Love Moments

Jam Hsiao

Regrets

Abin Fang

Record of Emotion

Cui Xia and Hong Shaoxuan

Forward

Jade Liu

When will these young upstarts learn to leave the inimitable Faye Wong alone?

First it was soulboy Khalil Fong remaking Red Bean and now Jam Hsiao is covering The Last Blossom.

Abin Fang, of the defunct Malaysian duo Island, takes on not one but two tracks – Chess and the Cantonese number Ambiguous.

At least Fong gives the song an R&B makeover, while Fang takes a decidedly stripped-down acoustic approach. Hsiao’s choice of song may be more adventurous but he does not do much with it arrangement-wise.

None of them, though, makes you forget for a second that Wong did it first and better. Please, just come out of your retirement already, and show these whipper-snappers how it’s done.

Actually she already did so on Decadent Sounds Of Faye (1995) in which she covered the songs of Teresa Teng with attitude and imagination.

The problem with both Hsiao and Fang’s offerings is that there is hardly any sense of surprise or discovery in the material even if the delivery is competent.

Hsiao is so confident of his vocal prowess that he chooses to cover chart hits of the recent past without bothering to tweak the songs much.

This is the third version of Rewind after Jolin Tsai and Jay Chou.

At least Tsai and Chou’s versions had the added dimension of how much one should read into the lyrics about a break-up.

Only the unexpected inclusion of the touching Minnan track Wordless Flower stands out.

The mildly interesting thing about Love Moments and Regrets is that they are packed with women’s songs.

For Sandy Lam’s It Doesn’t Matter Who I Am, the gender has been switched so Fang sings “How tragic it is if men have no one to love/Even if someone cries when they hear my song”. This is as audacious as it gets.

Compared to the commercially minded discs above, Record Of Emotion is a more curious proposition. It features home-grown xinyao singer Hong Shaoxuan and 1983 Talentime second runner-up Cui Xia as well as a mixed bag of selections.

Once you get past the opening Huangmei opera track Country Road, there is much to savour here in the beautifully pristine voices showcased in classics such as Qiu Shi Pian Pian (Deep Fall) and Sui Hua (Broken Blossoms).

The songs on Jade Liu’s EP are also an eclectic lot. In her case, it is because three of them are from TV serials, including Lonely Light Years from MediaCorp’s The Ultimatum. Because she liked the melody so much, she penned a new set of lyrics and re-recorded the song as Gift.

What is more impressive is the trick Liu pulls off on Adore You in which she channels the composer – her laid-back crooning sounds exactly like Tanya Chua.

This is the first part of a planned Growth Trilogy and this EP whets the appetite for her next disc which is exactly what a good offering should do.

But when it comes to reworking songs, here is some parting advice – just because it’s nice doesn’t mean you have to sing it twice.

(ST)