1 |
One Half |
2 |
Black
May |
3 |
Missing |
4 |
Fate |
5 |
Wild
Flowers |
6 |
Coffee Seller |
| 7 |
Yearning |
8 |
Half
Each, Love Remains |
9 |
Bad Times |
10 |
Lose
Control |
11 |
Last
Breath (Guitar Version) |
12 |
Last
Breath (Cha-Cha Version) |
13 |
Replacement |
14 |
One Half (Duet Version) |
SOUNDTRACK REVIEW:
Now that Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong has endorsed Roystan
Tan’s tribute film to the colorful getais in Singapore,
how can we not join in the bandwagon to cheer on its equally
colorful soundtrack album?
The 33-minute
disc from the local musical contains 14 vibrant score and
song tracks performed in Mandarin and Hokkien, with Eric Ng’s
perfect music direction.
To appeal
to listeners who love melancholic music (given the movie’s
especially melodramatic finale), the album opens with Wu Jiahui’s
“One Half”, which also has a duet version for
future karaoke crooning. Then there’s Black May by Ngak
(a real cool name for an artisite) who performs “Black
May” with a nice fusion of erhu and electric guitar
accompaniment.
There
are some nice score cues like “Yearning” and “Last
Breath (Guitar Version) which brings back some forlorn moments
from the movie (what, you haven’t caught the much-talked
about local movie?)
The highlight of the album has to be the Hokkien getai tracks
performed by the Ming Zhu Sisters (the voices behind the 881
sisters played by the dramatic Mindee Ong and Yeo Yann Yann
in the movie) and Xiao Xin (the voices behind the Durian Sisters
played by the outrageously wacky MTV VJs May and Choy in the
movie). Check out the more traditional “Wild Flowers”
and “Coffee Seller” before the indulgently enjoyable
techno tracks “Bad Times” and “Lose Control”.
The
best arrangement on the album has to be “Half Each,
Love Remains”, where “One Half” takes on
a sorrowful turn, and may just make you shed a tear or two,
if the movie hasn’t done so already.
ALBUM
RATING:
Recommended Track: (8) Half Each, Love Remains
Review
by John Li
|
