Chinese Music Blog

Earlier last year, not many people know Aska Yang (Yang Zong Wei). Everything changed when he participated a reality TV singing competition in Taiwan - One Million Star (Cao Ji Xing Guang Da Dao). His amazing vocal and his ‘untouchable’ stage performance blew everyone away - left people wondering “Where has this 29-year old been hiding all this time?”. Suddenly, Aska became a wildly popular figure in Taiwan, ranked 2nd place of Yahoo! Taiwan Person of the Year 2007 and 1st place of Apple Daily Person of the Year 2007.

But 2007 proved to be a rocky year for Aska. Despite his highest popularity in One Million Star, Aska was only placed 6th in the competition as he disqualified himself after the news media exposed his real age (he faked his birth year as 1983, instead of 1978 in the competition). And later, Aska involved in a contract dispute with his agent resulting his delay of releasing his personal album. Finally at the end of last year, Aska signed with Warner Music after the dispute was resolved to realize his dream - his first solo album, Dove (Ge Zi), was released on 2008.

My first listening impression of Dove (Ge Zi) is “how many different artists are singing?”. Sometimes, he sounded a lot like Gary Chaw (Cao Ge); sometimes Van Fan (Fan Yi Chen); other times, like nobody else. It is as if he’s performing in the singing competition again, boasting a diverse style of music, along with his dynamic vocal.

My favorite song is track no.4 Onion (Yang Cong). It is written by Ashin of MayDay (it struck me that Ashin always wrote songs that are so simple but with huge popularity potential). The song fits Aska like a mold (in fact, the song name is derived from the first two characters of Aska’s chinese name) - emotional and high difficulty range of vocal*. I especially like the chorus lyrics: “If you are willing to peel my heart, layer by layer by layer” (just like peeling Onion).

There are many tracks are worth mentioning too. The sorrowful track no.1 Let You (Rang), track no.2 Breeze of Happiness (Xing Fu De Feng), track no.5 Can We Start Over Again (Cong Lai Hao Bu Hao), as well as track no.8 Keep Love (Cun Ai) and track no.11 Look (Ni Kan) that sounded a lot like Gary Chaw.

Dove, is a fantastic album (and I’ve listened thousands of times to it). It somehow left me relates to Jay Chou first album - the rise of a new, upcoming giant in the chinese music industry.

Track List
01. Let You (Rang)
02. Breeze of Happiness (Xing Fu De Feng)
03. Dove (Ge Zi)
04. Onion (Yang Cong)
05. Can We Start Over Again (Cong Lai Hao Bu Hao)
06. One Day
07. Who Will Change Me (Shui Hui Gai Bian Wo)
08. Keep Love (Cun Ai)
09. Love Temptation (Dui Ai Ke Wang)
10. Desert In Memory (Hui Yi Sha Mo)
11. Look (Ni Kan)

Preview Listening: Track 04. Onion (Yang Cong)