Mr Magic from Capricorn (2008).

So where does that leave the rest of Chou’s fans?

Head for the catchy dance beats of Enchanting Melody and check out its music video inspired by the cerebral Hollywood thriller Inception (2010).

And Shadow Puppetry shows that he is still capable of combining different elements – rap, falsetto, a sinuous synth line, Taiwanese comedian Tang Tsung-sheng’s lyrics about the folk art – into an irresistibly heady brew.

Taken as a whole, however, the album might be titled Exclamation Point but feels more like ellipsis as he treads water instead of aiming for new shores.

Deja Vu

Hacken Lee

Deja Vu indeed.

This feels like a return to the 1980s when big-name Cantopop stars would deign to release a Mandarin album every once in a while. Maybe it was at the dictates of the record label, but you could tell that their hearts were not in it. Neither was their diction.

Hacken Lee’s Mandarin pronunciation is passable, but the material is not. Mostly, it feels dated and stuck in time. The title of one track, The Happier I Get, The Lonelier I Am, even harks back to William So’s monster 1998 Canto hit The More We Kiss, The Sadder I Get.

Six years after his last Mandarin release Ask About Love, Lee goes on about love and loss in airbrushed ballads with little in the way of genuine emotion.

The saving grace are the jazzy The Best Medicine, which at least is an attempt at something different, and the two Cantonese songs tacked on at the end – Galaxy and Kongming Lantern. It is a relief to hear Lee in his mellifluous element instead of wondering whether the entire album was superfluous.

(ST)