Young
Jeno Liu
Chinese singer Liu Liyang has a strong and clear voice, but it is a little presumptuous of her to take on indie stalwarts sodagreen’s Summer Summer or feted singer Eason Chan’s The Whole World Has Insomnia.
Somewhat disappointingly, the alumnus of the 2006 season of the Super Girls talent show – now called Jeno in English instead of Jade – has opted to do an album of mostly covers.
What’s more, she offers nothing new with her interpretations.
Let Go is missing that angsty emotional reading that Sam Lee gave it.
Plain White T’s Let Me Take You There and Ladyhawke’s My Delirium are unexpected but not revelatory.
It is the two original tracks here, with lyrics by Liu, that leave an impression.
Opener Journey is an indie rock number that reminds one of Taiwanese singer-songwriter Faith Yang while About Love is an appealing radio-friendly hit.
She sings: “People say that when you fall in love, the one who’s serious first won’t win/The one we fall for always loves himself more.”
For an audience to fall in love with a singer, though, the singer has to be serious first.

Dance
Lollipop F
With South Korean dance-pop fever still raging, little wonder that Taiwanese boyband Lollipop F want a piece of the action as well.
Last August, the quartet were invited to take part in South Korean television station SBS’s hit variety show Star King, where they got the chance to sing and dance off against popular megagroup Super Junior.
They followed that up with their second album Dance.
The standouts here are the title number with its refrain of “Let’s just dance dance dance dance tonite tonite”, Magic and Yo Yo – these are the tracks most likely to get you moving.
This is agreeable, disposable stuff and it had the boys dancing to the top of the G-music album chart in Taiwan.
(ST)