YeinJee's Asian Journal

The 19th Golden Melody Awards, arguably the most prestigious recognition in Mandarin music industry, were presented in Taipei on July 5.

Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou was the biggest winner, bagging five awards, including song of the year and best composer awards.

Malaysian Gary Chau and Singaporean Tanya Chua claimed the best male/female Mandarin singers title respectively (pic); Tanya also bagged the best producer award.

Taiwanese band Sodagreen won the best group/band award; while Hong Kong star Karen Mok produced the biggest surprise of the night by winning album of the year award.

The awards presentation was shown live at my TV channel… but it was so so boring. The red carpet sucked, the hostesses sucked and the performers talked too much.

The funniest thing is seeing the celebrities pretending to be interested with what was happening on stage when most of them were probably bored to the max.

A song from Taiwanese six-member band Sodagreen, released in their late 2007 album; the title (loosely translated) is “Incomparable Beauty”…

The lead singer has a very special vocal, and their music is not blindly following the flow of the pop scene, but with the own uniqueness.

They didn’t make it big when they first debut in 2003/2004… general pop still rules obviously, but they are gaining momentum gradually and is getting quite popular these days.

Sodagreen is nominated for six categories in the prestigous Taiwan Golden Melody Award in 2008 (yet to be announced)… the future seems bright for these peeps.