UP Girls - QQ仙境 Wonderland

Redditor here! I just found /r/cpop, so I just learned of this group UP Girls from China and thought I'd see if they could change my mind about how terrible Chinese girl groups are. They're supposedly better looking than ones we've seen so far, and I'll barely give them that. Their musical range is also supposed to be a little more varied. I'd also barely give them that, seeing as they manage to imitate songs with different styles. So they've only barely given me hope, but this song QQ仙境 Wonderland is pretty cute at least. The vocals aren't that strong or the sound editing's not quite there. There are some really apparent similarities in this MV and those of incredibly successful Kpop groups Kara and SNSD. It also takes the rap bit from Elva Hsiao's song 我的男朋友 My Boyfriend. It's the true Chinese way, imitation is the highest form of flattery. I think if they can keep making progress from their initial songs (like Love Me Boy and Love Yourself), which were just ghost-pale imitations of Korean songs, they can get to a greater stage.

Wang Lee Hom has a new MV out directed by WongFu! I love the MV, it's so cute. The song is ok. I can hear some autotune and the melody is not all that creative.


MV link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YzVzqvGwkQ0

Check out WongFu too! http://wongfuproductions.com/

Crowd Lu 盧廣仲 - 慢靈魂

Crowd Lu just came out with his third album called 慢靈魂 which means slow soul!! It's cut from the same cloth as his other albums: funny, guitar based, a few fun fast paced songs, and some soulful songs. This time he sings a song in Taiwanese though! As far as I can tell his Taiwanese, or at least his singing, is not bad. He also sings a lot more in English, which is distracting personally. I'd say the album is about the same as his previous ones, more about minor improvements but enjoy the MV. It's the first song of the album and perfectly displays his humor and musical diversity.

01.別在我睡著的時候打電話給我
02.慢靈魂
03.港邊男兒 (Taiwanese)
04.不想去遠方
05.就像白癡一樣
06.蚊子
07.藍寶
08.再見了 阿法迪斯
09.After Dinner
10.梅西好朋友
11.壞掉了

別在我睡著的時候打電話給我 "Dont Call Me When I'm Asleep"

滿人 Manchuker - Summer of Mine

A little late as summer is ending, but I found this electro hip hop song by Manchuker. There's not that much info about Manchuker in English, but it looks like he's been active for a while and started to get bigger in 2010. His English is decent. He also tends to have foreign (non-Taiwanese) singers in his songs.
I like it because it's hard to find decent club ready Cpop. The big stars' Taiwanese songs are too mellow and a lot of those that try to imitate American hip hop fail miserably. Hopefully there's already a group of decent Chinese hip hop musicians out there that I've never heard of, otherwise this could be an indicator of better quality hip hop in the Cpop industry.

His sites: http://www.aprap.com/  (mostly Chinese)
               http://tw.streetvoice.com/users/manchuker/

田馥甄 Hebe Tian - My Love

Hebe just came out with her second solo album on September 2nd! It has a ton of well known producers and artists behind it including: Sandee Chan, Cheer Chen, Deserts Chang, Bing Wang, Paula Ma, Chen Hsiao Hsia, Daryl Yao, Derek Shih, and Sodagreen*. She wrote one of the songs for her SHE buddy Selina.  

I loved her first album despite its lack  of diversity in sound. This album seems to be another of the same flavor: more artsy, mature, and meaningful. It kind of clashes with her cutesy SHE image but hopefully she'll be able to rebrand herself in the future without getting pegged as a boring ballad girl. I listened to the title song My Love and love it so far. The MV is pretty weird, but you can judge for yourself!

*http://www.yesasia.com/us/1024926369-0-0-0-en/info.html

S.P.Y. - 舞池諜影

China's new Dance Group S.P.Y. made of four girls from the Beijing Contemporary Music Academy. Supposedly known for their dance skills, they are set to hit the growing music scene in China. From their first MV they seem like a pale imitation of South Korean girl group 2NE1 except 2NE1 will throw in some decent rap. Their repetitive uncreative dance moves barely draw away from their tacky attempts at innovative clothing. The background music sounds ok though and I'm sure China has invested a lot into these four girls' lives so we'll see how they develop.

Their blog: http://blog.sina.com.cn/2009spy

Jane Zhang 张靓颖 - Reform 改变

Jane Zhang came out with a new album Reform 改变! There's 11 new songs; one's a hidden song that's attached to the 10th song on my version. It's a shorter duet. At first listen it's exciting and diverse. She also turned her short musical interlude "低嗨" from Believe in Jane 我相信 into a whole song which I had always wished she'd do!

For more about Jane check her pretty comprehensive wiki page.

I don't know if she's getting cuter or just dressing more attractively. But this video's cute.