The Top 40 Mandopop Albums of 2023
The Top 40 Mandopop Albums of 2023
rounding up the top Mandopop releases of the year, including Leah Dou, otay:onii, Hogan T., and more and more
We’ve reached the end of another year. Cheers! Here’s the top forty albums of it.
This list runs from December 2022 to November 2023, that means babyMINT will likely be near the top of next year’s list, things too important to ignore from last December will be splattered across here. There’s several, including HUSH’s Pleasing Myself, the biggest album about gay sex in Mandopop since forever and Lexie Liu’s latest, which makes her largest strides yet. Including December releases would mean working through the holidays to release this list in January, something that no one really wants, or leaving the December releases aside.
Around the middle of the year, the scene felt rather unexciting. There’s something to be said about how high last year reach and around that time, it felt like a simple rut. But maybe that’s the guy surviving a rough period talking. Looking from the end, there are so many records worth your attention, so many that define the weird headspace of the year. Happy holidays and happy listening, see you next year.
You can find a Spotify playlist with selections from each album here and a nice little chart with all the albums at the bottom. Also check out my list of Mandopop singles and Cantopop singles.
40. Leo1Bee - Wilderness
Sketches of wild imagery are a colourful backdrop to Leo1Bee’s anxiety. On the R&B singer’s debut album, he weaves spontaneous ideas together into a laborious, intricate landscape. Electronic drones draw narrow just to burst into the rapid flutter of a panicked heart; sampled noises strike a sense of imminent danger, while also serving as a reminder of the surrounding natural terrain—within one track, a dissonant collage of jazz melodies collapse into foreboding Latin guitars and the sense of unease is later heightened by wolf howls. Wilderness is an immersive experience and across the singer’s meticulously crafted arrangements, his sense of trepidation is immensely felt.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
39. Edisong - Liminal
It’s a daunting proposition: your love is right there, but you’re the only one stopping yourself from reaching across. “I feel her gaze upon my body, but I don’t have the heart to try,” Edison Song sings. Liminal is about the space he’s constructed in his head, where her silhouette bathed in downtempo mist feels like it just might be the real thing, where an endless fall is soundtracked to breakbeats as if you’re constantly making contact with the ground.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
38. Huan Huan - When the Wind Came Across
“I could also love you,” goes the quiet confession of the closing track. Huan Huan are quiet passengers of the elements, here, unhurriedly following the path of the wind on their breezy indie-folk. Much of When the Wind Came Across is simple and unadorned; a shift to electric guitar here, a blanket of dream pop stylings around vocalist Coco Hsiao there. Her final admission sounds like a lasting promise. Sometimes all it takes is a little distance to be sure.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
37. HowZ - Take it eaZy
Slick as ever, HowZ is cool and flirty over the clubby Take it eaZy. UK Garage tracks like “WONDERLAND” and “ICON” are straightforward and nonchalant, even as they offer contrasting expressions: the former is hot-and-heavy as he details explicit acts over its see-saw motions, while the latter features cocksure rapping over stylish, icy beats. Bookended by retro-facing bitpop and futuristic sheen, it’s the Taiwanese R&B singer’s tightest but boldest work yet.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
36. Zhang Zining - Rec.X
Your twenties should be spent loving as hard as you can. The former Rocket Girls 101 member toasts herself here—to one year wiser, over again—and lets her heart sing with starry-eyed infatuation. On Rec.X, she loves even if she knows it won’t always work out, waxing poetic about a mystery man despite knowing he’ll return to someone else’s side by the end of the night. And when that doesn’t work? She’ll ride a pop-rock stomper to dismiss him and turn her loving gaze back on herself.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
35. Queen Suitcase - Ever After
Newlyweds Lester Wu and Carla Chung evoke domestic bliss on their soft rock, all warm harmonies, lush arrangements, and the swirling textures of psychedelia. Queen Suictase celebrate various kinds of love: “Will you marry me” neatly rehashes a proposal, while “Dear Friends” carries a guitar on a caravan journey to reconnect with cherished friends. “To now and forever,” Wu exclaims as Ever After closes, celebrating new beginnings on the trio’s easygoing third album.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
34. PO8 - 热岛
It often sounds like the Chinese rapper is retreating into his own conscious on 热岛 (Heat Island), its city sprawl receding into an insignificant backdrop of pleasant lo-fi hip-hop beats. But there are notions of connection, shyly buried in its universal surroundings. On “失格” (“Disqualified”), PO8 sing-raps abou tlosing touch: “every day I’m anxious I won’t wake up / the screens full of messages bury us alive.” He changes perspective from personal to shared, offering a diffident gesture that probes to question whether you might just feel the same.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
33. MondayNight - Monday Chronicle
There’s something about when you leave the office and realize you’re over that first day. MondayNight luxuriate in these stretches, in the exhausted celebrations and the yearning hunt for company. The five-piece soundtrack another insubstantial night on Monday Chronicle, from commercial-laden synth funk to sultry lounge music. Their music never feels showy despite the ornaments: one song sounds like Hawaiian night at your local beat-up bar. These are songs—not bangers, not statements—that salute to the force of surviving another one.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
32. Chinese Football - Win&Lose
Win&Lose—the finale to Chinese Football’s Game Trilogy—sees them drifting further from their midwest emo namesakes as they incorporate poppier ideas. The band sets lamentations of feeling unimportant and defeated to effervescent music, with bright, cooed hooks and simple, straightforward guitar riffs. If the first half is the come-down in realization that not everything will go their way, the second half is the acceptance. Yet they build quiet confidence in the disappointment: “life will eventually stop and never start again / people have already left, learn to embrace yourself,” Xu Bo sings. You win or you lose, that’s not important to him. All that matters is what you do next.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
31. FiFi Zhang - So Beautiful So Lonely
New York-based artist FiFi Zhang only slips into Mandarin a couple times on her short, stunning EP: it’s used to conjure the romantic, dreamed-up setting on the hypnagogic “Nobody” as she debates making the call; on “Replay,” it’s a point of punctuation and clarification as spins in circles; and it’s there as a brief introduction in a ghostly voice for those straying from her meditation under the deep house of “Oriental Pearl ‘19.” On So Beautiful So Lonely, Zhang uses her fluidity of language to emphasize her role as the outsider.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
30. LIU KOI - 逗留
The muted club permutations of 逗留 (Stay Over) contain an intimacy opposite to the sweaty passion you’d find on your night out. They’re soft confessions and sweetly considered statements of longterm, the comfortable heat of cozying up on the couch rather than the fever of a kiss. Even as it dips into snug, congenial R&B, 逗留 continues to follow LIU KOI’s dance style—it’s carefully choreographed, sharp-edged, and low and close to the ground.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
29. Limi & Josh Tu - Natural Phenomenon
Limi’s indie-pop took on luxuriant textures for last year’s Bad Babe, but the duo look to the elements on Natural Phenomenon. Co-produced with guitarist Josh Tu, Mi’s electronic production mirrors their surroundings: burbling synths are like dewy droplets, the brush of drums mimic the flutter of butterfly wings, and a shaky, processed guitar simulates lighting. They bathe Natural Phenomenon in sunlight, but Li’s voice is a separate force, shades of love baked into every sharp turn of melody.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
28. Midnight Ping Pong - Heart Reconstructs
Midnight Ping Pong teased their second album as “maybe too loud” and that listeners “shouldn’t expect to hear anything new.” The opening one-two punch lives up to that promise: screams of anguish and full-throttle guitar open up to blown-out moments of catharsis. But gone are duelling guitars, replaced for contemplative, circular guitar melodies and moments of hushed introspection for the Taiwanese quartet. Beneath its noisy exterior, Heart Reconstructs tunes into some of the band’s most sensitive work yet.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
27. Charity SsB - THE ANCIENT WAR
Shanghai’s Charity SsB has become an important figure to the city’s club scene, while simultaneously developing as a rapper with Chinese-Korean Jeremy Quest as VROSKIII. His debut proper, THE ANCIENT WAR, connects these ends, tying them with an air of tradition. On “Xuan He Men,” he walks away from a tragic romance, resolute strings and trap beat swallowing mumbled verses. Shades of new age, retched screams, and triplet kicks cohere on opener “Me and You” into a callous call. Charity SsB is the daring samurai and these songs are his defiant war cries.
Listen here: Bandcamp // Spotify
26. Verity - Time, Light and Dark
Fold the tracklist on itself and Time, Light and Dark presents its mirrored themes: of optimism and pessimism, of love that never dies and love that ends too early. Yet for what she’s worth, Verity writes in grayscale rather than black and white. On “The Eternal Flower,” she begs for “just a little bit more time,” knowing of its fragility; on “The Withered Flower,” she almost seems to sigh in relief as its final petal falls. Occasionally offbeat, often delicate and arresting, it’s bookended with a stifling chamber sliced open in birth and the hush of death in a quiet “I love you” to a fading heartbeat in a still hospital ward.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
25. Aflou - 银河上升的三秒钟
As if spun from the cosmos, Aflou’s gossamer falsetto seems to enshroud you. Each song of 银河上升的三秒钟 (Three Seconds of the Milky Way Rising) arrives from the past: rough hands move across the strings on “主观距离” (“Subjective Distance”) with the intimacy of a folk song passed down through generations, the beat tape of “最后的金色” (“The Last of the Golden”) folds a piercing operatic wail into the cushions of the background, and “夜的孩子” (“Child of the Night”) recalls Debussy’s “Clair de Lune.” The stargazer appears to note that every constellation, no matter how large of a revelation, has always been there.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
24. Ken Deng - All Love on Deck
Like his chosen namesake, Ken Deng is the perfect supporting character. He acts the loveable goof and takes a plastic malleability in his approach to genre. Here it’s uplifting vibes set to balmy funk grooves; he’s the sweet stranger you had a chance encounter with, whose clichés sound like the real deal. On All Love on Deck, Deng proves he’s the solid shoulder you should lean on.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
23. YouCeHeLiu - 宇宙幼儿园
The term ‘math rock’ leans into the complexity of the genre’s time signatures, but in focusing on the busy guitar work and drum rhythms, it misses its staple playfulness. Wuhan band YouCeHeLiu boogie and wiggle on the knottiest tracks of 宇宙幼儿园 (Cosmic Kindergarten), but even when they opt for more straight-forward indie-rock, they retain impishness naiveté. They’re tiny residents of glitchy galaxies and space explorers with boundless optimism.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
22. LINION - HIDEOUT
Retreating doesn’t have to mean escape. For R&B singer LINION, it’s the chance to establish the quiet confidence you need to push onward. His third album feels more situated in the urban environment than his previous ones. On the title track, he takes a breath before confronting anxieties: a confrontation with childhood weight issues rolls into a funky strut, the preparations before a date become the opportunity to ground himself. “Listen to me,” he sings start the start of HIDEOUT—what comes next is the voice that tells you to treat yourself better.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
21. RIKI - fashion mushroom limited
An oddball collection of bangers that include pounding four-on-the-floor room fillers and relentless slap bass scorchers, these songs capture the rush of your early twenties. RIKI delivers flashy, electrifying diva performances, his personality just as enormous as the production. On fashion mushroom limited, it’s all about the thrill of your youth; with RIKI’s eccentric use of slang and wordplay, it feels like taking a dizzying glimpse int the new generation’s pining and heartache.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
20. BlinkSoBLue - The BLue Doom
The BLue Doom’s overture lends purpose to the Toronto-based artist’s textural haze: “if this world would end tomorrow…” he mumbles, the rest difficult to make out from behind the muddle production and a distant explosion. The response is nihilistic of course, as BlinkSoBLue cries out, “I can never die,” over a drum ‘n’ bass beat wrapped in cloud rap atmosphere, but it’s answer is in the longing wheezes that solidify a promise to embrace the best and worst parts of you.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
19. 163braces - Filter
Filter, really in two senses of the word: 163braces and producer Howard Lee apply distortion and glitchy electronics to put a Gen Z spin on emo-pop. At the same time, she attempts to shut herself up, her melodies hesitant of saying the wrong thing. These songs sigh with defeat and relief. “It turns out freedom is a type of loneliness and loneliness is a type of freedom,” she sings to whoever’s left, attempting to ease the nagging sense of regret. “IHTS” is the EP’s breakthrough realization: “I hate the story, I just want to be with you,” she sings, her voice clear as she wrestles with her habit of overthinking.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
18. Easy Weeds - Intro_鞋
On “嘿嘿抱歉” (“Hey, Hey Sorry”), a minor slip-up throws the trio into meltdown mode: the guitarist noodles away in a childish fit, the drummer slows to lethargic pace, and vocalist Ah J petitions demands he knows won’t receive answers. “Show me how to love, how to be brave, how to be loved,” he calls. Angst is blistering on Easy Weeds’ debut, Intro_鞋 (Intro_Shoes), where every day seems to bring new chances to be better along with opportunities to fuck up worse. It’s frenetic and jerky, soundtracking the moments you bang your head against the wall over: the realization that you acted like a bitch, again; when you grasp that there are no answers to the question of how to be better; and the feeling of being naked and afraid in the dark as you settle under the covers.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
17. Hogan T. - Loose Faucet
When it rains, it drizzles; when it speeds, it cruises. When Hogan T. wants to forget, it’s one memento at a time: your birthday becomes another ordinary day; those places become unfamiliar all over again. He drifts in this space of transformation, pulling intimate ahead of his own modest acoustic accompaniment and responding to resigned feelings with gentle, pliable grooves. Passive drift. That’s what drives change across Loose Faucet.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
16. AZ - PAMERICAH
ABAO really opened the gate—her 2019 album, kinakaian, opted for a blend of electronic and R&B influences that strayed from the traditional sounds of Taiwanese Indigenous music. She cites her lack of fluency as a major motivating factor, but the result has been the greater acceptance of young Indigenous artists doing whatever the hell they please in the music scene, including branching away from tradition. Enter an artist like AZ, who combines Amis, English, and Mandarin languages to present this generation’s unique scope of identity. On PAMERICAH, he adapts western hip-hop to relate ideas central to his tribe, like the scars of cultural displacement and the unvoiced suicide epidemic. It’s unlike the way ABAO hand-holds you into her exploration of culture; AZ’s PAMERICAH is for his fellow Amis people first, a gateway for others second.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
15. Zhao Dengkai - Self-Awareness
Self-Awareness is a collection of new wave bangers (and occasional detours) for new romance: there are dancefloor fillers that beg you to pull the closest person into a sweaty embrace, to feel their breath on your neck; and mid-tempo pieces that soundtrack the kind of slow-burning heartache where a crush consumes your every thought. Zhao Dengkai’s retro synthpop is an earned sojourn from the past few years’ constant anxiety. With love on the mind, he calls for something uncomplicated in a low hush so that each sweet nothing, each promise of closer feels starkly intimate.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
14. Julia Wu - IDFK
Julia Wu’s strain of R&B previously favoured conversational directness over atmosphere, but on her fifth album, her music is equally as immersive as her frank attitude. IDFK retains her straightforward style, while also arriving as her most diverse collection yet. “otherside” is woozy dream pop that swoons into an unspoken kiss while still making it clear that she’s searching for something serious; “i can’t” is a late-night drive that burns with lust. These songs are assured, but Wu dazedly casts her aside reservations as she surrenders to the heart-racing sensation of falling in deep on the enthralling. Even when it yields, IDFK has a knack for drawing your attention.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
13. Young Captain - 行至此地
“This world has too many people with secrets,” Young Captain petitions. It’s too confusing, too disorienting, too lonely, too large. His second album often invokes this bird’s eye view, but zooms in from any grand scheme. “It’s all about you,” Young Captain howls through the cyclone of its opener. Then he spends the rest of 行至此地 (Travel to Here) making good on that promise with his persuasively sweet and tender R&B ballads, projecting deep affection that lasts through raging tempests and sweeping windstorms.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
12. Leah Dou - 春遊
Of the handful of collaborations between Faye Wong and Dou Wei, the strangest has to be “出路” (“Exit”), where Wong rattles off her worries in spoken monologue over Dou’s alternative production. Decades later, it’s perhaps unintentionally served as the basis for their daughter’s work. Leah Dou works the same offbeat, candid sensibility as she sing-speaks over swirling jazz instrumentation and neo-psychedelic atmosphere on her first Mandarin album, 春遊 (Spring Tour). She nods to her lineage as a way of moving forward. “Mom, I’ve grown up, I no longer need to please everyone,” she hums on “烟花” (“Fireworks”), winking at her mother’s catalogue—the title itself seems to be a riff off of Wong’s 1997 唱遊. Nostalgia sounds fanciful between the record scratches of lead single “Monday,” but Dou largely immerses herself in the present. Her whimsical indie-pop turns chipper and brilliant as she gushes on about a crush, melting into nothing but first-date jitters and lovey-dovey musings.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
11. Default - 共同的土地
Since joining the band in 2019, vocalist and pianist Edine has reshaped Default’s sound. On 共同的土地 (Common Ground), their former dense shoegaze is traded for sparse indie-folk that encircles her wispy voice. Her tracks sing of connection—on the opener, she hums, “our discreet whispers / the way you touched me, I felt heavenly”—and those written by guitarist Eric recount internal conflict. Yet intimacy doesn’t mean the band pulls any punches, just that the hushed vocals, muffled piano, and subdued guitar lines will each draw nearer.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
10. Xia Zhiyu - Young Fresh Chin II
Xia Zhiyu describes Young Fresh Chin II not as a sequel to his breakout mixtape, but a fully-realized extension of the earlier sketches. The rapper trades his light-hearted humour for a more comprehensive tour of his hometown that’s more difficult to chew—it’s all presented as if to say: “here’s the neighbourhood, it’ll stifle you before it kills you.” With samples of ‘90s Chinese pop songs woven throughout, Xia localizes west coast boom bap, lightening the seriousness with the shimmer of synths and flourishes of smooth jazz instrumentals. “Then why read books and learn to be a good person? My parents were bullied all their lives and I refuse to be the same,” Xia mirthfully raps, stuffing his face between booze and breasts. It’s a matter-of-fact display of the way things are, presented by someone who’s challenged the system and long realized that action doesn’t always mean change.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
9. Sue - 圆
圆 (Circle) sees a shift in Sue’s songwriting philosophy. Where her music, wild and carefree, acted on the instincts of her voice, the songs of 圆 feel curious and open—they bend to the production rather than letting it colour around her. On “眼睛” (“Eyes”), she questions: “is anyone listening? listening to the many, different voices?” A previous version of Sue would have described the sound to you, but this is an invitation to listen to what lies underneath, to the groaning roots that crackle and splinter underneath the piano. When she sings of the circle as a loop, of pain and healing and sunrise and sunset, it’s a mishmash of images she’s borrowed from your point of view. And when she hums of a partner in a soft, quiet voice atop a no-frills arrangement, it’s a reminder of what it’s like to be so lost in love.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
8. Tizzy Bac - Human Error
The narrative surrounding the band’s seventh album weighs heavy on it. Or rather, it should. Tizzy Bac address their decision to move forward as a duo after the passing of bassist Xu Cheyu on “Flower in Snow,” nestled early in the tracklist, a quiet rejoinder after two tracks that carry the band’s signature whimsy. Mournful in addressing their late friend of course, “Flower in Snow” is equally concerned with how they’ll live. It’s no accident that Human Error opens with Chen Huiting’s piano and Lin Chienyuan’s drums banging in unison or that throughout, Chen steels herself, singing of emerging in greater volume than fading. Human Error renews the promise to live—when she sings in Spanish, “my heart belongs to you,” it’s a sign of deep affection, a lifetime lived after loss, and a mark of the duo’s capacity to continue moving forward.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
7. wachi - Outing
Improvisation is at the core of the band’s writing process—listen to the way vocalist Jin Yiyi recounts her nightmare in spurious thoughts: “in my dream, I went to class naked and so many people looked at me / can you please think of me more? touch me more?”—so when wachi reference their colourful influences, it feels like grabbing at ideas within reach, a history of the peoples they’ve learned from. Her unfettered voice grows to a glowing howl in reference to Xintianyao, the freeing folk style of singing developed in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, and soars low to the ground in the vein of Miao folk tradition. The guitars are plucked to mimic the sound of the traditional guqin and promenaded about in swampy fashion to recall the rhythm of the dombra. wachi converse with one another throughout Outing, a stray observation repeated in Jin’s roar, laughter and guffaws in the band’s bass section. It’s liberating, like packing your van to walk a new trail.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
6. otay:onii - Dream Hacker
What initially scans as a familiar vessel for Lane Shi’s ideas—its opening number is a magnificent and imposing two-part expanse that stretches from creaking drones to oozing movements—opens up to the experimental producer’s most pop-minded songs yet. Uncanny synths pinball across “Two Rocks a Bird,” while the wordless “Light Burst” floats over its stony drums, otay:onii’s unintelligible groan heralding the light. “W.C.” is the producer at her most formidable, adding a sense of danceability to her ceremonial air, a fanciful sense of humour in the closing sample of a toilet flush that matches the song’s capricious attitude. “There is a light most shining at the darkest of times,” otay:onii buzzes on “Ritualware.” Not always at the forefront, but that sense of optimism even when plunged in the blackness guides her songwriting on Dream Hacker.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
5. Fann - Fann
The abnormal patterns emphasized within Fann’s music are there as an act of hypnotism. Take her otherworldly album opener: both the structure and topline of “Spotlight” are relatively straightforward, yet the rhythmic cavity in its programmed drum pattern forces you to lean into its gap, pitting you in the centre of a futile conversation between descending synth melodies. Fann layers experimental drones and electronic drums in gorgeous, accessible fashion, inviting you to listen closer to their ridges. Her simplicity of design makes the irregularities so transfixing. Crevices form and close between drums on “Revenge,” demanding you follow her overbearing presence at the risk of being swallowed; “Some…” features a melody that drops as she commands you to turn everything off, then lifts as she demands something in return. Fann calls for subservience. These songs take her warped, egocentric perspective and make you believe in it as the only truth.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
4. Zoogazer - 动物园钉子户Ⅱ
In the five years since the Jiangsu-based indie-rockers first visited the zoo, the world has shifted. Their second self-titled attempts to avoid mentioning this fact, but you can hear it bubble up to the surface—where Zoogazer splintered off in every which direction for sharp riffs and indelible hooks, they move in a unified daze here, a dreamlike overcoat hanging above them as they pass from exhibit to exhibit. On 动物园钉子户Ⅱ, the band are playful, despite being sluggish as if they’re touring a hallucination in a stoned daydream. Airy synths and arpeggiating guitar melodies lurk beneath standard dream pop displays, trawling brass sections blend into hazy suspension, and tropical regalia transforms into a lively jazz show. There’s a sense of fantasy in their shoegaze that lends newness to each sigh and easiness to the outing. It’s no wonder they don’t seem keen on returning to reality.
Listen here: Apple Music // Bandcamp // Spotify
3. HUSH - Pleasing Myself
Despite switching from bandleader to soloist, HUSH maintained distance in his songwriting—his love songs were largely detached from personal narrative, instead content to explore the topic in ideals. But his third album, Pleasing Myself, feels like a long-awaited reckoning with identity, first with the collective community, then with the self. His paeans to gay sex are heady and impassioned: the monumental title track arrives to grand climaxes as he masturbates to a missing partner, “City Love” is a messy love triangle viewed through polished city pop, and the smokiness of “Toy Boy” edges into saxophone wails as he contorts in a lover’s arms. With each song, Pleasing Myself reveals and embraces more of the singer. “When my feathers scatter leaving only ruggedness, look how beautiful I am,” he sings, his voice quiet and close as he trails off at the tail end of “Icarus.” The repetition of “Shadow Song” feels appropriate: at first, it’s adorned with lustrous electric guitar to sound like a showy statement for others, then later, the more modest rendition sees the songwriter finally strip bare.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
2. Lexie Liu - The Happy Star
“ALGTR” was the moment for Lexie Liu. Previously defined by her own stylishness, her work was chic but anemic, never quite as interesting as her own forward-thinking vision. But “ALGTR” moved in jagged fashion, taking the trendy synthwave sound and rendering it sharp-toothed, its weirdness openly defying the polish of her earlier work. Liu’s latest full-length, The Happy Star, expands that dynamism up to her performances. Over the thorny drum ‘n’ bass of “FORTUNA,” she’s spunky, an angsty call here, a listless rally there. She taunts over bit-pop and sarcastically jeers in Spanish. The Happy Star is filled with this sort of barbed personality. On “3.14159,” she dons a rockstar attitude to feel the emptiness, rattling off the digits of pi in a robotic voice between stupid one-liners (“I know McDonald’s can’t feed the pumpin’ madness in me,” she shouts) while “MAGICIAN” combusts into spine-tingling electroclash. The back half downplays her tendency for weirdness, trading volatile for downtempo, but still remains personable. With its closer, Liu pays homage to the weirdest that came before her, calling back to Ray of Light era Madonna with a Sanskrit mantra transposed over psytrance wobbles. The Happy Star is the most riveting version of the Chinese pop star yet.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
1. Yang Naiwen - Flow
On Flow, Taiwan’s leading woman in rock offers to act as the vocalist for several of the country’s best working bands. Her contributions are kept to a minimum—she’s got a handful of lyrical credits across its tracklist, but for the most part, all Yang Naiwen offers is an interpretation of what each writer presents to her. Flow’s concept only works because Yang is really just as much of a pop star as she is an alt-rock icon—her earliest albums may have been inspired by Australian pub rock after being raised in Sydney, but her latest work has found her delving into swirling art pop. She possesses a husky force of a voice and knows how exactly to bend it into the production.
Many of these contributors use this opportunity to take chances with their style: take indietronica duo Our Shame, who work something akin to a relaxed Balearic beat on “I’d Like to Give Up” that helps give Yang’s declaration of surrender some sense of relief or Sunset Rollercoaster as they take their sophisti-pop into steely new wave territory on the taut title track. Others might lean familiar, but they’re still no less revelatory. Wu Bai’s supporting harmony and the rollicking folk-rock strum contribute to the joyous delight of “Ineffable” and Taiwanese indie-pop five-piece I Mean Us take Flow to cosmic heights as they close out the album.
Her collaborators make Flow succeed, imbuing it with a natural sense of exploration, but it’s Yang’s ability to fill each track with gravitas that makes it such a fascinating spectacle. As she bids farewell to a relationship changed beyond recognition on “We, Across,” her voice backs I Mean Us’ dream pop with heft and grandeur. Her experience comes across on Flow’s only proper duet, the power ballad “Relieved,” where she and Paul Wong sing in blazing harmony over brash guitars: “don’t talk about an imaginary future, just accompany me like this.” It’s a harsh acceptance that not all tomorrows will be realized, but even still, Yang looks forward on Flow. She turns “The Remaining Half” into a beautiful, tender rumination on the loss and grief that come with aging, while “Ineffable” captures the continued joy on the horizon that’s there if you remember to look forward. This sacrifice and bliss could only be expressed by a figure who’s lived lifetimes. Flow is a realization of the inimitable conflict of growing older, it’s the sound of what lies ahead.
Listen here: Apple Music // Spotify
Find a selection of highlights on Spotify.
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