In general, the 90's in Hong Kong was dominated by a widespread cultural phenomena heavily fueled by the entertainment business. Hong Kong is a small place, it's like the Hollywood of Chinese people. No joke. Around this time, 4 talented artists emerged out of a pool of talent that would set a gold standard in the music industry. Those 4 were Aaron Kwok (郭富城), Andy Lau (劉德華), Jacky Cheung (張學友), and Leon Lai (黎明) (Although honestly, the only one with true vocal skill was Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau is a distant second) and they were dubbed throughout Asia as "The Four Heavenly Kings" of Cantopop. (四大天王)
Yes, I was one of those Chinese kids who had parents and extensive relatives that owned a "KALA-OKAY" machine. I would remember sitting at my cousin's house as my dad and uncle sing terribly half drunk while my mom and aunt would laugh. They even had a kids karaoke machine for us little ones. But those songs they sang would be transplanted into the back of my mind for...geeze, let's just cut to the chase.
Fast foward
I guess this happened around late 2005 when a whole bunch of my friends started leeching new Chinese songs from my friend Raymond.
I picked up a few songs from him and then found an old Jacky Cheung (張學友) cassette from my dad. I guess this got me hooked. From that point on, I was hooked on the classics.
4 years later, I managed to get a hold of around 250 CD's that range between 1986-2009.
Don't get me wrong, I still love whatever autotuned stuff that comes out of the radio nowadays. I guess its just more relaxing to listen to the music you hear when you were a kid and there were none of the pressures of adult life bothering you.
A few days ago, Alan and I had a discussion on Chinese music. We concluded that it's fairly simple, you just simply can't beat the classics.
By the way, my favorite Chinese singer is 王傑 (Dave Wang). Simply because his songs reflect on his own difficult life and how deep his songs are.
