News:HK has No Music Industry, Only An Entertainment Circle

Last March 03 , Wang Leehom held an autograph & sales session for his 10th album “Shangri-la”. Leehom is named as "Top Quality Idol" in Japan and Korea; Ever since his remake of “Descendents of the Dragon” he has developed a relationship with China. In the interview yesterday, he said, "I just want to contribute to the Chinese music industry – to come up with something different, something that is challenging, stimulating and new." Leehom feels that from his first album onwards, he's been working hard at accumulating technical skills, including music composition, performance – and it's as if his first 9 albums existed for the purpose of preparing him for his latest album "Shangri-la!" “To me, this album is very challenging and risky, after all, 'Chinked-out' is a brand new style of music.”Afterwards, Leehom who has always shown a lot of character, explains his rationale, "I wanted to create this style, which is the amalgamation of Chinese elements with other elements. Even (within Chinese music) the ethnic minorities each have their own culture, own songs, own styles of singing and own instruments."This time, Leehom actually utilized this aspect. "The most special part of the album is the incorporation of these Chinese ethnic elements, like for instance I used the Chinese 5-tone to compose 'A Simple Song', and also incorporated the Tibetian theatre tune into 'Zhu Lun Shen Chu'. I was very happy to be able to do this. Even though I don’t understand Tibetian, but their beats and music bear many similarities to rap, and when I heard it, I knew I had to incorporate these features into my own compositions." Named as China R&B Godfather---David TaoLately David Tao has been expressing strong feelings of helplessness, saying that he's lost confidence in the Chinese music industry, and proclaiming his intent to retire from the music industry. The media has always liked to compare Leehom's music with David Tao's, and this is exactly what Leehom hopes not to happen. "Talking about our music from a different perspective, our work is actually very different. The music that I compose stems solely from my own thoughts and feelings, and is something that belongs exclusively to my own style. I feel that for the majority of other singers who do not compose their own music, their songs are all selected by their record companies, and just distributed to whichever singer happens to be releasing an album. I feel that it is these singers who would sound similar." When we asked about his views about the music industry, amongst his replies Leehom mentioned the Hong Kong music industry. "I don't feel like Hong Kong has a music industry, I treat that more as an entertainment circle. The "Yue" in "Yue Tan" refers to real music but Hong Kong people aren't actually listening to music, they are more concerned with the multi-media performances. They are able to co-ordinate the emergence of a new artiste in many different aspects of the entertainment industry, this is different from all other places.

Source: Shi Dai Shang Pao
Credit: Roche@OurHomeAus