A Song To Remember
Various artists

Sing It Out Of Love
Tanya Chua

Just Say So
Tanya Chua

Lost N Found
JJ Lin

The local music scene’s biggest names have recently released new works, including a welcome return by Mavis Hee.
Apart from appearing occasionally to sing a song or two at concerts, she has been keeping a low profile after a public meltdown in a hotel in 2006.
Her voice is still a richly soothing balm after all these years. While she has not released a new studio album since 2002’s Spreading, there is no question that she is the star of the soundtrack to the Media- Corp drama A Song To Remember.
She lends her pipes to four songs here including the wistful title track, the tender Your Tears and the gorgeous ballad Remembrance (Travelling Together).
China’s Jade Liu and Taiwan’s Ring Hsu perform other tracks which evoke the drama’s music hall setting in Singapore in the 1930s and 1940s.
While Hee’s output has been sporadic, singer-songwriter Tanya Chua has to be the most hardworking artist around – she released a Mandarin and an English album on the same day.
Sing It Out Of Love is her eighth Mandopop release and features her trademark ballads about love sensitively interpreted in that lightly husky voice.
She states in the liner notes, though: “I don’t want this to be just a sad love ballads album.”
While she seemed to be perpetually unlucky in love on her previous albums, there is a more optimistic vibe to the songs this time around. She sings on Adorable: “On my own, life actually has more possibilities.”
Musically, the jaunty Don’t Bother Me makes for a nice change of pace as she sings drolly about a day in which everything goes wrong: “Black clouds, black clouds, quick go away/Feels like you are challenging my optimism.”
There is also more on her mind than romantic love as the title track is about her father who died last year. On it, she sings about cherishing loved ones: “Life has too many regrets, every minute and second, I will hold on tightly/Speaking of love, when you need me by your side/Let’s sing it out of love.”
But for those who have been her fans since her first release, the English- language Bored (1997), Just Say So could well be the more eagerly awaited album.
While she works with lyricists for hire on her Mandarin discs, it is all Tanya on her English records. And it is clear that she is right at home making music in English.
Just Say So has a looser and more laidback groove to it compared to Sing It Out Of Love. It also feels a little tighter as it charts the trajectory of a relationship from desire to love to break-up.
One gets to see a sexier Chua here as she sings about physical chemistry on Let’s Get Together: “Bet your lips are sweet/When you kiss me deep.” While on the elegiac Carousel, she mourns the end of a relationship: “Oh this love/Took a thousand rides/On a big spinning carousel/We took our final ride on the carousel.”
The lyrics can sometimes seem a little plain and even awkward – “To find some unordinary words” in Back Into My Life – but the melodies, by turns sunny and doleful, and her evocative voice keep the album compelling.
Unfortunately, singer-songwriter JJ Lin’s debut album on his new record label Warner Music feels more safe than vital.
The first single Never Learn is a made-for-radio ballad with a soaring chorus: “Still haven’t learnt, to be a little more clever/Remember to protect myself, and tell some white lies when necessary.”
The album has done well in Taiwan, topping the G-Music album chart in its week of release.
But featuring China pianist Lang Lang on Variation 25: Clash Of The Souls just seems gimmicky. Also, We Together cannot quite trump previous hip urban tracks along the lines of X and Go! from Hundred Days (2009).
Good thing that Dear Friend, with barbed lyrics by Lin Xi, and Streets Of Old Shanghai, with its striking arrangement using traditional Chinese instruments, offer points of interest.
With his milestone 10th studio album looming, one hopes that Lin’s music journey takes more intriguing turns.
(ST)