Jill Wei Shi
Hit Me
Not too far behind her twin sister’s footsteps is 衛詩/Jill, who released her debut album, Hit Me, on April 13th, 2006. To know Jill as a Cantonese popstar, one should first think about her sister, 衛蘭/Janice, who has paved the way for Jill’s music career by being Hong Kong’s most successful and most popular new female artist in 2005. Exactly one year after Janice’s debut album release, Jill releases her own album right on her 24th birthday.
It seems as if the number one goal of Jill is to make sure that her audience knows right away that she is not her sister. To start, whereas Janice’s music style is a mixture of Cantopop and soft R&B, Jill’s style is marketed as hip-hopish, fast-paced, and along the lines of hard R&B. The majority of the songs each feature some type of rapping, which is something that Janice’s album does not have at all. In addition, it seems as if Jill’s music company as appointed her as the sole pioneer of a type of music that mixes too many styles at once. The album attempts to separate itself from other Cantonese albums currently available; for example, every single song title of Hit Me is in English.
Hit Me opens with “Heartbreaker,” a fast-paced, high-energy song that does its job of introducing Jill’s style. Right away, one will notice that this song is nowhere similar to any of Janice’s songs. The first Cantonese verse and chorus are both quite catchy and it isn’t difficult to imagine this song being played in a club. Although “Heartbreaker” is easily one of the top three songs in Hit Me, the song isn’t without flaws. As addicting as the song may sound, its main problem is that, similar to many of the other songs on this album, the English lyrics are not only cheesy, but just downright horrible. One of the lines that Jill seems to proudly yell is, “I’d like to break your heart and eat it like a tart.” A person must wonder which lyrical genius came up with “eat [your heart] like a tart,” perhaps in a pathetic attempt to find a word that rhymes with “heart.”
Following “Heartbreaker” are two songs that are unpleasant and painstakingly lame. Fortunately, “Lonely,” the fourth track and the first single released, picks the album back up with a very catchy beat. Although the music of this song sounds great, Jill and her music company cannot take credit for it, as this song is actually a cover of Nana Abrokwa’s song of the same title (Nana Abrokwa is a German rapper and DJ who released a song titled “Lonely” on the album Nana in 1997). Aside from the Cantonese chorus of Jill’s “Lonely,” the rest of the song is sung in English. Although Jill’s English pronounciation seems good enough, the lyrics leave much to be desired.
“Get Out,” the fifth track, is by far the best song on Hit Me. With the exception of the very short chorus and a small part of the bridge that are in English, Jill sings this song in Cantonese. Out of the entire album, “Get Out” is the only song that strays close to what is Cantopop, which is somewhat similar to the style of Janice that Jill does not seem to want to adopt. The unfortunate truth for Jill and her music company is that their attempts to differentiate Janice’s from Jill’s styles have failed miserably. It would be a much better idea to just stick with what has been tried and proven, or, if they really do want to prove themselves, try to create a style that is actually unique and not just different.
With the exception of “Funny Jealousy,” the sixth track, which is a decent song but nothing too special, the rest of Hit Me contains a string of easily forgettable songs. In “Rarity Boy,” the eighth track, Jill only provides the background vocals as a male poorly raps to the uninspiring music. “Wordy Rappinghood,” the next track, is perhaps the worst song on the album, although it is hard to say because there are so many subpar songs in Hit Me. “Wordy Rappinghood” is yet another cover – Jill even decides to sing the French part of the chorus – this time of the new wave band, Tom Tom Club (the original version of “Wordy Rappinghood” was featured in Tom Tom Club’s 1990 self-titled album).
As much as Jill wants to deviate from her sister, she is lucky that she also inherited the same vocal talent that Janice possesses. Unfortunately, Hit Me does not allow Jill to showcase her singing skills very often, which is a pity because if there was one card that this album could have played, it would have been the vocal talent card. However, due to poor production, among other things, Hit Me misses out on everything that it could have been and it leaves behind a singer who may find it to be difficult to release a sophomore album sometime in the future unless she somehow manages to change her style.
Written by Victor Ly/MaStA ViC on May 4, 2006
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21 Comments, Join the discussion
quadshock
I agree all the way. You put into words what I could not.
May 4th, 2006
~Jessy~
Hi Vic,
Thanks for the review.
I’ve only heard “Heartbreaker”, “Get Out”, “Lonely” and “Funny Jealousy”.
So far I like the songs.
Still think that her voice is very similar to her sister’s.
May 4th, 2006
me
hi vic.
i don’t quite understand. so what you’re saying is that although her company have been trying not to showcase her as her sister’s sister, and are getting her to sing crap songs; she shouldn’t have been all hip-hop, and should be singing songs like her sister?
and also, because this is kinda a negative review, i can’t really tell if you like the album, and think it is worth buying.
May 5th, 2006
Cindy
thanks for the review vic, agree with you on everything you said about the album. especially about “get out” being the best song out of the whole album and how stupid the lyrics are in “heartbreaker”
May 5th, 2006
Victor Ly/MaStA ViC
Hi me,
Simply put, these are the points I was trying to make:
-Jill is trying too hard to not sound like her sister, Janice, and is trying too hard to sound different from other mainstream Cantonese singers. She fails horribly in her attempts.
-Jill is a strong singer, but the songs in this album do not allow her to show off her talent.
-There are three songs in this album that have good beats, but other than “Get Out,” the lyrics for the songs are really bad.
Areas to Improve on:
1) Either sing songs that are the same style as her sister and most other Cantonese singers or, if she wants to be unique, then have songs that are better.
2) Have better lyrics, especially English lyrics.
I hope that clarified it a bit more for you. If you have any other questions or comments, please post them! =)
May 5th, 2006
me
thanks, yeah. that made it clearer. i watched the video of lonely on youtube. she speaks americany, and the lyrics are funny. maybe she doesn’t want to sing songs that make her sound like her sister so critics won’t say that she’s riding on her sister’s fame, so she wants to try something different to prove herself?
May 5th, 2006
Victor Ly/MaStA ViC
“maybe she doesn’t want to sing songs that make her sound like her sister so critics won’t say that she’s riding on her sister’s fame, so she wants to try something different to prove herself?”
That could be a major reason for why her genre of music is so different. I am all for uniqueness and trying to do something that stands out; however, she does a bad job of it, unfortunately.
May 5th, 2006
Bry
Actually, she can’t be blamed as 林夕 wrote the lyrics unless she wrote the lyrics herself. She is brave enough as she dare to release this type of songs in her debut album. Also, no HK female singers can rap as well as her. Perhaps this is Jill’s talent which Janice doesn’t have. By the way, she was being spotted by this Korean company IHQ,INC in March. Her Lonely MV was being broadcast in Korea’s MTV Asia. I think she will get famous there instead in Hong Kong.
May 6th, 2006
Victor Ly/MaStA ViC
Hi Bry,
How are you? Surprised to see you post here because I was not aware that you actually visited this place =P
Keep in mind that this is more of an album review than a review of Jill the artist. And when an artist releases an album, a critic is supposed to review the album using the assumption that whether an album fails or succeeds, the artist must take the credit, for simplicity’s sake. I, of course, also pointed out three times that it’s “Jill and her music company” and I also stated that it’s due to “poor production” that this album failed.
Thanks for stating the information regarding Jill’s popularity in Korea though! =)
May 6th, 2006
~Jessy~
“Actually, she can’t be blamed as 林夕 wrote the lyrics unless she wrote the lyrics herself. She is brave enough as she dare to release this type of songs in her debut album.”
Bry, I agree with you on this. 林夕 is of course not familiar with the English language. Her record company should’ve found a better person to write the English part.
And even though it’s not my type, I agree that it takes a lot of courage to release an album like that in HK.
May 7th, 2006
Bry
Hi Victor Ly/MaStA ViC, I’m fine. Do you know me? How come you will be surprised to see me visit here?
May 8th, 2006
Victor Ly/MaStA ViC
Hi Bry,
I’m sorry, I thought you were someone else. My mistake =P Let’s get back on topic now. Thank you.
May 8th, 2006
sass
Hi victor, i must say that i respect your review on this album but you are making it sound like this album is for the english speaking market, when its not. Jill released ‘Hit me’ for the cantopop market and so that is why the english lyrics is cheesy, its for ppl who dont really know english. Besides, she wasnt the one to write the lyrics and Mark Lui was her producer, most of the song he came up with. I give props to Jill for doing something different. You say that if she wanted to be unique then find better songs… I find most of the songs better than most of the female cantopop album that came out in april.
She has the voice, the looks and this is just the beginning, im looking forward to see what her next album will be like
May 9th, 2006
Victor Ly/MaStA ViC
Thank you for your input, sass.
The English lyrics are just one thing that the album suffers at, and it isn’t the worst part of the album, as I pointed out in the review. However, since you brought this topic up, I’m sure you would want me to talk a bit more about it.
I completely understand that the songs in this album are intended for the Cantopop market, and the majority of the people in that population aren’t fluent English speakers. However, Jill is fluent in English, and even if she did not write the lyrics, she could have at least had some input regarding them. Furthermore, the songs that Janice (Jill’s twin sister who released her album under the same company as Jill) sang for her album had plenty of good English lyrics, so it isn’t as if Jill could not have done the same thing.
Jill definitely has the voice, as everyone who has commented here has pointed out. However, as I said in the review, the album “does not allow Jill to showcase her singing skills very often,” unfortunately.
May 10th, 2006
sass
Hi Victor, you do have to remember that Janice’s music is more ballad and so the english lyrics are appropriate but as for Jill, most of her songs are fast and the faster songs have the cheesy english lyrics in it, for example Heartbreaker, its suppose to be kinda cheerleadish, so i understand the lyrics having to be cheesy like that
My friend is an english teacher at one of the local school’s here in hk, told me that the kids in her class, age between 16-19 told me that her album rocks. The english in it was easy listening and also they thought that Hit me was such a refreshing album for the teenage girls.
Im just saying, Jill has only just started and hopefully her next album will show more of her singing skills, it shows that she can sing dance, rock and kinda r&b ish. I also listen to one of the programs on some radio station that she was in, she was saying that she didnt have much freedom on the english lyrics, it was all mark and lam jek and wished she could have come up with it herself.
Both Janice and Jill are good i believe, heard the album is selling really well right now, is it true?
May 11th, 2006
Mimi
I’ve never heard of any of Janice’s songs, but I have heard some of Jill’s songs. I agree that the English lyrics are just w-eird. But I still like the songs nevertheless. The melody, beat and everything is very catchy. I think hat’s got to bethat the weird lyrics ruined it all! Hmm… and has anyone seen the film clips? There’s always a not-so-anorexic girl in it… I don’t know how t related to the song… perhaps someone else will get something that I do not.
May 28th, 2006
r4v3yk
Hey,
I’m currently living in China, i’m English. Anyway, i was watching MTV Asia a few days ago and heard “Heartbreaker” come on. It reminded me of Britney Spears 1st song. I thought it was some English or US song. I watched the video all the way to the end and was amazed to find that it was a Chinese name. Not to mention the fact that there was Cantonese and English throughout the song. So i got hold of the song, then i decided to get some other Jill songs.
However, i was quite disappointed in them. Then i searched on the ‘net and found this site, reviewing Jill’s album. I do agree with many of the points that are made. She has got a good voice, but her songs seem to be rather limited. And many of the English lyrics are quite cheesy. I only understand very very little Cantonese…:s
I then decided to listen to a few of Janice’s songs. I find Janice’s voice to be better, but i think that just might be the type of songs she sings.
So i agree even more with the points made especially sass and Vic.
May 28th, 2006
RappA DuEtS
well i really just like her music for bar/pool music… expecially for NZ people who dont really care much for it lol but i definately agree on the opinions on her album on either conform or be a interesting individual, but all i can say is that i do like her music but like many other chinese artists dotn rip off from the english!~~
\\****\\*\\DaRe 2 b QuERE?//****//
Jun 5th, 2006
Bry
Only Janice’s albums are selling well. It was rumoured that the number of copies sold for Jill’s album were 3000. However, the company had already verified that the number of copies sold were 8000…which is kinda sad. But this is expected as not many HK people can accept her style of music since a huge number of them prefer K songs. A magazine said that her album would be more suitable for ABC or CBC.
Jun 10th, 2006
ayex3
i just think jill is trying to make ppl NOT mistake her for her sister. As some of you had said the number of albums jill sold were not even close to janices. very disapointing . =[
Dec 17th, 2006
lisa
i think jill is naturally in the style of music she does. to say for her to be the same as janice is like saying, “dont be famous, just let ur sister be!”
she has something very important that her sister lacks, she has style! janice is just a boring good singer that sounds like every other cantonese singer. jill has a rougher cooler sound and shows it through her upbeat songs. who else in hong kong has her style? no girl is as cool as her! hk just not ready for her style. sorry for my harshness i mean to support jill
Jan 12th, 2007
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