It's All About Love
Jam Hsiao
With each new album, Taiwan’s Jam Hsiao has steadily moved away from commercial pop to a rock sound he clearly has an affinity for.
Opening number Holmes sets the tone as Hsiao’s vocals swagger. There is even a swelling of voices chorusing: “We are all lonely, so rely ever more, want to love even more.” He composed the music while Mayday’s Ashin wrote the lyrics about detective Sherlock Holmes “investigating who murdered his privacy”.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the sound of prog rock in Mandarin.
The rest of the album explores more directly the theme of love: from familial love in Father to romantic love in Story to the fundamental nature of love in the title track penned by sodagreen’s prolific Wu Ching-feng.
The album might not be to everyone’s taste, though. In Taiwan, the album tumbled out of the top 10 after debuting at No. 2 on the G-music album chart.
But Hsiao is living up to the Mr Rock moniker that he adopted for his concert tour from 2009 to last year. So props to him for staying true to himself and his music.

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Canace Yi Fan
Taiwanese singer Canace Yi Fan released her first album, My Music – Bravely Roaming The World, in 2003. It has taken more than nine years for her follow-up to materialise.
No doubt, winning the inaugural season of the singing contest Golden Melody Superstar in 2010 helped. Hence, the name of this disc.
The title track is a manifesto to be her own person. The lyrics are full of attitude and even pack in sarcasm for the music business: “Not afraid of gossip, only afraid reporters won’t write it, music is at most the icing on the cake.”
The promising rock-tinged beginning, though, leads into an album of mostly ballads – from the radio-friendly Collapsed From Tears to the dated-sounding Forbidden To Turn Around.
Merry X’mas 2025 is a cutesy oddity cashing in on the festive season, which has nothing to do with the rest of the album. Yi Fan’s restart could have done without it.
(ST)