#48: Metamorphosis
on Jeremy Chang's 1990 album, Metamorphosis, an album that found the singer pivoting against being the sappy balladeer into something weirder
Rest in peace Barbie Hsu. People most likely know her from her role in Meteor Garden, but I’ll always think about her work with her sister Dee Hsu as S.O.S and then later ASOS, as some of Taiwan’s first idols and then as Taiwan’s first to reject the way labels control idols.
This month we go back twenty-five years to look at Jeremy Chang’s Metamorphosis. I like round numbers with zeros and fives, but my favourite of Chang’s albums is the follow-up, Guts of the Race. Album’s not on streaming, but link to the mp3 below. I have Guts of the Race as well (just email me for it) and his 2000 album, but lost the files for his others ones. Oh well. Some singles from Faye Wong, F.F.O, and Astera7 follow.
Jeremy Chang - Metamorphosis
Jeremy Chang’s career is an odd one. In the late ‘80s, the man grew frustrated with dentistry and wormed his way into a record deal. Disappointing sales led to a more mainstream approach to songwriting; then, dissatisfaction with his sound led to a weirder one. Eventually, the singer struck some sort of strange balance: he worked as a dentist at his family’s clinic to comply with his father’s wishes, while simultaneously signed to the prolific Rock Records where he released a handful of albums and wrote for other singers like Aaron Kwok and Emil Wakin Chau. Then, he gave it all up. In pursuit of his growing interest in film, he completed a Master’s in Directing and Film Production in New York—despite his professors questioning his motivation. And the kicker is that Chang still doesn’t have a directorial credit to his name. The budget he submitted for one script was too high for anyone to take on and the artist refused to compromise. So one final album in 2000 before Chang was back to working as a dentist full-time, resurfacing only occasionally for the odd variety show appearance.
Call it lost media or whatever, but the majority of his vast catalogue isn’t on streaming services. What is there will leave you to believe that Chang was just another boring relic of the past era. His only album available is his second, Sister’s Eyes, the collection of sappy self-penned ballads that followed his first album, something the singer saw as a commercial failure. At least he managed to spawn one recognizable single, “Do You Know I Am Waiting?” Like the rest of the album, it’s pretty middle-of-the-road. Chang’s voice is nothing special—not so sweet that it could feel tender, not so rough that it could signal experience. Most would probably say it’s not good. I’d probably agree, but a voice is an instrument, something you can learn to pull an admirable performance out of regardless of its quality. Maybe there’s something pretty in a twinkling piano riff or its often string-led instrumentation, but for the most part, the songwriting, arrangements, and performance both felt like rote exercises.
This is unfortunately what the people wanted. There’s a story about Karen Mok trying to revive her then-struggling career and visiting Chang while he was studying in New York to pressure the man to write her a song. The result is “Hiroshima Mon Amour,” a pretty duet that that feels pretty standard, opening with the glimmer of keys and the sweeping of strings. It did well for Karen’s career, so well that in the aftermath, the rumours were that she had written it and Chang, a featured vocalist on the track, was just an artist benefitting off her name. So it shouldn’t be any surprise, that it’s in the space of schmaltzy balladry that Chang’s third album, Metamorphosis, begins.
Gleam and float, “美麗的花蝴蝶” (“Beautiful Butterfly”) does. Chang’s voice is just as feeble and shaky as ever. But then there’s something of a weirder choice after the first chorus, a sharp recorder melody just passing by. And in closing, the sound turns towards power balladry, but can’t quite get there—Chang probably knows his voice isn’t strong enough for that kind of thing, so lets himself get swallowed up in the strings and the atmosphere, before the song blooms back onto the chorus. Sure, he’s weak. Doesn’t mean he can’t be romantic. Doesn’t mean he won’t try everything to win over your heart.
That’s how Chang pulls something noteworthy out of his voice and that’s where Metamorphosis aims: to prove to you that Chang is capable of heat and excitement. On “罪人” (“Sinner”), he hums, “I’m willing to become a sinner for you,” a distinct lack of shakiness in his voice. On “分手的那一夜” (“The Night We Broke Up”), his voice quivers as if he’s on the edge of crying, as if each memory brings back a sharp stab of pain. It’s another ballad in Chang’s catalogue, but it’s one that keeps things more interesting: the hollowed-out drums are paired against an electric guitar and slap bass, a choir arrives, their English chants in contrast to Chang’s Mandarin melody. On paper it might sound corny, but the song never feels that way. Nor does it remain static as Chang’s melodies had in the past.
Finally there was sound that could support the passion in his depiction of romance. On the title track—its music video comprised of older snippets to cement the fact that yes, Chang was changing—he sings, “last night, I smashed the piano and today I broke the guitar / I will no longer intentionally write songs to please her.” He lets the keys dance, the drums roll, the saxophone play out. The instruments bang and wail before he arrives at the chorus: “no choice but to change / no choice but to look forward / unwilling to look back / unwilling to resemble yesterday,” as close to a howl as the singer could manage. Chang loved to make weird choices. Those plinky piano stabs on “無名火” (“Nameless Fire”), what the hell are those? And then he’s going to add an erhu? Not just that, the erhu performance is so strangely mystifying, taking the grace out of the instrument to create something chaotic. “逃亡” (“Escape”) was inspired by Zulu folk music, something unheard of in Taiwan at the time, filled with tribal chants answering his main melody. Metamorphosis feels like a set-up for Chang’s next album, Guts of the Race, perhaps his most thrilling a more rock-oriented change of pace with just as many weirder choices; the instrumental closer “情人崗第一樂章─中國人海” (“Lover’s Post Chapter I: A Sea of Chinese People”) seemed to set-up as much, with three albums following that would extend on the naming convention.
Chang is a headstrong man. What other kind of man would throw out a stable dentistry career to become a singer? Yet in Metamorphosis, he seems to almost hesitate, having to remind himself not to look back, not to return. Perhaps as a change of pace, as a means of pushing himself out of his comfort zone, he recorded the album in London. He trashes the memories of every relationship that no longer suits him and creates new ones of the new place, rehashing a story of a friend based in London, making the city’s network part of his own. Do people still remember Sister’s Eyes? When they did a poll of the best albums in Taiwan’s history a decade and a half later, both Metamorphosis and Chang’s debut album were up there. Metamorphosis—and well, Chang’s career—is perhaps a solid reminder that change is the only way to live; do whatever suits you and set the rest aflame.
Listen here: mp3
Faye Wong - “世界赠予我的”
Is this good? I don’t have an answer for that. If you’re expecting Faye Wong to arrive doing the sort of ~art pop~ she was doing back in the ‘90s, then of course, her single entirely written for the CCTV gala is obviously going to be a let-down, duh, but if you understand her as first-and-foremost Chinese, then sure, it’s good. Wong was always been a girl who just loved to sing. People have clamoured to give her the title of some artiste, but she’s always just been a girl who loved to sing. “世界赠予我的” (“What the World Gave Me”) is really a reiteration of that—last time she arrived at the gala where she was essentially doing doing karaoke of another person’s song, but here, the promise of a new single invites expectation. The whole thing is of course made palatable, it’s for the gala, duh. Her ballad is fine, perhaps not as interesting as some of the other one-offs she’s released since her retirement or some of the ballads she didn’t like when she was active (there’s always talk that she hated “紅豆” but that’s one of her best). What’s exciting is just her appearance, her voice, now older and with the twinge of sadness that comes with age and grief but just as fanciful and just as full of affection. Chang Shilei recognizes that, which is why his string arrangement isn’t exciting, but just there, just pretty. The world gave us disease just to slowly heal it and gave us nothing just to gradually fill it. And now it adds one more beautiful offering.
see also: Salsa Chen - “Worn wings”
F.F.O - “腦袋漂流記”
Admittedly checked out of ATOM BOYZ II when I realized they were all serious and all the tease and promise of “hey, we understand what made NEXT GIRLZ fun” turned out to be a bunch of whatever and poor K-pop approximations with lots of young boys and lots of tough posturing. Anyway, F.F.O were the winners, which stands for farfarout and apparently symbolizes… *checks notes* a group of boys from a distant asteroid who have come to fans with courage and passion. Sure! Why not. “腦袋漂流記” (“Notes on a Drifting Brain”) is cute. It doesn’t sound like they’re trying so hard to act tough, instead, enjoying one of those chaste relationships of youth. The lyrics are childishly innocent—“I’m like a headless fly / crashed into the gap between two people / failing to grasp the logic of love”—but they’re also dumb: “this is not the first time I’ve locked myself in a cabinet / I forgot the password and looked like an idiot.” Simply cute. Cute how she saves him from himself and cute how colourful the synths are.
see also: ARKis - “末日有我”
Astera7 - “Cyberlove”
Astera7 follows Lexie Liu and Akini Jing as a sort of aesthetic-first musicians, similarly, sort of futuristic, sort of alien. Compared to her predecessors, her songs are capable of being more than they were at debut: “Midnight Paradise” is the strongest and most playful, but “Heaven” is coated with a dreamy wash to make it feel like the singer’s arrived in blissful territory even when she knows it’s trouble and “Situationship” carries some darker promise. Ideals collide with reality in her work, but “Cyberlove” perhaps feels closer to the radiance of the former. Over a glowing synth arrangement, she envisions a program that could take away her loneliness, an algorithm that could match her with a partner. Despite its magic, “Cyberlove” feels slightly cautious. There’s a disco glow that arrives and just as quickly dissipates, while the lower main vocal melody can make the whole thing feel slightly overbearing. It works a little menace into the singer’s vision despite taking away some of its glamour. Yet taken altogether, the work from her two “mini-EPs” is a strong taste of what the artist could become.
Extra Listening
Tarcy Su has a new album, her seventeenth coming sometime this month. It’s preceded by the single “Forehead Wrinkles” and will likely include last year’s great “A-HA.”
sodagreen are finally wrapping up their re-recording project on the same date. Will say that this whole thing has worked better than some others doing re-recordings because it’s the entire band doing the music and they all sound like better performers—perhaps the trickiest part would have been Wu Qingfeng’s voice, but he sounds better than ever—and the new album covers are nice.
Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here.