in terms of recording quality, i always feel that rain forest (lily's label from china) lags behind hong kong labels like rock-in music (keith yip) and TIS (vili chang), or even musiclab. rain forest's recordings are natural but somewhat mundane, lacking the hi-fi qualities of those labels from hk.
whereas lily's sweet voice is always a selling point, she can come across as a bit impassionate and pedestrian. she doesn't quite emote well in her songs. every song is plain sailing for her. i don't get the intensity or climax i get from some really top-notch pop singers. a case in point - song number #12 by kit chan (retired s'pore singer). lily's rendition is so plain and emotionless. one should really listen to kit chan's version to know how much lily falls short. kit's powerful voice is like a vocal roller coaster, leading the listener from a high point to low, back and forth; there's just so much variation in kit's rendition.
chris babida's arrangement, on the other hand, is rather understated this time. the sparse instrumentation is perhaps to highlight lily's sweet voice but it can come across as a bit under-arranged. recording quality is generally good.
lily covers songs by faye wong, eason chan, leon lai, miriam yueng and danny chan, and most of the times, i prefer the original versions, except perhaps for danny chan's "a several minute date" (track 11) where lily's delicate voice shines through in this well-arranged simple ditty.
elsewhere, it is a rather boring affair.
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7 years ago
3 comments:
Just got the CD. fully agree with everything you highlighted about this CD. There's a few more gripes to add however.
1) Never liked Lily when she sings in canto pop.
2) She's had some good CD works in the past, but this one must be rank as one of her lesser works. I only liked 3 song from the whole CD!
3) With the combined talants of Chris and Lily, perhaps expectations were too high!
also, the frequency of her releases is too alarming. how can one maintain the quality when it is released that often?
i would like to manage lily chen!
hi this is fritz babida from philippines.. your foster father and my grandfather are brother.. i love your songs.. hope someday we will meet so you can teach me how to play jazz
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