One Day in May…

Happy New Year! Seriously, I cannot understand where this last year has gone. I finally have my “top ten albums of 2008″ ready to go, and here we are with another one down. On the bright side, if you are feeling overwhelmed by the ever-changing nature of modern life, take some comfort in the world of Mandopop, where a remarkable consistency can be seen. For example:

1. Ashin is filming awkwardly “romantic” scenes with new girls he can’t quite look straight in the eye again; this time, it’s a 7-Eleven commercial with Penny Patty Hou and there’s no kissing, so the attempt is at least respectable. (Except when he’s supposed to have his arms around her in the print ad; sad, Ashin, so NOT rock-n-roll!) Penny Patty, on the other hand, gets all the best gigs ever since she had the good sense to get dumped by Cowboy Jay; she also sang with A-yue back on his OK album. I think her star continues to rise. Also, 7-Eleven commercials seem to provide a very rare opportunity to see Ashin out of clothing with large cartoon bears or Hello Kitty on it.

2. Ashin was, however, running around rehearsing for the Taipei New Year’s concert in the official Bad Pants Choice ‘09, the jeans with the words “StayReal” in huge letters across the ass. In 2010, Ashin, Just Say No to dodgy denims. I’m very busy, but I’d be willing to consult if it would keep you away from these poor choices in trousers. (Apologies if you started watching that and got blasted with an unexpected bout of S.H.E. halfheartedly singing along with their soundtrack.)

3. Most of the news this week was taken over by the annual “who was performing where on New Year’s” thing, which is always just a little bit dull. But, spicing things up a bit this year, here’s sodagreen’s performance on the Jiangsu Satellite Television New Year’s Show, which was broadcast the other night (even if it wasn’t taped, then, ahem. Sodagreen was performing in Guangzhou for the night itself). That show was headlined by the Superband, offering the nation an opportunity to ogle A-yue, which essentially means it was fifty-thousand times better than the Hunan Satellite Television New Year’s show, which was mostly boy bands and poplets. *sigh* If only the Jiangsu Satellite Television New Year’s show had been on New Year’s, and, you know, in Jiangsu. I could have pilgrimaged out to see all my favorite boys (and Xinyi).

4. Speculation is flying over the girl accompanying Leehom out to the New Year’s concerts. This, of course, is a favorite party game: who is Leehom dating? (Played with the accompanying bonus round, “Is Leehom gay?” which he then periodically denies in song.) Well, rest assured fangirls, it was his cousin. (Um, yawn.) In that article he also talks about seeing his nieces and nephews, who are still small but have clearly defined gender roles: the boys like trains and cars and the girls like princess outfits and ballet dancing. Suggestion, Uncle Leehom: buy those girls a cool science kit. They’ll thank you later. (Leehom has some interesting stuff going on right now; his movie with Jackie Chan is coming out at some point, he’s the spokesman for the Taipei pavilion at the Shanghai Expo next year, and he recently recorded a duet with Teresa Teng to serve as the theme song for the pavilion. She’s been gone for many years, of course, but modern technology is a wonderful thing. Coincidentally, I *also* love Taipei.)

Then, of course, in every bit of consistency there must be at least one glaring exception; oh, but my dears, what an exception.

Cowboy Jay did not release an album in 2009.

Oh, it’s glorious. A year without him dominating the awards ceremonies in spite of all the reasons why his latest album is derivative and boring and totally undeserving. Ah, the sound of silence. And to think I mocked his acting career; I take it all back. Sadly, I think he’s going to hit us early in 2010, and even more sadly, he supposedly wrote his latest in his “free time” while recording two films and a panda-themed superhero soap opera, which in general does not bode well. But I remain hopeful that the pattern of knee-jerk accolades will have been broken, and we will return to the early years when Cowboy Jay was actually – *gasp* – judged on his merits. Oh, I can hope.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at 11:11 pm and is filed under Chang Chen-yue (A-yue), Cowboy Jay, Leehom Wang, Mayday, Sodagreen. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.