For my high school friends.
Asian Music
Moumoon – It’s Our Time in Paris
Music video for It’s Our Time by Japanese pop duo Moumoon, released in June 2015. Found this song after blogging about them a couple of months ago.
They shot the MV in Paris when the band held their first solo concert (sold out) in the French capital in May 2015. The song is OK, love the video though… it looks like a beautiful travelogue.
Feels like visiting Europe again after watching this. It has been over a decade since my last trip to the continent. Always thought I would be there again much sooner.
By the way, half of the group name moumoon comes from a French word. “Mou” means soft in French, hence their name can be interpreted as soft moon in English =)
Moumoon, Shooting Star, Assassination Classroom
Japanese MV for Hello, Shooting Star by pop duo moumoon, released in February 2015. It’s an ending song for popular anime series Assassination Classroom.
I was a fan of moumoon’s Sunshine Girl in 2010. Haven’t heard much from the band since then, but they are probably doing well in their home country. Many Japanese commercials, movies and TV shows have used their songs over the years.
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Jill Vidal ft. San E – Being Told Chinese MV
Hong Kong based British singer Jill Vidal is making her comeback, six years after her drug scandal in 2009. She was found guilty for drugs possession in Japan but escaped prison time. Her rising showbiz career was badly affected though.
Vidal was only semi-active since the scandal until signing with Warner Music HK in 2015. She released a new single, titled Being Told (被滿足的愛), in May 2016. She went to Seoul to record the song which featured popular Korean rapper San E.
It’s actually a decent song. There’s clear K-pop elements and it sounds different from standard Cantopop, which may be a good thing since Cantopop is going nowhere these days. This could just be the song she needs for a reboot.
ZARD Forever Best: 25th Anniversary
Medley video for ZARD Forever Best 25th Anniversary. It’s a compilation album in memory of Izumi Sakai, the lead vocalist of Japanese pop rock band Zard who died in 2007.
Izumi Sakai was synonymous with Zard (vice versa) in many people’s point of view because she was the only permanent member in the group while others joined and left regularly. The singer has sold over 37 million records, making her one of the best-selling Japanese pop music artists of all time.
This compilation album feature 52 tracks. Izumi was a prolific lyricist; she wrote the lyrics for all of Zard songs except for two. Many of the songs are soundtracks in Japanese anime and drama series; Jpop fans from that era should be familiar with her works even if they didn’t know much about the singer.
Some of the clips in this video are quite precious and hardly found online. After all, Zard was most famous in the 1990s when internet was not a thing yet. Writing this post with bittersweet memories.
North Korean girl group Moranbong Band
The Moranbong Band [wiki], also known as Moran Hill Orchestra, is an all-female music group in North Korea whose members were selected by the country’s supreme leader Kim Jong-un. Debuted in 2012, they are the first female band from DPRK.
The group, which is said to be hugely popular in their homeland, made headlines earlier this month when their show in Beijing was cancelled last-minute, with rumours of possible defection (which has been officially debunked).
There are suggestions that the creation of the group is to counteract the rise of South Korean pop culture in North Korea. Some foreign media actually branded Moranbong Band as North Korean version of South Korean pop group Girls’ Generation, but it’s probably in terms of popularity instead of musical style.
