#7: June 2021

the best Mandopop of the month from waa wei's impressive genre-hopping seventh album to summery hyperpop to smoothly kind jazz

Jul 12, 2021

A country’s idol industry can be shaped by several factors, most related to entertainment and culture, others a bit further removed. One interesting one is the way Chinese sustainability policy has shaped the Chinese idol industry and compared to many other countries, Chinese policy is geared towards more sustainable living. It led to the cancellation of idol competition series Youth with You 3, a food waste controversy erupting in anger as viewers purchased a tie-in yogurt drink for a QR vote only to waste the actual product. And so much of the policies and culture behind idol systems in other countries are incongruous with sustainable living, that they’ve become at least partially responsible for the difference in the Chinese idol system.

Many K-pop groups rely on their physical editions to increase their sales, to boost their positions on the charts. The promote with repackaged albums, multiple versions, collectibles like posters and photocards, and chances at fan-meets, the opportunity to meet their idols either in-person or online. And it works! The most dedicated of fans go on to purchase multiple versions to collect every collectible. Yet it often goes on to produce a lot of waste. Some Chinese idols companies still go on to produce physical versions, like boy band TNT, whose debut studio album 舞象之年 was sold only as a physical version, and never packaged online in the same format. However, for many artists, especially those performing solo and non-studio album formats, releases tend to remain restricted to digital formats. So how do they make up the sales? The sales become less of an issue when you consider how large the Chinese population is, but idol companies continue to motivate fans to purchase multiple copies with restricted bonuses. Betty Wu’s debut album 25 managed to sell as well as it did due to bonuses: purchase two copies and receive an exclusive digital selfie package, five and an exclusive video message.

The online format isn’t necessarily a bad thing: fans experience less pressure to purchase albums and can also purchase them at a lower cost, while companies see reduced production costs and greater freedom in release strategies, more gradual rollouts, without the need to ensure everything is prepared all at once.

KUN—not WayV’s leader Kun, but the former member of Nine Percent—seems to be taking advantage of it with his new album 迷 (mí or lost). Not available internationally, the intro at least seems to suggest KUN is continuing down the same lowkey R&B route he explore with last year’s “Lover.” But the rollout’s built on a trick: four of eleven tracks on the release date of April 13, 2021, the rest to be released sometime in the future. Not quite a pre-order, which would build some level of anticipation with a fixed release date, and not quite a multi-part album, which would have required some meaningful divisions, but instead, KUN seems to have released and sold an unfinished album. And yet, 迷 has already managed to amass over two million sales. It’s become the fastest to sell one million this year so far. Artists have forever been pushing the boundaries of what an album could be, but no one’s sold an unfinished product before, not quite like this. And unfortunately, with how well it’s performed, KUN’s team is proving that they can. Perhaps even more unfortunate, KUN’s tactics and those of other idols across China are showing exactly what people watching the Western charts are discussing, that sales and charts are perhaps not measuring what they were intended to, but simply the power and devotion of fandoms. Check out the best June:

Albums

waa wei - Have A Nice Day

“Are you tired of being nice? Don’t you just want to go ape shitt?”

waa wei’s music has always been nice. Not at all in a bad way. It’s always been pleasant, but it’s also almost always been content with where it is, whether coming together or breaking apart, it’s always done so in a tranquil manner. But “Pretty Woman” pulls all the stops: electronic drums and distorted vocals, vocal stutters and descending runs—thrashes of noise, it’s a track filled to the brim with chaotic turbulence. “Pretty Woman” shows that sometimes, waa wei also gets tired of being nice, that sometimes, waa wei just wants to go ape shitt.

More often though, Have A Nice Day is waa wei being nice. She shoulders the burden and asks for a little kindness. Rather than challenge the bad, she often rests her hopes in something a little greater, daydreaming of a piece of joy. “Grabbed my phone all day to watch the person I like like other people who didn’t deserve it” she laments on the indie-pop title track, but only for a minute before countering her own bad luck with the positivity of its bouncy chorus, running through the days and merely hoping that she’ll have a nice one. So when the bold “Pretty Woman” and “Transformers” arrive, when they dare to veer into electronic and rock territory as waa wei asserts her womanhood and motherhood, rather than eclipse the album, the pair offer a welcome contrast—the portrait of someone coming to terms with reality’s heaviness doesn’t just make the resignation that follows sound more meaningful, but also makes the first half’s nicer singer-songwriter tracks sound kinder.

That one-two punch isn’t the only piece of experimentation on the album, as waa wei proves that experimentation doesn’t need to be loud and abrasive as she plays with different styles and adopts different voices. Shibuya-kei and bossa nova influences arise on the loungey “Merci Beaucoup,” where waa wei plays with the Chinese phrase “沒事不哭” (méishì bù kū or “no problem, don’t cry”). The shuffle remains at the center, an assortment of woodwinds, horns, keys, and handclaps weave their way through the track. It’s waa wei at her most playful, emphasizing the breeziness of its title. Similarly, “Champion” sounds bouyant and giddy, dressing award show jitters into something spectacular, something fun. The sophistication of the night remains, with waa wei dancing across the jazz background, but there’s no stuffiness at play as she dismisses in the chorus: “no matter what award you grabbed the night before, you’ll still have to brush your teeth when you get up in the morning.”

But some of the best moments on Have A Nice Day go beyond the forced positivity of being nice or the rush of going ape shitt. On “Aroma” the stunning duet with art-pop South Korean singer Sunwoo Jung-a, love unfolds gracefully, like a scent carried by the breeze. “When our hands touched, I don’t know, unknown mystery blooms along,” the pair sing. Whatever lies beyond seems to feel unimportant in their eyes. The same weightlessness is carried by the Shadow Project-written “My Type,” where the rap trio drop their usual style to meet waa wei in the coffeeshop atmosphere. The two tracks are idle confessions, content with letting the words hang in the air without pushing for more. “I’ll watch you secretly but I won’t confess,” waa wei murmurs. Forcing yourself to be nice can be exhausting, but maybe sometimes, it’s okay to let yourself just drift.

Find it on streaming here: Spotify // Apple Music

Singles: “Have A Nice Day” // “April, Good for Lying (feat. Chiu)” // “Dear Grandma”

June Pan - Everyday is a battle

From its first moment, that first synth stab, Everyday is a battle feels like the city. It does it in a way that doesn’t feel mundane, but rather fresh and new, like June Pan’s seeing the urban skyline for the first time. There’s something about the city that sounds enchanting to her, despite the fact that she spent her debut EP contemplating the cosmos, and to Pan, the city seems to call to her like its home. Those new jack swing-indebted synth stabs give Pan energy and weight as she finishes work. “I can’t wait to embrace life’s freedom” she sings, like the city could truly be hers.

The city runs through Everyday is a battle, whether it’s through flashes of the city lifestyle in her lyrics or shaped into its synth textures. Pan paints pictures of the experience of being young and single in the city in vivid colour: romance, solitude, and dancing bubble up—sometimes all three at once, like on the Dizparity-produced “Lingering Night,” which plays like Pan dancing alone in her bedroom after the series of failed romances. The autotune mimics the heartbreak, but the track gradually opens up until it becomes ready to dance, like Pan realizes that there’s still more to experience. Oftentimes, Pan seems to give in to the joys of urban life, of the youthful joy of dating. “State of Mind” captures its youth with bubbles of synths while “Sundae” captures the flirtation of a Sunday morning date with plaintive coos overlayed on bashful synths.

But other times, the city does beat you down. You start to watch the people around you settle into deeper things, relationships that make it, jobs that actually reward them. You turn around one minute and you recognize fewer and fewer people around you, until gradually, it’s just you. Pan starts to crack towards the end of the album, and if you’ve lived in the city long enough, you can start recognizing the shift in scene. Like her change in mood, those synths that once conveyed some sort of feeling are no longer present. On the piano ballad “In Memory of You,” the words sometimes reflect a single past lover, but they often feel indebted to a past life, one where the city meant something. “If you can, please save all my memories,” Pan sighs.

Everyday is a battle. Sometimes, it wins. And sometimes you win, sometimes the world blooms anew. Pan’s English title goes for something profound, but the Chinese title “25歲的我明天還是要上班” (“25-year-old me still needs to go to work tomorrow”) references the more mundane. That things always keep going. On “Keep_ing,” an early morning pep talk, those synths return to Pan. They’re not the same as those retro-fitted energetic ones of the opener, but instead, seem to bloom outward, conveying a sense of hope, the wishful idea of something on the horizon.

Find it on streaming here: Spotify // Apple Music

Singles: “Keep_ing” // “Horror Love” // “Even If”

Singles

Bloodz Boi, umru & William Crooks - “Iced Lemon Tea”

Hyperpop has always been a melting pot. Of people, of past influences, of current scenes, so naturally, likewise, the wave of hyperpop in the Mandopop scene is also diverse, from acts that merge early 2000s nostalgia and futuristic aesthetics, like jiafeng and Shelhiel, to the rising popularity of hyperpop from the emo-rap background, like Taiwan’s collective of Cyber Made. But one of the most engaging hyperpop singles of the year has been “Iced Lemon Tea,” which builds off the collaboration between Bloodz Boi and Hong Kong rapper FOTAN LAIKI of the same name. Here, Bloodz Boi retains only the strong sense of melody from emo-rap and lets “Iced Lemon Tea” become a playground for its features, umru’s production and Crooks’ verse adding that unfettered sense of chaos that makes a refreshing summer drink sound like a dazed summer party.

Yisa Yu - “A Seat”

In “A Seat,” a relationship is framed like a candle burning out—slow and unstoppable. Yisa Yu hangs onto something destined for failure, the chorus falling into something desperate. “Stay by his side? Pretend I’m not lonely?” she sighs and the melody spirals downwards. Yu might present it as straightforward, but the string arrangement adds challenges, swells revive the relationship while finger-plucked strings present it with elegance, a relationship framed as tragic rather than worthless. Its final moments convey a sense of desire, but also, caution: “fifth row, twelfth seat, do you also come here too?”1 Somewhere in the middle of the theatre, Yu seems to ask the question weighing on the lonely minds: would you maybe like to be with someone too?

Wang Hui-Chu - “24 Hours”

“Twenty-four hours a day, don’t think too much and live a good life,” Wang sings. “24 Hours” lives in that mantra, sparkling and shimmering, it feels like summer’s lightest activities, like swimming, sunbathing, and dreaming. Everydaze smartly pillows his production, providing “24 Hours” with an atmosphere that feels more liquid than his own work, the guitar line more mellow and the synths softer.

9m88 & DJ Mitsu The Beats - “Tell Me”

On “Tell Me,” Taiwanese jazz singer 9m88 and Japanese DJ Mitsu The Beats move in perfect harmony. When 9m88 stretches, the production expands, when 9m88 asks you to “tell me,” the keys respond with trills in the higher register. When she pauses, the drums fade to leave some space. DJ Mitsu The Beats knows when and where 9m88 will land before she does, trawling those keys ahead of the squiggles and drums until there’s nothing but 9m88’s multi-layered voice. On “Tell Me,” the pair breathe together.

“Tell Me” is aimed before tragedy, before they take you away. There’s no urgency to it, but a relaxed atmosphere, that much DJ Mitsu the Beats makes sure of when he unfolds the track with light keys and synthetic warbles. 9m88 gives you the freedom in the spaces she leaves you, but “Tell Me” is best when 9m88 relates herself to you. “Can we tell ourselves this is only temporary? Just don’t give up on yourself, babe can you promise me?” Like yourself, 9m88 doesn’t have the answers. She’s like you, trying and sometimes, struggling. But what she does have is a little bit of grace, and on “Tell Me,” she’s handing it all over to you.

Find the Mando Gap playlist on Spotify here and me on Twitter here.

512 is Chinese numeric slang for “I want to love” as 512 (wǔ yī èr) sounds similar to 我要爱 (wǒ yào ài) or “I want to love”

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