Ideal Life
Lala Hsu, AsiaMuse Entertainment
On her third album, Taiwanese singer-songwriter Lala Hsu sounds more mature and assured than ever. And the disc makes a strong case for her being the best singer-songwriter to emerge from the talent competition Chinese Million Star.
She tackles the big topics of love and life, but the songs themselves are intimate affairs that draw you in. They include a clutch of ballads throbbing with a spectrum of emotions, the wistful title track, as well as the charming opener Cuckoo. A beautifully honest and moving record.

Someone Is Waiting
William Wei, Linfair Records
The follow-up to the Taiwanese singer-songwriter’s lovely eponymous debut in 2010 is well worth the wait.
He wants to do popular
music without being hackneyed or trite, and he succeeds on tracks such as the spare Heart Drunk Heart Broken, the poignant We’ll Never Know and with the arresting imagery on Moon.
His consistency is also a virtue. Add evocative singing to thoughtful songs and it is a two-for-two record of winning works from Wei.

Have A Holiday
Soft Lipa and Dadado Huang,
A Good Day Records
Is there anything that Taiwan hip-hop artist Soft Lipa cannot do? In previous genre-blurring collaborations, he gleefully ventured into jazz and pop.
This EP compellingly bridges hip-hop and folk in just two songs – the joyful-sounding but emotionally conflicted Have A Holiday and the gently elegiac The Worries Of A Youngster.
Bonus points for the visual wit of the elegant cover as Dan Bao (Soft Lipa’s Mandarin pinyin name) plus Dadado Huang equals dan huang, or egg yolk.

Mandopop singers covering English songs
Taiwanese rock singer Roger Yang’s unimaginative take on classic rock tunes in Those Years such as Metallica’s Enter Sandman was pointless.
And trying to out-Bono Bono on U2’s With Or Without You is an exercise in futility.
Jam Hsiao was another offender with Mr. Jazz – A Song For You.
He was guilty of less-than-perfect diction, stiff and overly mannered phrasing, and snooze-
inducing song choices. Asian singers can do jazz, but you would not know it from this album.
(ST)