Critics' Take On Golden Melody Mandarin Artist Awards

The 19th Annual Taiwan Golden Melody Awards results will be revealed this coming Saturday, July 5, 2008 in Taipei Arena in Taipei, Taiwan.

Official site: 19th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards

Prior to the revealing of results, media sources have begun to make their predictions. The following are 3 sources who have analyzed and predicted the probable winners of the Best Male & Female Mandarin Artist awards from many different perspectives including the vocal perspective, the album perspective, and the market perspective. Since the changing of the award name from "Best Male/Female Vocalist" to "Best Male/Female Artist" last year, it appears that the judging system has changed and vocals is no longer the only factor.

Note: The following articles are based on the opinions and perspectives of their respective writers and/or critics and play no role in the final results, nor are they the official results.

Nominees
Best Mandarin Female Artist
A-Mei - STAR
Stefanie Sun - 逆光
Jasmine Leong - 崇拜
Tanya Chua - Goodbye & Hello
Karen Mok - 拉活...
Joi Chua - 慶幸擁有

Best Mandarin Male Artist
Eason Chan - 認了吧 (Admit It)
Tank - 延長比賽 (Keep Fighting)
Shin - 我就是我 (It's Me)
Pei An Yang - 楊培安II (Pei An Yang's Album No. 2)
Gary Cao - Super Sunshine
Khalil Fong - 未來 (Wonderland)

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If the award were based solely on vocals, A-Mei and Jasmine (Fish) Leong would be considered as entering onto another level, Stefanie Sun and Tanya Chua would be considered as maintaining their already great vocals, Karen Mok put in 90%, and Joi Chua hasn't found her style just yet but has vastly improved. Since the name change, last year, from "best vocalist" to "best artist" there seems to be a change in judging criteria for the award. The award is no longer based on vocals solely and all factors combined is the best bet. That being said, Joi Chua, Stefanie Sun and Jasmine Leong would be eliminated. With the three remaining, A-Mei ran the stage presence route while Tanya ran the singer-songwriter route, and this year was the first for both in the producing department. Karen, on the other hand, ran the A-Me plus Tanya route, not only having remarkable stage presence but also promoting her music with the one-in-all package. However, 拉活... lacked the love songs found in AM.PM and with her voice she was unable to showcase her vocals and her songs lacked emotion. With that, A-Mei has the edge and has the highest chance of winning the award for a second time.

The styles of this year's male artist nominees are all over the place. We have purely R&B in Khalil Fong and Taiwanese rockers in Shin and Pei An Yang. Maybe the judging panel is trying to send a message that we should catch up with the trend of rising Taiwanese rock, which is often neglected.

In terms of voice, Pei An Yang sounds too similar to Tom Chang so he is the first to be eliminated. In terms of vocals, Tank and Gary Cao have not shown anything new and Shin has shown his high pitch, but aside from that what else has he shown? Khalil Fong, on the other hand, has shown his falsetto, thus, having the highest difficulty.

Eason Chan's 認了吧 can be said is a Mandarin karaoke version of What's Going On?, if he wins it's almost certain that it will cause controversy no less than Jolin Tsai's win last year.

It looks like Khalil Fong has the highest chance of winning this year.

(Note: What the writer is trying to say when calling 認了吧 "a karaoke version of What's Going On?" is that all but 2 tracks were originally released in Cantonese.)

Source: tom 07.02.2008

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After listening to all nominated albums four professional critics, Liu Ya Wen 劉亞文, Wu Jian Heng 吳建恆, Chen Le Rong 陳樂融, and Yuan Wei Jen 袁惟仁, have deliberated and voted for their picks of this year's Golden Melody Best Male/Female Artist award winners.

On the male side, Wu Jian Heng and Yuan Wei Jen both voted for Eason Chan. Wu Jian Heng says, "Even though Eason's nomination (認了吧) is mostly the re-singing of his Cantonese songs, but his ability to grasp every single genre and style presented in the album, to a key, is on an impeccable level (已到達淋漓盡致的境界)." Yuan Wei Jen says, "His sincerity for each song is shown through his interpretation, the entire album is listen worthy."

On the female side, Liu Ya Wen and Yuan Wei Jen gave A-Mei their votes. Liu Ya Wen expresses that the female nominees are all able vocalists, but her reason for choosing A-Mei is, as she puts it, "A-Mei has always been an able singer, but you can tell that she put more effort into Star than last year's work. The album is also more in line with the market needs, a very complete performance." Yuan Wei Jen says, "A-Mei has this carefree sound and she is able to capture the emotions of the songs." Liu Ya Wen adds that she also likes Tanya Chua's work but feels that the album is, concept wise, better than her concert, therefore, she gave her vote to A-Mei.

Source: the liberty times 07.03.2008

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According to a Sina survey, Eason Chan and Stefanie Sun are comfortably leading against their rivals in the Male/Female Artist polls. However, winning [Golden Melody] awards are based on skill and the Golden Melody judging panel's standard will be the quality of the artists' 2007 albums.

Eason's album 認了吧 and song 愛情轉移 (from the same album) won him numerous awards in Hong Kong and Mainland China, and he continues to secure his status as the new "God of Songs." Entering the Golden Melody Awards, Eason's chances of winning is among the highest. Another male artist making headlines for the upcoming awards is Hong Kong's Khalil Fong, whose album received much praise in Taiwan. If one were to ask 'aside from Eason who would be the unlikely winner?,' Khalil would be the undeniable answer. Regardless, it looks like this year's Best Mandarin Male Artist is coming from Hong Kong.

Although Stefanie Sun is leading in the polls the competition on the female side is tough with four past Golden Melody Female Vocalist award winners (A-Mei, Stefanie, Karen Mok & Tanya Chua). Tanya's album Goodbye & Hello has received many positive reviews from critics, but the problem lies in the fact that she won the Female Vocalist award 2 years ago (in 2006). Will the judging panel award her again so soon? Not unless her album's quality is steps above all the others. A-Mei has a higher chance of winning with good word-of-mouth and sales of her album Star.

(Note: What the writer means by calling Khalil the "unlikely winner" is that Khalil is still relatively unknown, compared to Eason, Tank, Gary, etc., in the market.)

Source: sina 07.03.2008