Music video of “Like Being Hit by a Bullet” (총맞은 것처럼) by Korean pop-ballad star Baek Ji-young. The song is featured in her 7th album “Sensibility” which was released on Thursday (Nov 13)…
Chinese MV of “Not Mature Enough” (不够成熟 - Bu Gou Cheng Shu) by 16-year-old twins group BY2. The song is featured in their debut album “16 Under Age” (16 未成年) which was released a couple of months ago…
The public responses seem pretty encouraging for the Singapore born sisters, Miko and Yumi Peh… but it’s still too early to tell how popular they could be.
Their vocals still need some brush up, but I think they are already singing better than lots of the pop idols these days; and apparently they can dance a bit as well.
Legendary Japanese music producer Tetsuya Komuro was arrested on Tuesday morning (Nov 4) on suspicion of fraud and could face up to 10 years of jail term.
The 49-year-old is alleged to have scammed an investor of 500 million yen (~USD5 million) in August 2006 by selling copyrights of 806 tunes which he written but did not actually own the rights.
Tetsuya lost a civil suit in July 2008 in which he is required to pay 600 million to the investor as compensation, but he didn’t manage to do so by the deadline (Sept 30), thus prompted the investor to file a police report.
Tetsuya is widely regarded as the most successful J-pop music producer in 1990s. He was the producer for top Japanese stars like Namie Amuro, TRF, Ami Suzuki, Ryoko Shinohara and Hitomi etc… it’s estimated that more than 170 million copies of his production were sold over the years.
Tetsuya was then one of the richest entertainers in Japan with over USD100 million of wealth. His music career has however been declining since 2000, and his investment failure in 2001-2004 has sunk him into financial trouble which he obviously couldn’t manage to recover.
Chinese MV of “Take Me Away” (带我走 - Dai Wo Zhou) by Taiwanese artist Rainie Yang. The song is written by Qing Feng from pop-rock band Sodagreen; it’s the ending theme for drama series “Miss No Good” which stars Rainie and Wilber Pan.
A different singing style from Rainie; obviously trying to jump out of her usual cutie image. Not a bad attempt imo; it’s a decent song and is likely to become a huge hit, partly thanks to the popularity of the TV drama as well.
The song is also included in Rainie’s 4th album “Declaration of Semi-Maturity” (半熟宣言) which is scheduled to release on Nov 7…
A few MVs from Korean pop star Lee Hyori which were used as commercial films for Anycall, a mobile phone brand established by Samsung. Hyori was the spokesperson for the brand in 2003-2007.
AnyMotion
“Anymotion” is the first of three instalments produced for Anycall; featuring Eric Mun from pop group Shinhwa. The video was a bit controversial for a few reasons (copycats and racism etc), but it’s quite cool nonetheless…
Korean pop star Kim Jong-kook is making his comeback after completing his two-year military service in May 2008. He released his 5th album yesterday (Oct 22), titled “Here I am”… should be interesting to see if he still got what it takes to excel in showbiz.
Below is the English subbed music video for the first promotional track, “Today more than Yesterday”. The video is cute; the song was not really appealing at first, but quite nice after listening to it for a few times…
English subbed music video of “Rainisim”, second MV from Korean pop star Rain’s latest (same title) album. Although another MV “Love Story” was released earlier, it seems like Rainisim is the major promotional track instead…
Hallyu stars are dominating the Japanese Oricon singles chart for the past two weeks. The Koreans claimed the top three spots at the singles’ sales chart last week, and keeping their momentum with three of the top four spots this week.
Pop group TVXQ (known as Tōhōshinki in Japan) tops the singles’ sales chart for two consecutive weeks with their 24th Japanese single “Jumon-Mirotic”. This is their 4th chart topping Japanese single in 2008.
Actor turn singer Lee Byung-hun claims the 2nd spot also for two weeks in a role with his debut single, “Itsuka”; while Ryu Si-won dropping from 3rd to 4th with his 8th single “Kimito Boku”.
To be frank, I’m quite puzzled how the songs managed to lead the charts. I can understand that Mirotic is appealing to some audiences (although not to my liking), but the other two are just so average. Anyhow, sharing all three music videos below…