~ Jacky Cheung's Life Is Like A Dream ~

it's always difficult to review jacky cheung's albums. u know he always sings well, that's for sure, but recently his albums were generated in such ways that it tries to update jacky cheung for this generation of music listeners, ie teenagers.

finally he takes a step back into his usual self with this album, tho you still hav this feeling of commercialization to it, but to a much lesser degree as compared to his "Fever" and "Where Is He?" albums. all 10 songs were composed by him, with some of the lyrics written by other lyricists.

one major thing i come to take note of is how simple the tunes are. it's not a bad thing actualli, coz the simplicity of them actually brought out the feel to the music, allowing the arrangements to seep into the music seamlessly. there is a wide variety of genres of songs, from retro rock, to cha-cha swing; from light lounge jazz to pop ballads and folk ballads. some of the songs even sound like they were inspired by his old works, like 勇敢的故事 sounds inspired by his rock songs from "Fever" and Life Is Like A Dream and 给朋友 sounds inspired by his Snow.Wolf.Lake songs. sometimes, i cant help but be awed at his versality at composing so many genres of songs at one go.

this is not really a normal Jacky Cheung album. there werent any songs that try to impress its listeners, jus Jacky with his voice and with the songs he written. it's not bad an album, provided u're not a lover of commercialized music.

recommended songs: 02 想劈酒 | 03 燥狂 | 05 慢条斯理 | 09 讲你知

~ L'Arc~en-Ciel's SMILE ~

i'm not really a listener to Japanese music, coz i find that i cudnt understand the lyrics at the first listening and the trouble of having to look for the translated lyrics is such a hassle. but i started loving this rock group due to their well-written melodies and arrangements of their tunes.

this album strikes me as a cross between Taiwan's Mayday (for their melodies) and America's Eric Clapton or Bob Dylan (for their heavy rock style). yet, despite being heavy metal, they did not settle for monotonous tunes and leaving the rock feeling to their guitars and drumset ad libs. the tunes were well-written and the arrangements well-done. it was almost as if they were trying to write other genres of music but settled with the rock style in the end.

with this album, L'Arc~en~ciel seemed to be paying tribute to a lot of rock songs, with familiar guitar rhythms popping out almost every other song. (one of them started off sounding like "Rock You".) but the group seem to like to change the mood of their music very frequently by suddenly adding a string ensemble part, which was quite distracting on the first hearing, but quite interesting after some getting used to.

recommended songs: 01 接吻 | 02 READY STEADY GO | 04 Feeling Fine | 06 Coming Closer | 09 眼中人