Let's Not Grieve Anymore

Wan Fang

Has it really been eight long years since the singer’s last release, The Chance Of Love? Meanwhile, lesser singers with prettier packaging churn them out at an indecent rate.

Not that the 42-year-old Wan Fang has been twiddling her thumbs. She has been productive on the small screen and on stage, including an excellent turn in Stan Lai’s The Village for The Esplanade’s Huayi festival in February last year.

But this album proves that Wan Fang, who released her debut album in 1990, is still a force to be reckoned with as a singer.

She serves as a producer for the first time and also has a hand in writing several tracks, including highlights such as the gently heartbreaking Seeing Happiness Smiling At Me and the delicate titular track.

Her voice is like fine porcelain – there is a porous quality to it that lets light through – and time has not diminished the beauty of its translucence.

Loving You

Mei Xin

This is vintage packaging, the likes of which has not been seen since, oh, the 1980s. It is hard to imagine who this is supposed to appeal to except, maybe, for remote parts of China isolated from the rest of the world and the Internet revolution.

Listening to the album then comes as a surprise – it is better than what you would expect. The local singer has a pleasant voice and her debut album has worthy contributions from veterans of the music scene here such as Chen Jiaming and Jim Lim. Mei Xin herself composed one track, Because I’m Loving You.

She even goes back in time with a perky version of Yi Chuan Xin (literally, A Strand Of Hearts).

Now that is the kind of retro that is acceptable on an album.

2010 GREATEST LOVE

Waterman

This has definitely got to be one of the stranger routes a recording company has taken to release an album. Waterman was actually dreamt up by an advertising agency to promote a brand of bottled water. To create buzz, an album was launched under Waterman’s name.

It did well enough for the enigmatic masked crusader, whose motto is “Drink more water”, to release a second record.

Greatest Love is filled with messages about the power of love and the need to protect the earth and proceeds from album sales reportedly go to World Vision Taiwan’s Child Health Now charity campaign.

Still, it is hard not to think of a track like More Water as an advertising jingle: “Water More Water, even the dolphins are crying out in thirst, only water can quench this parched universe.”

(ST)