Faye Wong (王菲) – To Love (將愛) Review
Oh, it’s Chinese New Year!!!! Well, on Monday, January 26th anyway, we begin the year of the Ox. So, today I give you the Faye Wong (王菲) – To Love (將愛) Review. Faye Wong (王菲) is my favourite artist of all time and To Love (將愛) is the last album she released in 2003 before her early retirement at the age of 34 to have a family. Her fans are still in mourning. Heck, I am still in mourning. Faye Wong (王菲) is the best selling Canto-pop artist of Asia (check your Guinness World Records), at 9.7 Million in 2000 — trust, that’s a lot in the Chinese community, we’re talking about legit copies, not bootleg.
Faye Wong (王菲) only sings in Mandarin now. From her album Di Dar (in 1995) on, she decided she would only release full length albums in Mandarin, instead of Cantonese – which is the more popular dialect of Hong Kong. This is exactly what I love about her. She doesn’t care if we don’t like it, she was not going to compromise any longer and/or mold herself to the industry standards. From then, her albums became less pop, and more electro/alternative, heavily influenced by the Cocteau Twins and Björk (another fave). As far as Chinese singers, especially those thriving in HK, this kind of boldness is very rare. Another artist I like, Jay Chou (I’ll get to him next week).
To Love (將愛) has the same format as most of Faye’s Mandarin-only albums. She starts with her strongest songs, slows down a little, then picks the rhythm back up. The album begins with the title track To Love (將愛), which is repeated again at the end of the album in Cantonese. The song has synthetic rock beats that sound futuristic. Her feather-light soft voice against the harshness of the instrumental creates a good contrast. Empty City (空城) is a heavy violin track, that immediately sobers up the mood. This somber mood continues for a few tracks. And then, she picks up the rhythm again with the electro track April Snow (四月雪). Smoke (煙) experiments with an electro-Spanish groove where Faye talks about her smoking habits. All keeping with Faye’s signature electro/alternative sweet sounds.
I like this album a lot, but it’s definitely not my favourite of Faye’s. She doesn’t really venture outside her box in this album. She does what she does best. Regardless, it’s a nice, polished, innovative CD. Like most of Faye’s music, this album is somber, nostalgic, and sweetly depressing.
My favourite tracks are: To Love (將愛) , April Snow (四月雪) and Smoke (煙).
Tags: album
I don’t want to be anal or anything but it’s “Lunar New Year”. Some of us (a lot of us) celebrate it despite not being Chinese.