（这是一群各国亚洲人开的blog,都是讨论亚洲流行曲） 出处：http://aznplay.com/2008/12/21/review-khalil-fong-orange-moon/ Review By: thevantagepoint Summary: Khalil Fong is the only artist from Hong Kong that I would not be embarrassed to recommend to a non-Asian friend, because he is actually amazing. A brief bio for those who has not been Khalilized yet: Khalil Fong is an American-born Chinese from Hawaii who had spent several years of his life living in Shanghai and then Hong Kong. Therefore this boy is lucky enough to have four languages up his sleeve – English, Cantonese, Mandarin, and Hawaii pidgin English. Fong distinguishes himself from a host of other glammed up artists by traversing the boundary between Soul, R&B, and Pop with his unique brand of playfulness and romantic touch. Fong composes all his music, and, as daunting as that sounds, he makes it a point to finish his assignments on time, too. After releasing his refreshing debut Soulboy (2005), he has been steadily putting together songs into LPs every year. As his forth album, ‘Orange Moon’ sports a very simplistic and retro cover design. Regardless of all the astronomical interpretations of which eclipse phase the Orange Moon refers to, Fong intended it to be a visual summary of the overall ambience created by the eleven medium-length songs. An orange moon can be an Autumn moon, the shadow of a moon cast on a pond, or a peaceful setting-sun. Under the banner of universal romance and love, Orange Moon inherits the central message offered by all his previous albums; that all men and all things are One. If that ideal sounds a little too familiar, it would be because Khalil Fong is a follower of the Bahai faith for those who do not know, yet. The reason why Fong does not fall flat and square into the cutesy pop category is because he retains the soft and tender sensitivity of popular love songs while simultaneously transposes the uninspiring melancholy into the sometimes rollicking, sometimes sober rhythms. If I have to typify this artist in terms of well-known R&B icons, I dare say that he represents a pleasant hybrid of Alicia keys and Jay Chou. Each of his songs contains the solid creativity of the former American queen of R&B, while tingled with a gratifying romantic touch of the latter Taiwanese artist. However, quite unlike Jay Chou, Khalil Fong is not as into esoteric poetic verses. Instead, as far as lyrics goes, he favors a more guileless and transparent approach that would not distract the listeners from his soulful, sinaglong yet layered melodies. For those who do not have enough time to go through the entire album, 黑白 (black and white) should give a fair sampling of the range of sentiments Fong is capable of welding into one single song. As in most of his other works, Black and White’s melody winds through a smooth course of fluid transition between major and minor chords. Effortless and unsuspected, these switches make his songs so much less predictable than a lot of the Chinese pop songs you have listened to so far. A noticeable characteristic of Fong’s composition is that he likes to start off soft and subtle. In 黑洞里 (Inside A Black Hole), for instance, he introduces the first verse with soothing vocal while unobtrusive R&B beats would gradually follow through the development. To complement his airy voice, instruments usually take a backseat in his songs which makes the Khalil-music a little more assertive than regular lounge-y goodies. Besides blending jazz and funk elements into slow and steady rhythmic frames, Khalil experimented with upbeat, light-hearted ballads, too, though 每个人都会 (Anyone would) is almost too reminiscent of the child-play tunes. Or perhaps that was the vibe he was going for; in that case: how cute. My personal favorite is 三人游 (Three-people venture) because it’s such a twist from his previous collaboration with Fiona Sit with a similar title, 四人游 (Four-people venture). It features that sure-win duo of classical guitar and strings accompaniment which makes it sound like a genuine slow-telling of affection from a coy and determined boy. 爱我吧 (Love me do) came in a close runner-up because its prelude is so very dreamy that it can befittingly replace Disney’s glittery Swan Castle theme song. It only did not make the first place because I thought the harp was a little too much and took away the honest simplicity of his voice. Irrelevant sidenote: [the writer of this review remarked that Singalong is a great song for courtship, give or take.] --

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