1.
Beijing
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Beijing is the capital of the Peoples Republic of China and the worlds third most populous city proper. It is also one of the worlds most populous capital cities, the city, located in northern China, is governed as a direct-controlled municipality under the national government with 16 urban, suburban, and rural districts. Beijing is the second largest Chinese city by population after Shanghai and is the nations political, cultural. It is home to the headquarters of most of Chinas largest state-owned companies, and is a hub for the national highway, expressway, railway. The citys history dates back three millennia, as the last of the Four Great Ancient Capitals of China, Beijing has been the political centre of the country for much of the past eight centuries. Beijing was the largest city in the world by population for much of the second millennium A. D, the city is renowned for its opulent palaces, temples, parks, gardens, tombs, walls and gates. Its art treasures and universities have made it centre of culture, encyclopædia Britannica notes that few cities in the world have served for so long as the political headquarters and cultural centre of an area as immense as China. Siheyuans, the traditional housing style, and hutongs, the narrow alleys between siheyuans, are major tourist attractions and are common in urban Beijing. The city hosted the 2008 Summer Olympics and was chosen to host the 2022 Winter Olympics, many of Beijings 91 universities consistently rank among the best in China, of which Peking University and Tsinghua University are ranked in the top 60 universities in the world. Beijings Zhongguancun area is known as Chinas Silicon Valley and Chinas center of innovation. According to the 2016 InterNations Expat Insider Survey, Beijing ranked first in Asia in the subcategory Personal Finance Index, expats live primarily in urban districts such as Dongcheng and Chaoyang in the east, or in suburban districts such as Shunyi. Over the past 3,000 years, the city of Beijing has had other names. The name Beijing, which means Northern Capital, was applied to the city in 1403 during the Ming Dynasty to distinguish the city from Nanjing, the English spelling is based on the pinyin romanisation of the two characters as they are pronounced in Standard Mandarin. Those dialects preserve the Middle Chinese pronunciation of 京 as kjaeng, the single Chinese character abbreviation for Beijing is 京, which appears on automobile license plates in the city. The official Latin alphabet abbreviation for Beijing is BJ, the earliest traces of human habitation in the Beijing municipality were found in the caves of Dragon Bone Hill near the village of Zhoukoudian in Fangshan District, where Peking Man lived. Homo erectus fossils from the date to 230,000 to 250,000 years ago. Paleolithic Homo sapiens also lived more recently, about 27,000 years ago. Archaeologists have found neolithic settlements throughout the municipality, including in Wangfujing, the first walled city in Beijing was Ji, a city from the 11th to 7th century BC
2.
China
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China, officially the Peoples Republic of China, is a unitary sovereign state in East Asia and the worlds most populous country, with a population of over 1.381 billion. The state is governed by the Communist Party of China and its capital is Beijing, the countrys major urban areas include Shanghai, Guangzhou, Beijing, Chongqing, Shenzhen, Tianjin and Hong Kong. China is a power and a major regional power within Asia. Chinas landscape is vast and diverse, ranging from forest steppes, the Himalaya, Karakoram, Pamir and Tian Shan mountain ranges separate China from much of South and Central Asia. The Yangtze and Yellow Rivers, the third and sixth longest in the world, respectively, Chinas coastline along the Pacific Ocean is 14,500 kilometers long and is bounded by the Bohai, Yellow, East China and South China seas. China emerged as one of the worlds earliest civilizations in the basin of the Yellow River in the North China Plain. For millennia, Chinas political system was based on hereditary monarchies known as dynasties, in 1912, the Republic of China replaced the last dynasty and ruled the Chinese mainland until 1949, when it was defeated by the communist Peoples Liberation Army in the Chinese Civil War. The Communist Party established the Peoples Republic of China in Beijing on 1 October 1949, both the ROC and PRC continue to claim to be the legitimate government of all China, though the latter has more recognition in the world and controls more territory. China had the largest economy in the world for much of the last two years, during which it has seen cycles of prosperity and decline. Since the introduction of reforms in 1978, China has become one of the worlds fastest-growing major economies. As of 2016, it is the worlds second-largest economy by nominal GDP, China is also the worlds largest exporter and second-largest importer of goods. China is a nuclear weapons state and has the worlds largest standing army. The PRC is a member of the United Nations, as it replaced the ROC as a permanent member of the U. N. Security Council in 1971. China is also a member of numerous formal and informal multilateral organizations, including the WTO, APEC, BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the BCIM, the English name China is first attested in Richard Edens 1555 translation of the 1516 journal of the Portuguese explorer Duarte Barbosa. The demonym, that is, the name for the people, Portuguese China is thought to derive from Persian Chīn, and perhaps ultimately from Sanskrit Cīna. Cīna was first used in early Hindu scripture, including the Mahābhārata, there are, however, other suggestions for the derivation of China. The official name of the state is the Peoples Republic of China. The shorter form is China Zhōngguó, from zhōng and guó and it was then applied to the area around Luoyi during the Eastern Zhou and then to Chinas Central Plain before being used as an occasional synonym for the state under the Qing
3.
Mandopop
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Mandopop refers to Mandarin popular music. It is now used as a term to describe popular songs performed in Mandarin. Mandopop is categorized as a subgenre of commercial Chinese-language music within C-pop, Mandopop was the first variety of popular music in Chinese to establish itself as a viable industry. It originated in Shanghai, and later Hong Kong, Taipei, among the countries where Mandopop is most popular are mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. S. to record local music in Asia. The recordings were then manufactured outside China and re-imported by the Gramophone Company’s sales agent in China, the Moudeli Company dominated the market before the 1910s until the Pathé Records took over the leading role. Pathé was founded in 1908 by a Frenchman named Labansat who had started a novelty entertainment business using phonograph in Shanghai around the beginning of the 20th century. It originally recorded mainly Peking opera, but later expanded to Mandarin popular music, later other foreign as well as Chinese-own recording companies were also established in China. Early in the 20th century, people in China generally spoke in their own regional dialect, although most people in Shanghai then spoke Shanghainese, the recordings of the pop music from Shanghai from the 1920s onwards were done in Standard Mandarin, which is based on the Beijing dialect. Those involved in this movement included such as Li Jinhui. Mandarin popular songs started in the 1920s were called shidaiqu. The Mandarin popular songs of the Shanghai era are considered by scholars to be the first kind of popular music developed in China. Li Jinhui is generally regarded as the Father of Chinese Popular Music who established the genre in the 1920s, buck Clayton, the American jazz musician, also worked alongside Li. Li established the Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe, and amongst their singing stars were Wang Renmei, there was a close relationship between music and film industries and many of its singers also became actresses. Around 1927, Li composed the hit song The Drizzle recorded by his daughter Li Minghui, the song however was sung in a high-pitched childlike style, a style described uncharitably as sounding like strangling cat by the writer Lu Xun. This early style would soon be replaced by more sophisticated performances from better-trained singers, in 1931, the first sound film was made in China in a cooperation between the Mingxing Film Company and Pathé. Amongst the best-known of the singer-actress to emerge in the 1930s were Zhou Xuan, Gong Qiuxia, although later singing stars need not also have an acting career, the close relationship between the recording and film industries continued for many decades. Later Yao Lee, Bai Guang, Li Xianglan, Wu Yingyin also became popular, other notable singers of this period include Li Lihua and Chang Loo. In 1940 Yao Lee recorded Rose, Rose, I Love You which later became the first Chinese pop song to be covered by Western singers that was a hit
4.
HIM International Music
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HIM International Music is a Taiwanese independent record label and artist management company established in 1999. It was previously known as Grand Music International Inc and it is an International Federation of the Phonographic Industry member record company. HIM International Music started off as two different labels, Grand Music and Tiger Music, Grand Music had a number of successful artists. Yuan Wei-jen released his first album under Grand Music, and earned a nomination for Best Mandarin Male Performer at the 12th Golden Melody Awards, a while after the nomination, Yuan put his solo career on hiatus, and master produced albums for HIM International artists until 2004. After promotions for their compilation album ended in 2000, Power Station joined Grand Music, in August, Grand Music held a Universal Talent and Beauty Contest to search for new talent. The finals were televised on China Televisions TV Citizen, the winner was Jen Chia-Hsüan, Grand Music eventually selected finalists Chen Chia-Hwa and Tien Fu-Chen as well, putting the three girls into a group called S. H. E. On October 1,2000, Grand Music underwent a name change, on May 16,2002, Tiger Music became HIM Music Publishing, which, to this day, operates under HIM International Music. In 2012, HIM International Music signs with a Singer James, list of record labels Official homepage HIM Channel on YouTube
5.
Simplified Chinese characters
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Simplified Chinese characters are standardized Chinese characters prescribed in the Table of General Standard Chinese Characters for use in mainland China. Along with traditional Chinese characters, it is one of the two character sets of the contemporary Chinese written language. The government of the Peoples Republic of China in mainland China has promoted them for use in printing since the 1950s and 1960s in an attempt to increase literacy and they are officially used in the Peoples Republic of China and Singapore. Traditional Chinese characters are used in Hong Kong, Macau. Overseas Chinese communities generally tend to use traditional characters, Simplified Chinese characters may be referred to by their official name above or colloquially. Strictly, the latter refers to simplifications of character structure or body, character forms that have existed for thousands of years alongside regular, Simplified character forms were created by decreasing the number of strokes and simplifying the forms of a sizable proportion of traditional Chinese characters. Some simplifications were based on popular cursive forms embodying graphic or phonetic simplifications of the traditional forms, some characters were simplified by applying regular rules, for example, by replacing all occurrences of a certain component with a simplified version of the component. Variant characters with the pronunciation and identical meaning were reduced to a single standardized character. Finally, many characters were left untouched by simplification, and are identical between the traditional and simplified Chinese orthographies. Some simplified characters are very dissimilar to and unpredictably different from traditional characters and this often leads opponents not well-versed in the method of simplification to conclude that the overall process of character simplification is also arbitrary. In reality, the methods and rules of simplification are few, on the other hand, proponents of simplification often flaunt a few choice simplified characters as ingenious inventions, when in fact these have existed for hundreds of years as ancient variants. However, the Chinese government never officially dropped its goal of further simplification in the future, in August 2009, the PRC began collecting public comments for a modified list of simplified characters. The new Table of General Standard Chinese Characters consisting of 8,105 characters was promulgated by the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China on June 5,2013, cursive written text almost always includes character simplification. Simplified forms used in print have always existed, they date back to as early as the Qin dynasty, One of the earliest proponents of character simplification was Lubi Kui, who proposed in 1909 that simplified characters should be used in education. In the years following the May Fourth Movement in 1919, many anti-imperialist Chinese intellectuals sought ways to modernise China, Traditional culture and values such as Confucianism were challenged. Soon, people in the Movement started to cite the traditional Chinese writing system as an obstacle in modernising China and it was suggested that the Chinese writing system should be either simplified or completely abolished. Fu Sinian, a leader of the May Fourth Movement, called Chinese characters the writing of ox-demons, lu Xun, a renowned Chinese author in the 20th century, stated that, If Chinese characters are not destroyed, then China will die. Recent commentators have claimed that Chinese characters were blamed for the problems in China during that time
6.
Traditional Chinese characters
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Traditional Chinese characters are Chinese characters in any character set that does not contain newly created characters or character substitutions performed after 1946. They are most commonly the characters in the character sets of Taiwan, of Hong Kong. Currently, a number of overseas Chinese online newspapers allow users to switch between both sets. In contrast, simplified Chinese characters are used in mainland China, Singapore, the debate on traditional and simplified Chinese characters has been a long-running issue among Chinese communities. Although simplified characters are taught and endorsed by the government of Mainland China, Traditional characters are used informally in regions in China primarily in handwriting and also used for inscriptions and religious text. They are often retained in logos or graphics to evoke yesteryear, nonetheless, the vast majority of media and communications in China is dominated by simplified characters. Taiwan has never adopted Simplified Chinese characters since it is ruled by the Republic of China, the use of simplified characters in official documents is even prohibited by the government in Taiwan. Simplified characters are not well understood in general, although some stroke simplifications that have incorporated into Simplified Chinese are in common use in handwriting. For example, while the name of Taiwan is written as 臺灣, similarly, in Hong Kong and Macau, Traditional Chinese has been the legal written form since colonial times. In recent years, because of the influx of mainland Chinese tourists, today, even government websites use simplified Chinese, as they answer to the Beijing government. This has led to concerns by residents to protect their local heritage. In Southeast Asia, the Chinese Filipino community continues to be one of the most conservative regarding simplification, while major public universities are teaching simplified characters, many well-established Chinese schools still use traditional characters. Publications like the Chinese Commercial News, World News, and United Daily News still use traditional characters, on the other hand, the Philippine Chinese Daily uses simplified. Aside from local newspapers, magazines from Hong Kong, such as the Yazhou Zhoukan, are found in some bookstores. In case of film or television subtitles on DVD, the Chinese dub that is used in Philippines is the same as the one used in Taiwan and this is because the DVDs belongs to DVD Region Code 3. Hence, most of the subtitles are in Traditional Characters, overseas Chinese in the United States have long used traditional characters. A major influx of Chinese immigrants to the United States occurred during the half of the 19th century. Therefore, the majority of Chinese language signage in the United States, including street signs, Traditional Chinese characters are called several different names within the Chinese-speaking world
7.
Pinyin
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Pinyin, or Hànyǔ Pīnyīn, is the official romanization system for Standard Chinese in mainland China, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan. It is often used to teach Standard Chinese, which is written using Chinese characters. The system includes four diacritics denoting tones, Pinyin without tone marks is used to spell Chinese names and words in languages written with the Latin alphabet, and also in certain computer input methods to enter Chinese characters. The pinyin system was developed in the 1950s by many linguists, including Zhou Youguang and it was published by the Chinese government in 1958 and revised several times. The International Organization for Standardization adopted pinyin as a standard in 1982. The system was adopted as the standard in Taiwan in 2009. The word Hànyǔ means the language of the Han people. In 1605, the Jesuit missionary Matteo Ricci published Xizi Qiji in Beijing and this was the first book to use the Roman alphabet to write the Chinese language. Twenty years later, another Jesuit in China, Nicolas Trigault, neither book had much immediate impact on the way in which Chinese thought about their writing system, and the romanizations they described were intended more for Westerners than for the Chinese. One of the earliest Chinese thinkers to relate Western alphabets to Chinese was late Ming to early Qing Dynasty scholar-official, the first late Qing reformer to propose that China adopt a system of spelling was Song Shu. A student of the great scholars Yu Yue and Zhang Taiyan, Song had been to Japan and observed the effect of the kana syllabaries. This galvanized him into activity on a number of fronts, one of the most important being reform of the script, while Song did not himself actually create a system for spelling Sinitic languages, his discussion proved fertile and led to a proliferation of schemes for phonetic scripts. The Wade–Giles system was produced by Thomas Wade in 1859, and it was popular and used in English-language publications outside China until 1979. This Sin Wenz or New Writing was much more sophisticated than earlier alphabets. In 1940, several members attended a Border Region Sin Wenz Society convention. Mao Zedong and Zhu De, head of the army, both contributed their calligraphy for the masthead of the Sin Wenz Societys new journal. Outside the CCP, other prominent supporters included Sun Yat-sens son, Sun Fo, Cai Yuanpei, the countrys most prestigious educator, Tao Xingzhi, an educational reformer. Over thirty journals soon appeared written in Sin Wenz, plus large numbers of translations, biographies, some contemporary Chinese literature, and a spectrum of textbooks
8.
Super Girl (TV series)
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Super Girl or Super Voice Girls was a Chinese singing contest for female contestants, organized by Hunan Satellite Television between 2004 and 2006. The shows official name was Mengniu Yoghurt Super Girl Contest until 2009, later it was known as BBK Music Phone Super Girl Contest, after the company that sponsored the series. It was generally described as the unofficial mainland Chinese version of the television franchise Pop Idol. Despite Super Girls major popularity and success, the show was criticised by Liu Zhongde. He essentially claimed Super Girl was poison for the youth, the program was relaunched in 2009. The Chinese title was changed to Happy Girls though the official English title remains unchanged as Super Girl, in 2011, the Chinese government banned Super Girl from airing, claiming the program to be too long. The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television told the Hunan station that Super Girl broke time rules for this kind of show and they should be no more than 90 minutes long, but episodes of Super Girl can last more than three hours. More than 2.5 billion people watched the show, huanan announced a third incarnation of the show on October 30,2015. Auditions for the series closed on April 16,2016, partly inspired by the many spinoffs of the UK show Pop Idol, the competition was open to any female contestant regardless of her origin, appearance, or how she sings. The almost unrestricted audition sessions drew contestants of ages ranging from 4 to 89 years old, the 2005 season attracted more than 120,000 applicants during the preliminary selection rounds, held in the five provinces of Hunan, Sichuan, Guangdong, Henan and Zhejiang. Many applicants travelled long distances to take part in the competition hoping to become a star, each contestant was allowed 30 seconds to perform in front of judges and find out if they were selected for the preliminary regional rounds. To prevent another overwhelming audition season, an age of eighteen was later set during the 2006 season. Following the selection of contestants in the five regions, the competition began with the preliminary rounds, preliminaries were held in each of the five locations where auditions were located. Television viewers were able to each of the preliminaries and vote for their favorite singers. Voting was conducted by telephone and text messaging, the regional preliminaries were followed by a weekly broadcast knockout competition held in Changsha, Hunan province. Viewers called in to vote for their favourite singers, and the weakest two—as voted by the judges, the term is derived from kill-or-be-killed multiplayer online games. The singer with the least number of votes was then eliminated, unlike Pop Idol, the last event was contested between the final three, rather than the final two contestants. Unlike American Idol, judges for the competition were selected from different backgrounds in society, a few dozen audience judges were selected in addition to several professional judges
9.
University of Bedfordshire
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The University of Bedfordshire is a public university with campuses in Bedfordshire and Buckinghamshire, England. The university was created in August 2006 following approval by the Privy Council by merging the University of Luton and it has 14,400 students, including approximately 4,500 international students. The university entered the Research Assessment Exercise in 2008 and achieved a GPA of 2.087 with 34. 7% world-leading or internationally excellent, the top units of assessment were in Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Social Work Social Policy and Administration and English Language and Literature. In 2012 it achieved FairTrade status, the current Chancellor of the University of Bedfordshire is John Bercow, the current Speaker of the House of Commons. The University of Luton had its roots in the Luton Modern School, which was established in 1908 and this became Luton College of Higher Education with the merger of Luton College of Technology and Putteridge Bury College of Education in 1976. It obtained university status in 1993, the university was created by the merger of the University of Luton and the Bedford campus of De Montfort University in August 2006 following approval by the Privy Council. The universitys two campuses are in Luton and Bedford. The university also has a site at Putteridge Bury which is home to its Knowledge Hub, the campus is situated in approximately 30 acres of landscaped gardens. The current building was completed in 1911 and was designed by architects Sir Ernest George and Alfred Yeats in the style of Chequers, having had various redesigns, the campus is home to the universitys postgraduate Business School as well as the universitys Conference Centre. A smaller fourth campus, the University Campus Milton Keynes, became part of the university in 2012, the university’s £34m Campus Centre opened in October 2010. Designed for social activity as well as teaching the Campus Centre incorporates learning zones, there are also several places to eat and drink. The Luton Learning Resource Centre has over 200,000 books, there is also an extensive online library of resources. Luton campus is home to the schools of study, Business, Media, Art and Design, Science, Computing, Law, Psychology. Built in 1911, Putteridge Bury is a mansion set in 30 acres of landscaped gardens and parkland. It is home to the Bedfordshire Business School postgraduate programmes and the universitys Conference Centre, the Bedford campus on Polhill Avenue is about 20 minutes walk from Bedford town centre. The university provides a bus service running between the town centre and the campus. Liberty Park, the recently completed £20m on-campus student accommodation, offers 500 en-suite study bedrooms, the Polhill Library was designed by van Heyningen and Haward Architects as a gateway to the campus. The building was completed in 2001 and provides approximately 360 individual study spaces, teaching space, staff work areas, butterfield is home to a purpose-designed building for Health, Nursing and Midwifery students, and £1m has been invested to offer students appropriate teaching and learning resources
10.
Mandarin Chinese
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Mandarin is a group of related varieties of Chinese spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of Standard Mandarin or Standard Chinese, because most Mandarin dialects are found in the north, the group is sometimes referred to as the Northern dialects. Many local Mandarin varieties are not mutually intelligible, nevertheless, Mandarin is often placed first in any list of languages by number of native speakers. Most Mandarin varieties have four tones, the final stops of Middle Chinese have disappeared in most of these varieties, but some have merged them as a final glottal stop. Many Mandarin varieties, including the Beijing dialect, retain retroflex initial consonants, the capital has been within the Mandarin area for most of the last millennium, making these dialects very influential. Some form of Mandarin has served as a lingua franca since the 14th century. In the early 20th century, a form based on the Beijing dialect. Standard Chinese is the language of the Peoples Republic of China and Taiwan. It is also one of the most frequently used varieties of Chinese among Chinese diaspora communities internationally, the English word mandarin originally meant an official of the Ming and Qing empires. Since their native varieties were often mutually unintelligible, these officials communicated using a Koiné language based on various northern varieties, when Jesuit missionaries learned this standard language in the 16th century, they called it Mandarin, from its Chinese name Guānhuà, or language of the officials. In everyday English, Mandarin refers to Standard Chinese, which is called simply Chinese. Standard Chinese is based on the particular Mandarin dialect spoken in Beijing, with some lexical and it is the official spoken language of the Peoples Republic of China, the official language of the Republic of China, and one of the four official languages of the Republic of Singapore. It also functions as the language of instruction in Mainland China and it is one of the six official languages of the United Nations, under the name Chinese. Chinese speakers refer to the standard language as Pǔtōnghuà in Mainland China, Guóyǔ in Taiwan, or Huáyǔ in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia and Philippines. Linguists use the term Mandarin to refer to the group of dialects spoken in northern and southwestern China. The alternative term Běifānghuà, or Northern dialects, is used less and less among Chinese linguists, by extension, the term Old Mandarin or Early Mandarin is used by linguists to refer to the northern dialects recorded in materials from the Yuan dynasty. Native speakers who are not academic linguists may not recognize that the variants they speak are classified in linguistics as members of Mandarin in a broader sense, the hundreds of modern local varieties of Chinese developed from regional variants of Old Chinese and Middle Chinese. Traditionally, seven groups of dialects have been recognized
11.
Tanya Chua
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Tanya Chua is a 3-time Best Female Vocalist Golden Melody Award-winning Singaporean singer-songwriter. She released her album, Bored, in December 1997. Chua then moved to Taiwan in 2006 to focus on the Chinese music industry and she was a judge on Sing My Song for its first two seasons. Chua was born in Singapore in a Chinese family as the younger of two daughters and she attended CHIJ Saint Nicholas Girls School and graduated from Singapore Polytechnic with a Diploma in Business Administration in 1996. Chua started out singing in English, releasing her first English album, Bored, Chua signed on to Universal Music Taiwan in 1998 and released her first Mandarin album, Breathe, in 1999. That album comprised compositions of her English songs matched to Chinese lyrics by Taiwanese lyricists, in 2001, Chua performed for her own country during the Singapore National Day Parade 2001 with the theme song titled Where I Belong. In 2003, Chua signed a new contract with Warner Music in Taiwan, releasing the album Stranger and her second Warner album, Amphibian, won her a Best Female Artist at Taiwans Golden Melody Awards. The 2006 release of her compilation T-time marked an end to her contract with Warner. Her Goodbye and Hello album was nominated in 7 categories at the 19th Golden Melody Awards where she repeated her Best Mandarin Female Artist win and she followed up with three Singapore Hit Awards for Best Local Lyrics, Outstanding Local Music Achievement, and Asia Media in November 2009. She was praised by Taiwanese producer and songwriter Jonathan Lee as being a musician, in 2008 Lee gave her a handmade guitar in appreciation of her talents. In 2009, Chuas seventh album If You See Him was awarded one of the Top 10 Selling Mandarin Albums of the Year at the 2009 IFPI Hong Kong Album Sales Awards, presented by the Hong Kong branch of IFPI. After 14 years, Chua returns to Singapore to perform for a leg of her Tanya Chua and the Cities world tour in 2011. In 2011, Chua released her eighth Mandarin studio album entitled Sing It Out of Love and also released an English album entitled Just Say So, becoming the first artist to do so. In 2012, Chua won the Best Mandarin Female Artist in the Golden Melody Awards for the time breaking the record as the first female artist to win 3 times in this category. In 2013, her ninth Mandarin studio album entitled Angel & Devil was released, one of the songs in this album “十万毫升泪水”was also used as sub theme song for the hit Singapore drama series “The Dream Makers”. Chua has been a judge on Sing My Song, alchemys Jennifer Ho speaks to Tanya Chua on the Asian Pop Show SBS Radio in English 2008 Tanya Official Site Tanyas Blog Tanya Chua at MySpace
12.
Wonderful Tonight
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Wonderful Tonight is a ballad written by Eric Clapton. It was included on Claptons 1977 album Slowhand, Clapton wrote the song about Pattie Boyd. The female vocal harmonies on the song are provided by Marcella Detroit, on 7 September 1976, Clapton wrote Wonderful Tonight for Boyd while waiting for her to get ready to attend Paul and Linda McCartneys annual Buddy Holly party. Of Wonderful Tonight, Boyd would say, For years it tore at me, to have inspired Eric, and George before him, to write such music was so flattering. Wonderful Tonight was the most poignant reminder of all that was good in our relationship, the song is mentioned in her autobiographical book Wonderful Tonight, George Harrison, Eric Clapton, and Me. In 1988, Clapton appeared in the Nelson Mandela 70th Birthday Tribute concert as a guest guitarist for Dire Straits, the group became his backing musicians for a surprise performance of Wonderful Tonight during their set. The song was featured on Ricky Gervaiss radio show, where producer Karl Pilkington argued that the lyrics suggested that it came from the point of view of a disabled man in a wheelchair. Both Gervais and co-host Stephen Merchant dismissed Pilkingtons claims as conjecture, Clapton performed an extended version of Wonderful Tonight between 1987 and 2003, featuring Katie Kissoon and Tracy Ackerman on backing vocals and David Sancious on saxophone. Clapton and Steve Winwood performed a version of the song during their 2011 tour in Japan. Wonderful Tonight was covered by British R&B/pop group Damage in 1997, the single peaked at #3 on the UK Singles Chart, becoming the bands most successful single to date, also peaking high in several other territories, which was a first for the band. The song is performed by Richards, with little vocal input from any other members of the band. The music video features the band performing the song in a studio with cut scenes of a girl preparing to go on a night out. The b-side, Im Ready, launched the career of Craig David and his version went to #29 on the Hot Country Songs chart. Chart performance The song was covered by country music singer Butch Baker, also in 1989, a Spanish cover was recorded by Argentinian singer JAF. The song was covered by 1990s Minneapolis Alt-Country band Steves Piece. A cover version by an unknown artist is used on the 2004 DVD release of BBC sketch show Big Train featuring a horse, filipino musician and entrepreneur Ramon RJ Jacinto covered the song for his 2000 album, The Ultimate RJ Bistro Collection. It also later appeared on his 2005 compilation album, Rock n Roll Classics, Country artist Don Williams covered the song and it appeared on his 2004 album, My Heart to You. Michael Bublé covered the song on his album, Call Me Irresponsible in 2007, r&B singer Babyface covered the song on his album Playlist in 2007
13.
Eric Clapton
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Eric Patrick Clapton, CBE, is an English rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is the only inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, once as a solo artist and separately as a member of the Yardbirds. Clapton has been referred to as one of the most important, Clapton ranked second in Rolling Stone magazines list of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time and fourth in Gibsons Top 50 Guitarists of All Time. He was also named number five in Time magazines list of The 10 Best Electric Guitar Players in 2009, in the mid-1960s Clapton left the Yardbirds to play with John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers. Furthermore, he formed rock band Blind Faith with Baker, Steve Winwood. For most of the 1970s Claptons output bore the influence of the style of J. J. Cale. His version of Marleys I Shot the Sheriff helped reggae reach a mass market, two of his most popular recordings were Layla, recorded with Derek and the Dominos, and Robert Johnsons Crossroads, recorded with Cream. Following the death of his son Conor in 1991, Claptons grief was expressed in the song Tears in Heaven, Clapton has been the recipient of 18 Grammy Awards, and the Brit Award for Outstanding Contribution to Music. In 2004 he was awarded a CBE at Buckingham Palace for services to music, in 1998, Clapton, a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, founded the Crossroads Centre on Antigua, a medical facility for recovering substance abusers. Clapton was born on 30 March 1945 in Ripley, Surrey, England, to 16-year-old Patricia Molly Clapton and Edward Walter Fryer, Fryer shipped off to war prior to Claptons birth and then returned to Canada. The similarity in surnames gave rise to the belief that Claptons real surname is Clapp. Years later, his mother married another Canadian soldier and moved to Germany, Clapton received an acoustic Hoyer guitar, made in Germany, for his thirteenth birthday, but the inexpensive steel-stringed instrument was difficult to play and he briefly lost interest. Two years later Clapton picked it up again and started playing consistently, Clapton was influenced by the blues from an early age, and practised long hours to learn the chords of blues music by playing along to the records. He preserved his practice sessions using his portable Grundig reel-to-reel tape recorder and his guitar playing was so advanced that, by the age of 16, he was getting noticed. Around this time, Clapton began busking around Kingston, Richmond, in 1962, Clapton started performing as a duo with fellow blues enthusiast David Brock in pubs around Surrey. When he was seventeen years old, Clapton joined his first band, an early British R&B group and he stayed with this band from January until August 1963. In October of that year, Clapton did a stint with Casey Jones & the Engineers. In October 1963, Clapton joined the Yardbirds, a rock and roll band
14.
Power Station (Taiwanese band)
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Power Station is a Taiwanese rock duo, composed of Yu Chiu-hsin and Yen Chih-lin, both of the Paiwan tribe of Taiwans Pingtung County. Their music is characterized by their fast-paced rock ballads, as well as their electrifying rock anthems and their looks and long hair stand out from the mainstream Chinese pop scene because of their resemblance to typical western Heavy Metal musicians. In 2001, Power Station released their first album on the Grand Music label, the title track of that album won the Silver Award for Best Mandarin Song at the 24th RTHK Top Ten Golden Song Awards. Yu Chiu-hsin and Yen Chih-lin graduated from Taiwan Adventist College in Nantou County, at the ages of 25, they formed Power Station through singing western rock songs. After the release of their first album, their fame spread within the Chinese music scene in the 1990s, in 1998, they sang the theme song When from the drama My Fair Princess
15.
Wilber Pan
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Wilber Pan, also known as Will Pan, is an American-Taiwanese singer, songwriter, rapper, actor and entrepreneur. He started his career as a host of Channel V programs, in 2011, Pan was awarded Best Actor for Endless Love at the 46th Golden Bell Awards, Taiwans equivalent to the Emmy Awards. In recent years, Pan ventured into the business world, Pans business interests extends into streetwear fashion and developing of mobile games. In 2009, he launched the streetwear boutique N. P. C which he collaborated with Chinese host Nic Li, N. P. C also has its stores in Beijing, Hangzhou, Chengdu, and at online shopping website Taobao. In 2010, Pan established his streetwear brand Undisputed and modelled for the promotional ads. In April 2013, Pan was ranked 76th on 2013 Forbes China Celebrity 100 list, Pan was born and raised in West Virginia, United States and moved to Taiwan at the age of seven. He attended Dominican International School and Taipei American School, however, he left before graduating to pursue a showbiz career. In 1999, Pan took part in singing contest BCC Star while interning at the Broadcasting Corporation of China and he performed the song Cant Wait by Steve Seungjun Yoo and Yuki Hsu in the finals and later went on to participate in NMG/BMG Los Angeles Singing Competition. The song which he performed, Alex Tos You Are Spoiled won him the Best Image Award and his performance at the singing competition caught the attention of Andy Laus manager and he was invited to audition for Channel Vs program host in Hong Kong. In 2001, Pan signed to BMG and made his debut hosting V Style Society alongside Jason Tang, in the same year, he acted in Taiwanese drama Great Teacher and contributed four songs in the original soundtrack. In 2002, Will released his debut Mandarin solo album, Gecko Stroll, the album contains the track By My Side composed by Jay Chou and Im Not Afraid composed by Chinese singer Anson Hu. He collaborated with Evonne Hsu on the track Special Guest and he was featured in Alec Sus 2002 song Playing for Real. His second album Pass Me The Mic was released in the year on 19 September. The album includes his collaboration with Jason Tang on the track Curry Chili, to promote his album, Pan starred in a five-part music love story which aired on SETTV variety show Showbiz. In October 2003, he held his first mini concert Wills Show at Nangang 101, a VCD, Will Show Music Video Karaoke which contains the concert highlights, was released in Jan 2004. In the compilation album U Love released by Universal Music Taiwan, he worked with Universal Music artists Energy and he was awarded Best Male Artist in sales records at 2003 G-Music Chart Awards for Gecko Stroll. He appeared as guest star in 2003 dramas Love Train and Wu He Tian, in June 2004, he released a pictorial and conversational English book Never Teach Me Grammar. He co-wrote the contents during the period when he was hospitalised for knee injuries and he was featured in American singer-songwriter Christina Milians song Dip It Low which is recorded in Its About Time
16.
Chang Chen-yue
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Chang Chen-yue, also known as A-Yue, and by his Amis name Ayal Komod is a Taiwanese rock musician. He is known for his 1998 hit song Ai Wo Bie Zou and he is a songwriter, singer and guitarist, and also a dance music DJ under the name DJ Orange. Chang is also the frontman of his band, Free Night, on his LP Useless Guy, Chang crossed into Hip hop music in a collaboration with rapper MC HotDog in the song Wo Yao Qian. They repeated the collaboration on Changs subsequent EP, Goodbye, from 2008 to 2010 he was a member of Superband. Chang is also an actor who has appeared in a number of films and his 1998 film Connection by Fate, directed by Wan Jen, was shown at the Venice Film Festival. Chang is a Taiwanese aborigine of the Amis people, in August 2015, five of Chang Chen-yues songs, including Fart and I Love Taiwanese Girls, were banned in China. I Just Like You Have the Flowers Opened Yet
17.
FanFan
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She sings mostly in Mandarin, but has also recorded in English. A popular singer, she has 3 million followers on Facebook, fan was born in Ohio on 18 March 1976. She is the elder of two children, ohio-born, she studied at the Harford Community College. She hosted the variety show, Bang Bang Tang on Channel in Taiwan and has starred in various commercials. On 1 November 2008, she held her first ticketed concert in Taipei and she later held concerts in Taichung, Hong Kong, Beijing and other Chinese cities. She was also the special guest in JJ Lins concert in Singapore and she has composed and written lyrics for herself as well as other artists, including Claire Kuo, Angela Chang, Freya Lim, and the girl group Hey Girl. In 2015, she and Blackie Chen founded a talent agent company and signed Kimberley Chen, in 2003, because of the pressure of her sudden change in career path suggested by her record company to let her become an actress, she suffered severe depression and mild anorexia. She eventually recovered through her religion and with support from friends, a week after receiving the diagnosis, her doctor committed suicide. Both Christians, they married on May 7,2011 in a church in Taipei and their twin sons were born on January 15,2015. The couple is active in charity work, most notably co-founding the Love Life campaign, FanFans World The Sun The Sound of Music First Dream One to One Our Anniversary Philosopher Faces of FanFan F One Love and FanFan Together Fanfans time to give thanks FanFans official website
18.
Bread (band)
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Bread was an American soft rock band from Los Angeles, California. They placed 13 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 chart between 1970 and 1977 and were an example of what later was labeled as soft rock, the band consisted of David Gates, Jimmy Griffin and Robb Royer. On their first album session musician Jim Gordon played, Mike Botts became their permanent drummer when he joined in the summer of 1969, David Gates was from Tulsa, OK. He had a hit 45 in the late 1950s entitled Living Doll on Atlantic, Gates knew Leon Russell and both played in some bar bands around the Tulsa area. Both Gates and Russell headed for California to check out the scene there. Before forming Bread, Gates had worked with Royers previous band, the Pleasure Fair wrote and recorded the title song to the 1970 Academy Award winning movie FGF Friends and Other Strangers. The song used in the movie was For All We Know and it was not a hit for the group, but was a hit later on for the Carpenters. Gates produced and arranged the bands 1967 album, The Pleasure Fair, the groups first single, Dismal Day, was released in June 1969 but did not chart. Their debut album, Bread, was released in September 1969, songwriting on the album was split evenly between Gates and the team of Griffin-Royer. Jim Gordon, a musician, accompanied the band on drums for the album. On July 25,1969 Bread appeared in concert for the very first time, with Gordon on drums, at the Aquarius Theater in Hollywood, but when Gordons schedule conflicted and he proved unavailable for future outings, they quickly brought in Mike Botts as their permanent drummer. Botts, who Gates had previously worked with in Bottss group The Travelers 3 as a producer, appeared on their second album and this time their efforts quickly established Bread as a major act with the Billboard Hot 100 No.1 hit Make It with You in 1970. Make It with You would be Breads only No.1 on the Hot 100, for their next single, they released a re-recorded version of It Dont Matter To Me, a Gates song from their first album. This single was a hit as well, reaching No.10, Bread began touring and recording their third album, titled Manna, which peaked at #21 and included Let Your Love Go and the Top 5 hit single, If. As with the first album, songwriting credits were split evenly between Gates and Griffin-Royer, in January 1972 Bread released Baby Im-a Want You, their most successful album, peaking at No.3 on the Billboard 200. The title song was established as a hit in late 1971 before the album was released, follow-up singles Everything I Own and Diary also went Top 20. The next album, Guitar Man, was released ten months later, the album produced three Top 20 singles, The Guitar Man, Sweet Surrender, and Aubrey, with the first two going to No.1 on Billboards adult contemporary chart. By 1973, fatigue from constant recording and touring had set in despite the bands success, All eleven of Breads charting singles between 1970 and 1973 had been written and sung by Gates
19.
Fly Me to the Moon
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Fly Me to the Moon, originally titled In Other Words, is a song written in 1954 by Bart Howard. Kaye Ballard made the first recording of the song in 1954, since then it has become a frequently recorded jazz standard often featured in popular culture. Frank Sinatras 1964 version was associated with the Apollo missions to the Moon. In 1954, when writing the song which would become Fly Me to the Moon and he played piano to accompany cabaret singers but also wrote songs with Cole Porter, his idol, in mind. In response to a publishers request for a song, Bart Howard wrote a cabaret ballad in waltz time which he titled In Other Words. A publisher tried to make him some lyrics from fly me to the moon to take me to the moon. Many years later Howard commented that and it took me 20 years to find out how to write a song in 20 minutes. He used his position as a piano accompanist and presenter at the Blue Angel cabaret venue to promote the song, Kaye Ballard made the first commercial recording of In Other Words. It was released by Decca in April 1954, a brief review published on 8 May 1954 in Billboard said that In Other Words was A love song sung with feeling by Miss Ballard. This recording was released as the flipside of Lazy Afternoon which Kaye Ballard was currently performing as star of the stage show The Golden Apple. During the next few years jazz and cabaret singers released cover versions of In Other Words on EP or LP record albums including Chris Connor, Johnny Mathis, Portia Nelson and Nancy Wilson. Eydie Gormé featured the song on her 1958 album Eydie In Love which reached #20 in the Cashbox Album Charts and was nominated for a Grammy award. In 1960 Peggy Lee recorded the song made it more popular when she performed it in front of a large television audience on The Ed Sullivan Show. As the songs popularity increased, it better known as Fly Me to the Moon. In the early 1960s versions of the song were released under its new name by many well known singers, including Nat King Cole, Sarah Vaughan and Brenda Lee. Connie Francis released two versions of the song in 1963, in Italian as Portami Con Te and in Spanish as Llévame a la Luna. In 1962 Joe Harnell arranged and recorded a version in a bossa nova style. It was released as a single in late 1962, reached #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in early 1963 and won Harnell a Grammy award
20.
Frank Sinatra
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Francis Albert Sinatra was an American singer, actor, and producer who was one of the most popular and influential musical artists of the 20th century. He is one of the music artists of all time. Born in Hoboken, New Jersey, to Italian immigrants, Sinatra began his career in the swing era with bandleaders Harry James. Sinatra found success as a solo artist after he signed with Columbia Records in 1943 and he released his debut album, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, in 1946. Sinatras professional career had stalled by the early 1950s, and he turned to Las Vegas and his career was reborn in 1953 with the success of From Here to Eternity, with his performance subsequently winning an Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor. Sinatra released several critically lauded albums, including In the Wee Small Hours, Come Fly with Me, Only the Lonely and Nice n Easy. Sinatra left Capitol in 1960 to start his own label, Reprise Records. It was followed by 1968s collaboration with Duke Ellington, using his Las Vegas shows as a home base, he toured both within the United States and internationally until a short time before his death in 1998. Sinatra forged a successful career as a film actor. After winning an Academy Award for From Here to Eternity, he starred in The Man with the Golden Arm and he appeared in various musicals such as On the Town, Guys and Dolls, High Society, and Pal Joey, winning another Golden Globe for the latter. Toward the end of his career, he associated with playing detectives. Sinatra would later receive the Golden Globe Cecil B, on television, The Frank Sinatra Show began on ABC in 1950, and he continued to make appearances on television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. While Sinatra never formally learned how to read music, he had a natural, intuitive understanding of it, a perfectionist, renowned for his impeccable dress sense and cleanliness, he always insisted on recording live with his band. His bright blue eyes earned him the popular nickname Ol Blue Eyes, Sinatra led a colorful personal life, and was often involved in turbulent affairs with women, such as with his second wife Ava Gardner. He went on to marry Mia Farrow in 1966 and Barbara Marx in 1976, Sinatra had several violent confrontations, usually with journalists he felt had crossed him, or work bosses with whom he had disagreements. He was honored at the Kennedy Center Honors in 1983, was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by Ronald Reagan in 1985, Sinatra was also the recipient of eleven Grammy Awards, including the Grammy Trustees Award, Grammy Legend Award and the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award. After his death, American music critic Robert Christgau called him the greatest singer of the 20th century, Francis Albert Sinatra was born on December 12,1915, in an upstairs tenement at 415 Monroe Street in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was the child of Italian immigrants Antonino Martino Marty Sinatra
21.
Wang Leehom
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Wang Leehom, sometimes credited as Leehom Wang, is a Chinese-American singer-songwriter, record producer, actor and film director. He is currently based in Taiwan, formally trained at the Eastman School of Music, Williams College and Berklee College of Music, his musical style is known for fusing Chinese elements with hip-hop and R&B. Wang has been active since 1995 and contributed in 25 albums and he is also a four-time winner of Taiwans Golden Melody Awards, the Grammys of Taiwanese music. His concert at the Beijing Birds Nest on April 14,2012 was the first solo pop concert to be held at the venue, in addition to his music, Wang also acted in several films, including Ang Lees Lust, Caution and Jackie Chans film Little Big Soldier. He is an environmental activist, and his album Change Me was dedicated to raising eco-awareness among Chinese youth, Wang was one of the first torchbearers for the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics, and performed in the Olympics closing ceremony in Beijing. He was again a torchbearer for the 2012 Summer Olympics in London and he is a longtime ambassador for World Vision Taiwan and was appointed World Vision Malaysias 15th anniversary ambassador. He was listed as one of Goldseas The 100 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time, born in Rochester, New York, Wang is the second of three sons of immigrants from Taiwan of waishengren heritage. His father, a pediatrician, and his mother, moved to the United States to further their studies in the early 1960s. He begged his mother to put him in violin lessons with his brother but his mother was against it, when Wang turned six, his mother enrolled him in violin classes, performing along with his brother. As he became a teenager, he began taking piano lessons and he also worked several jobs to earn money to buy a second hand drum kit. He attended Jefferson Road Elementary School, Pittsford Middle School, and Pittsford Sutherland High School in Pittsford, passionate for a career in music, he chose to attend Williams College double majoring in music and Asian studies. He joined an all-male a cappella group, The Springstreeters, Not wanting to lose the opportunity, he immediately began preparing for his debut, and released his debut album Love Rival, Beethoven that December. The record received little limelight, forcing him to leave the label and he signed with Decca Records the following year, a label then famous for producing powerful singers in Taiwan. Wanting to also have control in the market, the label initially planned to market Wang as the mainstream romantic idol. However, after discovering Wangs talent in music-making, Decca began promoting him as Taiwans quality idol instead, Wang released his second album If You Heard My Song in 1996, which included some of his own compositions. He co-wrote the albums title song, which earned positive responses from the audience. The album drew moderately successful sales, and he became a star in the idol market, also finding similar successes with his third. During this time, Wang was asked to leave his studies to pursue a full-time singing career
22.
The Game of Love (Santana song)
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The Game of Love is a song performed by Santana from the album Shaman by Santana. The vocal performance on the song is by Michelle Branch and it was composed by Gregg Alexander and Rick Nowels. The song was launched as single in 2002, and won a Grammy Award for Best Pop Collaboration with Vocals, Branch would recall, It was the first time for me to sing somebody elses song. Its just that with all honor and respect to Michelle, theres the girl and theres the woman, the music video depicts Santana and Branch in an alley with heterosexual couples around them, each expressing their love for one another. The director was Paul Fedor and the video was filmed in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago, the Game of Love – Santana, Michelle Branch Come to My World – Santana Curacion – Santana The Game of Love – Santana, Michelle Branch Lyrics of this song at MetroLyrics
23.
Santana (band)
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Santana is an American Latin rock band formed in San Francisco, California in 1966 by Mexican-American guitarist Carlos Santana. The band first came to public attention when their performance of Soul Sacrifice at Woodstock in 1969 provided a contrast to other acts on the bill. This exposure helped propel their first album, also named Santana, into a hit, in the years that followed, lineup changes were common. Carlos Santanas increasing involvement with guru Sri Chinmoy took the band into more esoteric music, though never quite losing its initial Latin influence. In 1998, Santana was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, with Carlos Santana, Jose Chepito Areas, David Brown, Gregg Rolie, Mike Carabello, the band has earned nine Grammy Awards and three Latin Grammy Awards, the latter all in 2000. Carlos also won a Grammy Award as a solo artist in 1988, Santana has sold more than 90 million records worldwide, making them one of the worlds best-selling groups of all time. In 2013, Santana announced a reunion of the classic line-up for a new record, Santana IV and they are tied for having the most won Grammys in one night. The band was formed in 1966 in San Francisco as the Santana Blues Band with the help of Tom Fraser, the first established members were Carlos Santana, Marcus Malone, Rod Harper, Gus Rodriguez and Gregg Rolie. The groups first audition with this line up was at the Avalon Ballroom in the summer of 1967. Ahead of Woodstock, Bill Graham was asked to help with logistics, Bill agreed to lend his help only if a new band he was championing, an unknown band called Santana was added to the bill. Santana was announced as one of the performers at the Woodstock Festival, the band started recording their 1969 debut album Santana in May 1969 and finished it in a month. Later that month, they released their album, which peaked at number 4 on the US Billboard 200 pop chart with the single Evil Ways being a top 10 single in the US. Santana went on tour to promote their debut LP and started work on their next, work began in mid-April 1970 at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco and was completed in early May 1970. From January to July 1971 Santana worked on Santana III, released in September 1971, the album also reached number 1 on the US Billboard 200. At the peak of the popularity, the album was the last to feature its classic Woodstock era line-up. Before recording their fourth album Caravanserai, there had been multiple line-up changes, bassist David Brown left in 1971 before recording started and was replaced by Doug Rauch and Tom Rutley. Percussionist Michael Carabello left Santana and was replaced with two percussionists, Armando Peraza and Mingo Lewis, keyboardist/vocalist Gregg Rolie was replaced by Tom Coster on a few songs. Caravanserai debuted at number 8 on the pop charts, despite not spawning a hit single,13 months after Caravanserai, Santana released Welcome
24.
Michelle Branch
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Michelle Jacquet DeSevren Branch is an American singer, songwriter and actress. During the early 2000s, she released two top-selling albums, The Spirit Room and Hotel Paper and she won a Grammy with Santana for The Game of Love. In 2005, she formed the music duo The Wreckers with friend and fellow musician Jessica Harp. The Wreckers disbanded in 2007 to pursue their solo careers. Since then, she released extended plays in 2010 and 2011, Branch was born on July 2,1983, in Sedona, Arizona, to David and Peggy Branch. Her father is Irish, and her mother is of Dutch-Indonesian and her siblings include an older half-brother named David and a younger sister named Nicole. Beginning to sing at the age of three, Branch enrolled in voice lessons at Northern Arizona University when she was eight, after teaching herself chords, she composed her first song Fallen within a week of receiving her guitar. She initially attended Sedona Red Rock High School, but finished the last two years of her school education through home schooling so that she could focus on her music career. To support Branchs interests, her parents helped her book local gigs in Sedona, Arizona and her set list at these gigs included covers of songs by Sheryl Crow, Lisa Loeb, Jewel, and Fleetwood Mac. In June 2000, Branch self-produced Broken Bracelet, a compilation of songs she wrote when she was 14 and 15 and its title was inspired from a bracelet made by pop singer Jewel, given to Branch by musician Steve Poltz at a Lisa Loeb concert she attended. Poltz told Branch that when it breaks, youll be famous, the Broken Bracelet recordings were destroyed in the Nashville floods in May 2010. In 2001, Branch signed a deal with Maverick Records. The album, The Spirit Room, was released in August 2001, the single was a commercial success, winning the 2002 MTV Video Music Awards Viewers Choice Award. Everywhere was later followed by singles All You Wanted and Goodbye to You, in August 2001, she appeared on Total Request Live after Everywhere reached No.4 on their charts. Due to the success of those released singles, The Spirit Room was certified Double Platinum by the RIAA for selling over two million copies in the United States. Michelle also sang in Hansons 2004 album, Underneath in the song, VH1 released Branchs Pop-Up Video for her song All You Wanted. Branch met Justincase before her debut on Maverick Records, becoming friends over the Internet before meeting in Las Vegas for a convention in 2000. Justincase was signed to Maverick Records in late 2001 with the help of Branch, a self-titled debut album on October 29,2002 which included several collaborations with Michelle Branch—including the lead single, Dont Cry for Us—who promoted the album on MTVs Total Request Live
25.
Lo Ta-yu
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He is recognized as a major cultural icon in Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China. Stylistically, Lo defies classification, though his contribution to Taiwanese campus folk song genre was most significant and his early music in particular shows strong folk roots, and many of his songs tap into native Taiwanese cultural influences. Some songs are reminiscent of 1950s American diner and soda shop rock, the lyrical style is not particularly artsy or complex, but rather conversational, the cleverness comes in the meaning, not how the words are put together. Lo was born in Taiwan on 20 July 1954 to an upper-class family, in 1982, Lo released his debut album Zhī hū zhě yě, the title of which consists solely of grammatical particles from Classical Chinese. Lover/Comrade was Los next album, released in 1988 and he also wrote Queens Road East, a Cantonese song he sang with Ram Chiang that satirizes the impending Hong Kong handover in 1997. In 2004, Lo formally relinquished his US citizenship to protest the introduction to the US House of Representatives of a resolution regarding the deployment of Taiwanese marines to Iraq. On Sunday, May 25,2008, at 7pm PST, the concert, entitled Join N Sing, was a celebration of the newly elected president of Taiwan, Ma Ying-jeou. There were three special guests at this show, Kao Ling Fung, Hsu Nai Ling, and Cindi Chaw Yong Hua and this show turned into a charity fundraiser for the earthquake victims of Sichuan, China
26.
Faye Wong
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Faye Wong is a Hong Kong singer-songwriter and actress, often referred to as a diva in Chinese-language media. Early in her career she used the stage name Shirley Wong. Born in Beijing, she moved to British Hong Kong in 1987, since 1994 she has recorded mostly in her native Mandarin, often combining alternative music with mainstream Chinese pop. In 2000 she was recognised by Guinness World Records as the Best Selling Canto-Pop Female, following her second marriage in 2005 she withdrew from the limelight, but returned to the stage in 2010 amidst immense interest in the Sinophone world. Hugely popular in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore, in the West she is perhaps best known for starring in Wong Kar-wais films Chungking Express and 2046. While she has collaborated with artists such as Cocteau Twins, Wong recorded only a few songs in English. Wong is known to be reserved in public, and has gained a reputation for her coolness, in Encyclopedia of Contemporary Chinese Culture, Jeroen de Kloet characterised her as singer, actress, mother, celebrity, royalty, sex symbol and diva all at the same time. The daughter of an engineer and a revolutionary music soprano. She also has a brother named Wang Yi. As a student, Wong already was involved in singing and attracted interest from several publishers, on occasions, the school had to hide her artistic activities from her strict mother, who as a professional saw singing as a dead-end career. For the last of these recordings, the producer Wei Yuanqiang chose the title Wong Fei Collection. In 1987, after being accepted to Xiamen University for college, she migrated to Hong Kong to join her father, the plan was for her to stay there for a year to fulfill the permanent residency requirement, and go to a university abroad thereafter. However, since Wong didnt know a word of Cantonese, the language spoken in the British colony, under Tais tutelage, the 19-year-old signed with Cinepoly Records after winning third place in an ABU singing contest in 1988. It was a move on the part of Chan Siu-Bo, Cinepolys general manager. As a result, Cinepoly asked Wong to change her Mainland-sounding name to a stage name Wong Jing Man. In 1989, her debut album Shirley Wong sold over 30,000 copies, Two more albums followed, similarly featuring many cover songs by artists from the US and Japan. However, they worse than her debut album, despite relentless promotions by the company. Many in Hong Kong perceived her to be backwards, lacking personality, frustrated with her career decision, in 1991 she travelled to New York City for vocal studies and cultural exchange
27.
Teresa Teng
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Teresa Teng, Teng Li-Chun or Deng Lijun was a Taiwanese pop singer. She was known for her songs and romantic ballads. Many became standards in her lifetime, such as When Will You Return. and she recorded songs not only in her native Mandarin but also in Taiwanese Hokkien, Cantonese, Japanese, Indonesian and English. Teng, a sufferer from asthma, died from a severe respiratory attack while on vacation in Thailand in 1995. Teresa Teng was born in Tianyang Village, Baozhong Township, Yunlin County, Taiwan on 29 January 1953 and her father was a soldier in the Republic of China Armed Forces from Daming, Hebei and her mother was from Dongping, Shandong. She was the girl, with three older brothers and a younger brother. She was educated at Ginling Girls High School in Sanchong Township, as a young child, Teng won awards for her singing at talent competitions. Her first major prize was in 1964 when she sang Visiting Yingtai from Shaw Brothers Huangmei opera movie, The Love Eterne and she was soon able to support her family with her singing. Taiwans rising manufacturing economy in the 1960s made the purchase of records easier for more families, with her fathers approval, she quit high school to pursue singing professionally. Tengs singing style conveyed simplicity and sincerity, yeh Yueh-Yu, a professor of Cultural Theory at the University of Southern California said, It was the sweetness in her voice that made her famous. She had a voice for folk songs and ballads. Her voice was described as being like weeping and pleading. Songwriter Tsuo Hung-yun said Tengs voice was seven parts sweetness, three parts tears, Teng gained her first taste of fame in 1968 when a performance on a popular Taiwanese music program led to a record contract. She released several albums within the few years under the Life Records label. In 1973 she attempted to crack the Japanese market by signing with the Polydor Japan label and taking part in Japans Kōhaku Uta Gassen and she was named Best New Singing Star. Following her success in Japan, Teng recorded several Japanese songs, in 1974 the song Airport, which was covered in Mandarin as Lovers Care in 1976, became a hit in Japan. Tengs popularity in Japan continued despite being barred from the country in 1979 for having a fake Indonesian passport she purchased for US$20,000. The subterfuge had seemed necessary due to the break in relations between Taiwan and Japan that occurred shortly after the Peoples Republic of China replaced the ROC in the United Nations
28.
Aaron Yan
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Aaron Yan is a Taiwanese actor and singer. He is one of the members of Taiwanese boy band Fahrenheit, Yan was born as Wu Keng-lin in Taipei, Taiwan on November 20,1985. When he was young, he and his family moved to Connecticut, United States, where he has lived in for five years. In 2004, Yan posted some of his pictures on his blogger, in August 2004, he made his acting debut in Taiwanese drama, I Love My Wife. In 2005, after signing with Comic Productions and HIM International Music, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, It Started with a Kiss and KO One. In December 2005, he formed a boy band named Fahrenheit with three other Taiwanese artists, including Wu Chun, Jiro Wang, and Calvin Chen. In September 2006, Fahrenheit released their eponymous studio album, Fahrenheit. In 2007, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, The X-Family, in January 2008, Fahrenheit released their second studio album, Two-Sided Fahrenheit, and they won a MusicRadio China Top Chart Award for Most Popular Boy Band. In November 2008, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Mysterious Incredible Terminator, in January 2009, Fahrenheit released their third studio album, Love You More and More. In 2010, Yan featured in Taiwanese dramas, Love Buffet, in September 2010, Fahrenheit released their fourth studio album, Super Hot. In March 2011, Yan release his debut extended play, The Next Me, in June 2011, Wu Chun officially announced he left the Fahrenheit. In May 2012, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Alice in Wonder City, in October 2012, he release his debut studio album, The Moment. In June 2013, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Just You, in April 2014, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Fall In Love with Me. In May 2014, he released his extended play, Drama. In June 2014, he realize his third extended play, Cut, in March 2015, Yan debuted in Japan and released his first Japanese single, Moisturizing. In September 2015, he released his second Japanese single, Gelato, in March 2016, Yan featured in Taiwanese drama, Refresh Man. In June 2017, Yan featured in Chinese drama, Yi Lu Fan Hua Xiang Song, Taipei Dreamin Moisturizing Gelato Monochrome Dandy Aaron Yan on Facebook Aaron Yan on Sina Weibo Aaron Yan at the Internet Movie Database
29.
Fahrenheit (Taiwanese band)
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Fahrenheit was a Taiwanese boy band formed in 2005, initially consisting of Jiro Wang, Calvin Chen, Wu Chun, and Aaron Yan. They are managed by Comic International Productions, the groups music is distributed by HIM International Music in Taiwan, by WOW Music in Hong Kong and by Pony Canyon in Japan. Fahrenheit are often associated with their seniors, S. H. E, HIM announced in an official statement on 22 June 2011 that Wu Chun had left the group and it will continue as a trio. The three remaining members have stated on multiple occasions that they still consider Chun a part of Fahrenheit. Fahrenheit first gained recognition around late 2005 when they first acted altogether in the series. Wu Chun joined the later in late 2005. On December 28,2005, Fahrenheit officially became a quartet boy band. Derived from the definition of Fahrenheit, each of the four members represents a season or temperature that corresponds with their different personalities. Calvin Chen represents spring, warm, Jiro Wang represents summer, hot, Wu Chun represents autumn, cool, each of their temperatures are separated by 18 degrees. Aaron Yan Aaron Yan was born in Taiwan, but moved to Connecticut at a young age and he later returned to Taiwan for high school and college. He attended the Chinese Culture University, majoring in Journalism but later switched universities and he is currently on a study hiatus due to work commitments. Around early 2005, Comic producers had been searching for elite bloggers around the web and they discovered Yan, who, at that time, was really popular online, and thus recommended him to audition for a role in a drama. Yan thought it was a fraud at first, but after several tests and he was given a small role in I Love My Wife. He entered a competition called Sunshine Boyz in Vancouver and won first place with a free ticket to Taiwan. Calvin Chen comes from a traditional family, where his father, at first. After returning to Taiwan, Calvin Chen further pursued his education at a Taiwanese university, Jiro Wang In 2000, Jiro Wang started to work after graduating from Taiwans Fu-Shin community college, and did part-time jobs wherever he could, such as commercial modeling. BMG, the label signed him, planned to package him with Jay Chou and Jordan Chan to form a boy band called 3J, but because of 9/11, BMGs stocks crashed. He later joined the army for 2 years, and came back around 2003, since he was still popular around Taiwan, he was given two roles as a guest-star in Pawnshop No.8 and I Love My Wife
30.
Hong Kong Disneyland
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Hong Kong Disneyland is a theme park located on reclaimed land in Pennys Bay, Lantau Island. It is the first theme park located inside the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort and it is, together with Ocean Park Hong Kong, one of the two large theme parks in Hong Kong. Hong Kong Disneyland opened to visitors on Monday,12 September 2005 at 13,00 HKT, for instance, a bend was put in a walkway near the Hong Kong Disneyland Resort entrance so good qi energy wouldnt flow into the South China Sea. The park consists of seven themed areas, Main Street, U. S. A, Fantasyland, Adventureland, Tomorrowland, Grizzly Gulch, Mystic Point, and Toy Story Land. The theme parks cast members speak Cantonese, English, and Mandarin, guide maps are printed in traditional and simplified Chinese as well as English, Japanese, Thai, Malay and Indonesian. The park has a capacity of 34,000 visitors — the fewest of all Disneyland parks. The park attracted 5.2 million visitors in its first year, visitor numbers fell 20% in the second year to 4 million, inciting criticisms from local legislators. However, the park attendance jumped by 8% in the third year, in 2009, the park attendance again increased by 2% to 4.8 million visitors. The attendance continued to surge and received 5.23 million guests in the 2009/2010 fiscal year, since the opening of Hong Kong Disneyland, the theme park has hosted over 25 million guests. According to AECOM and TEA, Hong Kong Disneyland is the 13th most visited park in the world in 2013. The park also turned a net profit of HK$109 million for the year ended 29 September 2012, Hong Kong Disneyland currently occupies 27.5186 hectares and hosts 7.92 million to 8.92 million visitors annually. The park capacity will increase to handle up to 10 million visitors annually over a 15-year expansion period, to all who come to this happy place, welcome. Many years ago, Walt Disney introduced the world to enchanted realms of fantasy and adventure, yesterday and tomorrow, today that spirit of imagination and discovery comes to life in Hong Kong. Pennys Bay was filled in to land for the construction of Hong Kong Disneyland. The bay was previously undeveloped except for the Cheoy Lee Shipyard, Chief Executive of Hong Kong Tung Chee Hwa was instrumental in introducing the Disneyland project to Hong Kong. When the SARS epidemic devastated the economy in 2003, it was hoped that the new Disneyland would help boost confidence in Hong Kongs tourism industry. Hong Kong Disneyland had one of the shortest construction periods of any Disneyland-style theme park, on 12 January 2003, more than 400 guests celebrated the groundbreaking of Hong Kong Disneyland after the finishing of land reclamation in Pennys Bay. On 23 September 2004, a special castle topping ceremony was held in the park to commemorate the placing of the tallest turret on Sleeping Beauty Castle, Beijing declared its significant support by sending Zeng Qinghong as Vice President of the Peoples Republic of China
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Vincy Chan
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Vincy Chan is a Hong Kong cantopop singer. Her family left Hong Kong in 1990 and immigrated to Singapore when she was eight years old. She was signed by Emperor Entertainment Group, and debuted with the album Vincy on 27 July 2006 and she attended the Dunman High School in Singapore. Chan was amongst the top 24 contestants in Project Superstar, a Singaporean singing competition held in June 2005 after graduating from Nanyang Technological University and she was also the runner-up and won the award Most Popular Image in Emperor Entertainment Groups New Talent Singing Awards in 2005. Later on, she became more well-known amongst the Hong Kong public when her song My Feelings, Chan released the studio album Flowers Without Snow in February,2007, in which a song of eponymous title is the Cantonese version of Mika Nakashimas Yuki no Hana. In 2007, she performed at the S. U. C. C. E. S. S, charity Gala in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada with various artists. Chans latest album, released October 15,2007, was titled Close To You, after the Close To You tour ended at the beginning of 2008, Vincy released her third and self-titled album on June 4,2008. This album also marks her first mandopop album since her previous two albums featured Cantonese pop. In 2008, Vincy appeared in both New Talent Toronto and New Talent Calgary in Canada, at both occasions, Vincy performed her Its Very Tiring to Like a Person and several other hits. Vincy 感應 Flowers Without Snow 花無雪 Close To You Just Want To Know More 多想認識你 Pieces of V More Vincy 多一點 泳兒 Vincys Precious 私人珍藏 Foreseen
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Vincent Fang (lyricist)
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For the Hong Kong entrepreneur, please refer to Vincent Fang. Vincent Fang was born on 26 January 1969 in Hualien, Taiwan and he is a Taiwanese multi-Golden Melody Award nominated lyricist, best known for his collaboration with singer-songwriter Jay Chou. Fang won Best Lyricist at the 19th Golden Melody Awards for 青花瓷 sung by Jay Chou from On the Run, in 1997, he sent samples of his lyrics to record companies, hoping to find a new career that complemented his passion for writing. Record company owner Jacky Wu was impressed with his work and hired Fang to work with Chou, in 2000, Chou released his first album and since then produced albums in which Fang contributes the majority of the lyrics. Chou’s fame grew rapidly across Asia, pulling Fang into the limelight as well, fangs lyrics are noted for covering a wide of issues from family to war, beyond what is normally discussed in love ballads. He calls his style of lyrical poetry Su Yan Rhyme Poetry 素顏韻腳詩, born in 1969, Vincent Fang grew up in Taiwan and was raised in what he calls a blue collar family. He is a Hakka with ancestry from Yudu, Jiangxi, in his youth, he gave very little effort in school and received poor grades. After graduating from school, at the age of 20 he served his mandatory military service in the Republic of China Army. When he was off-duty, he spent his time reading and watching movies. Despite taking these jobs and having no formal training in linguistics. In 1992, he decided that his job would be a movie scriptwriter. After a year, he was no closer to his goal and he planned an alternate path to enter the film business, establish his stature in the entertainment industry by first entering music field as a lyricist, then transit into script writing. Over 2 years starting in 1995, he more than 100 lyrics. To contact record producers, he searched the CD liner notes of popular Chinese singers for mailing addresses and sent his entire lyrics collection to them. Of more than 100 mails sent, only a single person replied, Jacky Wu, in 1997, at the age of 28, Fang signed the official contract to work as a lyricist. Wu arranged Fang to work with Jay Chou, a newly hired composer who just graduated from secondary school, together they wrote songs for popular Chinese artists but neither acquired much fame. Fang’s talent was recognized after Chou began a successful career that was partially attributable to Fang’s lyrics. In 1998, Fang and Chou began to work together, initially using Fang’s collection of 100 lyrics, for their first song, Chou composed a tune for Fang’s You are happier than before which was placed in an album by Wu, their mentor
33.
Tank (Taiwanese singer)
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Lü Jianzhong, better known by his stage name Tank, is a Taiwanese singer-songwriter. He is currently signed to HIM International Music and his debut album, Fighting was released on February 23,2006. His latest album, The 3rd Round, was released on May 31,2009, Lü was born in Taitung, Taiwan. He is a native Taiwanese, his father is from the Ami people, while his mother is Puyuma, Tank married his girlfriend of two years, MerMer, on September 28,2012. The wedding was planned for the end of 2011 but was postponed due to the unexpected arrival of their daughter, Hua Hua. Tank also suffers from heart disease. He suffered an attack in 2007, and his sister died from a sudden heart attack at the end of 2006. In 2009, he had a cardioverter-defibrillator implanted to regulate his heart beat, before releasing his debut album, Lü helped write songs for Vic Chou and S. H. E, among many other artists. He wrote the music and lyrics for track Letting You Go, by the age of 21, he was already recognized for composing more than 200 songs. He was said to be the big thing after David Tao and Jay Chou for his talents in composing songs. Two songs he composed, Romance of Three Kingdoms and Give Me Your Love, became ending themes of Seven Swordsmen, another song, Tears of a Thousand Years, was used as an ending theme for the drama serial The Little Fairy. His second album Keep fighting was released on 19 January 2007, personal Angel was used for an ending theme of Hanazakarino Kimitachihe, a romantic comedy series. He was later requested by NCsoft to compose the song for the computer game. Intense Battle became the song for that game. In 2007, he recorded a song with his junior, Yoga Lin of Xing Guang Bang, for the idol series Bull Fighting with the same name. He sang a duet in 2012 with Ella Chen from S. H. E from her E. P Wǒ jiùshì called Dǒng wǒ zài ài wǒ which was used in the soundtrack for her movie with Mike He <Bad Girl>
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Yoga Lin
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Yoga Lin was born on 1 July 1987. He is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer and the winner of One Million Star, Season 1, during the competition, he once contemplated quitting due to the elimination of his good friend, Eddie Tsai. However, show producers persuaded him to maintain his composure and regain his determination, after winning the first place in Season One, he was signed by HIM International Music along with three fellow contestants, Judy Chou, Peter Pan and Stanly Hsu. They were dubbed the Four Princes of Superstar Avenue, Lin was placed fourth on Yahoo. Taiwan 2007 Top Ten Newsworthy Personalities, on a special episode of One Million Star during the end of Season two, he gave a diversified and theatrical performance of A Little Older originally recorded and composed by Matilda Tao. This performance impressed one of the judges on the show, Yun-Ling Huang so much that she dubbed Lin as the Magician of Music. At the same time, other judges on the same episode heaped praises on him. Before the release of his album titled Mystery Guest in Taiwan on June 3,2009. In May–June 2008, Lin set another record in Taiwan for being the youngest singer and he ended his Yogas Trick Concert Tour in Hong Kong and Singapore in early 2009 and released his second album, Senses Around on October 30,2009. His third studio album, Perfect Life, was released on May 6,2011 and his fourth studio album, fiction, was released on June 22,2012. After beginning his 2012 to 2013 concert tour, FUGUE, his latest Jazz inspired live performance compilation album JAZZ CHANNEL, was released on February 5,2013. During high school, Lin was the singer of a rock band. He then joined another band in his university and continued to perfect his singing techniques and. Having never participated in any formal singing contest before, Lin attended the Kaohsiung audition for the first season of a famous TV singing contest in Taiwan, in the competition, Lin impressed the judges with his vivid interpretation of Steel Rope Walker. His performance was described as “enchanting” by the hostess of One Million Star, Matilda Tao. He was also complimented for the good performances. Lin earned perfect scores cumulatively for over five weeks and a total of nine perfect scores on different occasions. His last five performances, which would count as a result in the final match, accumulated,17,23,23,23,25 points
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Sodagreen
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Sodagreen is a Taiwanese indie band formed in 2001. Its members has been unchanged since 2003, Sodagreen emerged in the Taiwanese indie music scene after receiving the Grand Jury Award in the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festival in 2004, after which it signed a contract with Willlin Music. The band is the first indie band to hold a concert in the Taipei Arena, the band is well known for its main vocalist and songwriter Wu Tsing-Fong, who is prominent for his poetic lyrics, unique performing style and wide vocal range. The band was originally named Soda, but Shih preferred a name with three-syllable, Wu then affixed the word green, his favourite colour, behind Soda, completing the portmanteau. In May 2001, Sodagreen competed in the Golden Melody Cup held by the National Chengchi University, with the support of Shiao-Ying, a judge at the competition, it recorded Peeping for the compilation Taiwan independent compilation 2001, released by TCM. In March 2003, A-Fu and Jia-Kai, also from the National Chengchi University, in July the same year, the band decided to break up upon graduation and mark its dissolution with a final tour. Its first stop was the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festivals Hot Wave Rock section, in August 2004, Sodagreen were awarded the Grand Jury Award at the Hohaiyan Gongliau Rock Festival, after which the band was signed by Lins Willlin Music. In September 2005, they released their debut album, sodagreen. Through this album, the band garnered a handful of nominations at the 2006 Golden Melody Awards. In October 2006, they released their album, Little Universe, followed by a single in December- My Future Is Not a Dream, a collaboration with A-pay. In June 2007, Sodagreen were awarded the Best Band Award at the 18th Golden Melody Awards, Wu Tsing-Fong also received the highly coveted Best Melody award for Little Love Song, which was also nominated for best lyrics. Little Universe was nominated for the Best Album award, in November, Sodagreen released their third album, Incomparable Beauty. Shortly after, it held its first major concert, the Absolutely Beautiful Concert, which was held at the Taipei Arena, where it made history by being the first indie band to hold a concert there. The concert holds the record for being the longest concert held at the venue, with Sodagreen playing for five hours. In May 2008, the released the live album Sing With Me. Lover Animal was the official Chinese language theme song for the film Juno and that year at the 19th Golden Melody Awards, they were awarded the Best Band Award for the second time in a row. In 2009, Sodagreen began its Vivaldi Project, planning to record, the band recorded Daylight of Spring in Taidung and released it in May. They then travelled to London to record Summer/Fever, releasing it in September, late that year, the band held a solo concert at the Taipei Arena for the second time, playing for two nights at the Daylight Fever Concert
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Faith Yang
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Faith Yang is a pop musician and fashion model. She grew up in Sydney, Australia and studied biology and genetics at the University of Sydney, in 2000, Faith won the Taiwan Golden Music awards for Best Female Performer got nominated for Best Album. After graduating from Sydney University, Yang returned to Taiwan to start a music career and she soon gained recognition at the university and pub circuit in Taiwan while touring with her backing band - Monster. In 1996 she signed with Magicstone records, all three albums were major hits in Taiwan and in 2000 Faith won the Taiwan Golden Music awards for Best Female Performer got nominated for Best Album. Faith did not renew her contract with Magicstone, claiming the label had become too commercial for her style of music, in 2004 it was reported that she had signed with Sony label Silver Fish Records. Her first album with Silver Fish Records, Continuation, was released December 2007, with Self-Selected, Faith also works as a fashion and cosmetics model for companies such as Rado and Neutrogena, as well as continuing to tour on the Taiwan pub circuit. She has also considered a number of acting roles, in 2000 Faith played a lead part in the 20 part web movie 175 Degrees of Colour Blindness. Official site Faith Yang discography at MusicBrainz Faith Yangs Chinese lyrics and English Translation from amw168. com
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Plain White T's
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Plain White Ts is an American rock band from Lombard, Illinois, formed in 1997 by high school friends Tom Higgenson, Dave Tirio, and Ken Fletcher. They were joined a short time later by Steve Mast, the group had a mostly underground following in Chicago basements, clubs and bars in its early years. The Plain White Ts was formed in Lombard in early 1997, the group began as a trio, with Higgenson as singer and guitarist, Fletcher on bass guitar and Tirio on drums. The group played mostly local shows in Chicagos suburbs, eventually having gigs at the Metro in Chicagos Wrigleyville neighborhood. As the band began to establish itself in the scene, a fourth member was recruited, Steve Mast. Higgenson broke several vertebrae in a car crash in 1999 while driving the bands van and he was in a back brace for three months and had to learn to walk again. Higgenson changed his song-writing process, choosing songs that were meaningful to him. In 2000, the band recorded its first album, titled Come on Over, in 2002, the band self-financed the recording of Stop, a full-length album that attracted the attention of Fearless Records. While the band toured in support for the album, both Fletcher and Mast left and were replaced by Tim Lopez and Mike Retondo, shortly after in 2003, Tirio decided to switch from drumming to rhythm guitar and a new drummer named DeMar Hamilton was added to the line-up. The 2005 release, All That We Needed, was the first studio album from the reformed line-up, Hey There Delilah was first released on the bands third album, All That We Needed, in 2005. The group recorded Every Second Counts that year, on which Hey There Delilah was added in order to allow it a chance on mainstream radio, the band signed with Hollywood Records, which released Every Second Counts on September 12,2006. That same year, Hey There Delilah reached #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for two weeks, the song was written for the track star Delilah DiCrescenzo, whom Higgenson had met in 2002. The song received two Grammy nominations, and Every Second Counts was certified gold, in early 2006, the band teamed up with Motion City Soundtrack for a winter/spring tour. In 2008, the released the album Big Bad World. The album had two hit singles,1,2,3,4 and Natural Disaster, both were on the American Top 40 at numbers 1 and 2 for three consecutive weeks. By late 2008, the band had joined the Rock Band Live tour with Panic. at the Disco, Dashboard Confessional, later that year, the band played at the Give It a Name festival in the UK. In 2007, the performed the single Our Time Now on an episode of the Nickelodeon television series. Our Time Now was also the song of the ABC Family dramedy series
38.
Ladyhawke (musician)
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Phillipa Margaret Pip Brown, better known by her stage name Ladyhawke, is a New Zealand singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. She took her name from Richard Donners 1985 film Ladyhawke. Brown was part of the Wellington-based band Two Lane Blacktop, before moving to Australia where, in 2004, in 2007 she moved to London, and she relocated to Los Angeles around 2013. Browns debut solo album, Ladyhawke, was released on 22 September 2008 through Modular Recordings and it spawned five singles of which My Delirium was the most successful. At the ARIA Music Awards of 2009, Ladyhawke won Breakthrough Artist in both album and single categories, browns second solo album, Anxiety, was released in May 2012, and her third solo album, Wild Things, was released on 3 June 2016. Phillipa Margaret Brown was born on 13 July 1979 in Masterton and she came from a musical family, with her mother being a singer–guitarist and her stepfather, a jazz drummer. During her childhood, various illnesses and allergies kept her in, at age ten she contracted erysipeloid, a disease that is common in seagulls but had not been seen in humans in New Zealand for twenty years. Her allergies to antibiotics and antihistamines greatly complicated treatment efforts and almost put her into a coma, Brown has been diagnosed with Asperger syndrome. She believes that the amount of her childhood she spent absorbed in music, be it listening to the radio or to her mothers Beatles. While attending Chanel College, she played in several grunge bands, after high school, Brown moved from Masterton to Wellington. In 2001 in Wellington, Brown formed the band Two Lane Blacktop with some friends and she described the group as being like Iggy and The Stooges meets The Clash. She cites her experience playing the notorious New York City club CBGB with Two Lane Blacktop as being a defining moment, Brown then made the impulsive decision to take her flight to Australia anyway, and she relocated to Melbourne. Brown liked Littlemores music and, in 2004, decided to join, Brown and Littlemore played together for two years, with Brown relocating to Sydney to be closer to the band, as well as other people she enjoyed playing and writing music with. Teenagers song Pony is featured in the 2008 video game Grand Theft Auto IV, Teenager issued their debut album, Thirteen, as well as the related singles Pony and Bound and Gagged, in 2006. Mess + Noises Craig Mathieson described the album as a pop record, albeit a particularly exotic species that equally suggests creative guile and hints of self-indulgence. Pony is the closest the album comes to cheap genre holidaying, approximating rock attitude when the organic, Brown and Littlemore co-wrote Alone Again and West for Teenager. I was like, Its just like, you know, I had a Myspace page, calling myself Ladyhawke with a couple of rough demos up there. Nick was like, Thats cool, you should follow that up
