Genesis
JJ Lin

Aiyo, Not Bad
Jay Chou

It is the battle of the male Mandopop heavyweights as Singapore’s JJ Lin and Taiwan’s Jay Chou go head-to-head with their new releases.
Lin seems to have received a boost of confidence after finally nabbing the prestigious Golden Melody Award for Best Mandarin Male Singer for his 10th album, Stories Untold (2013).
Instead of simply remaking that winning record, he goes for an ambitious themed disc here, with the title Genesis, suggesting that he is at the start of something new.
Lead single Brave New World, mixing R&B and dubstep, is a cautionary tale about where we might be headed. It is timely, given the recent reports on how 2014 was the hottest year on record. He mourns over a steady beat: “I wake in the wasteland of Earth/New York is in a corner of the sea/ The sun has turned the landscape into a desert.”
Fans need not worry that he has abandoned his trademark ballads. The Gardens is a lush counterpoint to Brave New World and blooms – but only in a dream: “Fragrance still lingers in the gardens there, daffodils dance in the wind.”
His two guests on duets here are high-profile ones: Hong Kong’s G.E.M. on the love ballad Beautiful and American singer-songwriter Jason Mraz on inspirational English track I Am Alive. The pairings are decent without being exceptional, though the line “I am loveable; I am invincible” on I Am Alive feels a little too baldly needy. Actually, the album is strong enough to stand on its own without their addition.
Lin is at a stage of his career where it would be all too easy to coast but instead, he continues to explore the wide world of music.
While Genesis is a more exciting offering than Aiyo, Not Bad, Chou remains the undisputed Mandopop King on home ground. He has topped the G-Music album chart for three weeks, with Lin at No. 2 for two of them.
Chou’s opening salvo was Extra Large Shoes, a kiddyish number which conjures up the circus and images of cartoon shenanigans. Drawing inspiration from the iconic American comedian Charlie Chaplin, he professes: “If life needs a smile, just look at me/And forget all your troubles.”
The thing is that he has been down this vaudeville path before on Mr Magic from the 2008 album Capricorn and on Exclamation Mark (2011). Much of Aiyo, Not Bad is in a familiar vein. Far-Away Passing Traveller is the latest iteration of the China-style ballad and What Kind Of Man Are You is the calculated crowd-pleasing ballad.
No wonder Chou has been accused of making the same album over and over again. It is a testament to his skill as a songwriter, though, that when you listen to the record as a whole, you can still think, “Okay, not bad”.
But he might want to take a leaf from Lin who advises on Brave New World: “Can’t keep repeating the same tune.”
(ST)