Sweet Lemons
Derrick Hoh

Beautiful Melody
Ming Bridges

On his previous Mandarin album Change? (2010), Singapore singer-songwriter Derrick Hoh cleverly sampled Aaron Kwok’s When I Know That You’re In Love and built a new song around it.
Buoyed by its success, he repeats that trick twice on his new album.
The title track Sweet Lemons riffs on Tarcy Su’s Lemon Tree (1996) – itself a cover of a song by German band Fool’s Garden. And the song Forever, previously collected on his English-language EP All I Want (2014), works in the 1994 PJ & Duncan hit Eternal Love.
Whatever happened to originality?
Being an okay cover singer/sampler of other people’s songs will not be enough to break Hoh through to the big time. Sticking to the chirpy dance-pop of Let’s Give Love Another Chance might well be a better strategy.
At least fellow singer-songwriter Ming Bridges is trying to crack the Taiwan market on her own merit.
The opening English- language title track is a declaration of her womanhood as she coos: “Say my name, make my body move/In the way, only you can do”.
The Mandarin version, with lyrics by Xiaohan, is less sensual and more romantic.
Hao Ren Jia, confusingly translated into English as China Wind, is the strongest offering here.
The ballad by Eric Ng and Xiaohan is tailored for Bridges’ voice as she yearns affectingly for a good man to appear.
She still needs to work on her enunciation though, as it sounds a little stiff in parts.
(ST)