Karen Mok, Karen Mok on the Twelfth Floor, 2000
Karen Mok, Karen Mok on the Twelfth Floor, 2000
ranking: #60 on 1993-2005 list
I’m going to have to agree with an old Taiwanese Box Office magazine review of Karen Mok’s first Mandarin album, To Be (做自己): Karen Mok (莫文蔚) has all the right elements, but she’s no music star. On Karen Mok on the Twelfth Floor (十二樓的莫文蔚), Mok’s most acclaimed Mandarin album, the parts are all there — a pro producer Jonathan Lee (李宗盛), bold themes of a woman’s independence, a cheeky Being John Malkovich album cover — but I was never all that moved. It even took me quite a number of listens before I warmed up to many of the songs.
Could it be that the chill-out vibe of tracks like “Twelfth Floor” (十二樓) and “Lunar Eclipse” (月蝕) slowed down, then melted Mok’s charisma into some sleepy Starbucks soundtrack? Doubtful, as those hushed mood pieces are the album’s most inventive moments. “Twelfth Floor” in particular does a hopscotch skip with its slinky piano and lets Mok glide through the syncopation and the elongated “ah-aaah” choruses.
No, I’d say it’s that Mok’s voice simply isn’t lonely enough to carry the torch on songs like “Oh Lonely Lovers” (寂寞的戀人啊), not lazy enough to bring out the carefree thrills of “Couldn’t Care Less” (懶得管), and not manic enough for “Addicted to Love” (愛情中毒) — the latter which has too few thorns to puncture the heart as Alanis Morissette (which the song channels) might. At the album’s dullest moments, like “Two Girls” (兩個女孩), we have proficient vocals and decent melody and lyrics, but it’s almost as if Mok’s inability to elevate the material makes the instrumental arrangement that much more cliched and the performance that much lazier. Even a lesser singer like Stefanie Sun brings more expressiveness and personality to the kind of breezy rocker-pop that Mok attempts on songs like “Your Heaven” (你的天堂).
This doesn’t sound like Karen Mok the actress who brought the thunder to films like Fallen Angels or even God of Cookery. Mok’s star shines brightly in the movie world, but without the strong compositions (like Tanya Chua’s “Fluffy” (起了毛球) or Lee’s “Twelfth Floor”), Mok’s music never takes off from the ground floor.
[Note: I used the English titles provided on the album back cover, instead of directly translating from the Chinese titles.]
