One In A Thousand
Della Ding Dang

Kimberley Debut Album
Kimberley Chen

OMG
Li Sheng

With great lung power comes great responsibility.
It has taken a few albums, but China- born Della Ding Dang is finally comfortable reining her voice in.
Once, she unleashed it all, such as while covering Taiwanese singer Chao Chuan’s I’m A Small Small Bird. Now, she knows a song can often be more moving when it is sung with greater delicacy.
Album opener How Rare is about how hard it is to fall for the right person and yet, devastatingly, have the relationship not meant to be. The songs Not Your Fault and Impossible On One’s Own further explore the emotional terrain of heartbreak.
For a change of pace, Della lets her hair down on the dance track Wild Beast, and has some fun.
Newcomer Kimberley Chen might not be a power belter like Della, but she certainly makes an impression in her debut. In the rather obviously named Kimberley Debut Album, she goes from sweet in Love You to funky in the Lady Gagainfluenced Wonderland.
The bright-eyed, Melbourne-born 18-year-old brings with her an energising freshness as she sings in both Mandarin and English.
The lyrics are filled with references to gaming and social media, and even a certain popular game. She warns in Friday: “I can be an Angry Bird, fly away and leave you hurt.”
It would be too precious for words for anyone older to attempt this, but the youthful vibe fits Chen like a candycoloured glove.
A standout here is the slinkily hypnotic Can’t Do Without Me for which she co-wrote the lyrics. Here, she sings about a boy who has fallen hard for her: “He gazes at the computer day by day/Listening to Jay Chou’s Secret Signal, asking me to steal away his troubles.”
You might just fall for her music too.
China’s Li Sheng (below), on the other hand, seems to have caught a terminal case of the cutes on her debut.
Fresh from her starring role in New My Fair Princess, the latest ingenue to play the winning role of the bubbly Little Swallow has branched out into singing.
Unfortunately, cuteness oozes from every line in tracks such as Oh My God, Love Superman and, um, Pizza Pizza, a chirpy ode to that savoury pie complete with a cheerleader chant. And Lucky Song is sung in character as Little Swallow.
When she sings the ballad Love You Innocently, you realise that she has a pleasant enough voice. Too bad it is mostly smothered by the material here.
Unless you are a fan of her in the show, OMG, this album might be too much to swallow.
(ST)