Absolute Boyfriend Original TV Soundtrack
Various artists

Those Years
Roger Yang Pei-an

The Taiwanese idol drama adaptation of the manga Absolute Boyfriend (2003-2005) feels like a live-action cartoon with its exaggerated tone and slapstick humour.
Thankfully, the soundtrack is more grown-up.
Fahrenheit’s Jiro Wang gets to flaunt his buff bod on the show and also gets to strut his stuff here.
He performs the synth-pop opener Mr Perfect with his fellow boyband members, and goes solo on the rock ballad Make-believe and the mid-tempo number Perfect Heart Beat.
The lyrics on Make-believe smartly play on his role as the perfect robot boyfriend in the show: “Take me apart, discard me, throw me away to the ends of the earth/Continue to love me, and there’s no result, only torment.”
Selections from Anthony Neely, Olivia Ong and One Million Star season 5 champ Dennis Sun round up this palatable offering.
Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for Roger Yang’s ill-conceived album of covers.
The Taiwanese singer has taken a bunch of classic English rock tunes such as Bryan Adams’ Summer Of ’69 and Metallica’s Enter Sandman and covered them in the most unimaginative way possible.
Not to mention that trying to out-Bono Bono on U2’s With Or Without You is an exercise in futility.
It is a pity because Yang is not a bad singer as he demonstrates on the tacked- on tribute to the late singer-songwriter Chang Yu-sheng.
His soaring vocals on Never Look Back and the unreleased composition Dream Of suggest that a covers album of Chang songs would have been a far more compelling proposition.
As for English covers, indulge your inner rock god by all means, but do it at the karaoke or on Guitar Hero like everyone else.
(ST)