1993-2005: #90, Sandee Chan, “Washington Chopped Down the Cherry Tree” (陳珊妮, 華盛頓砍倒櫻桃樹) (1994) (Chen Shanni)

Sandee Chan, Washington Chopped Down the Cherry Tree, 1994

Sandee Chan, Washington Chopped Down the Cherry Tree, 1994

ranking: #90 on 1993-2005 list

Of all of my Sandee Chan (陳珊妮) CDs, Washington Cut Down the Cherry Tree (華盛頓砍倒櫻桃樹) probably gets the least play – though not for any fault of the album, but simply because it’s not what I think of when I’m in the mood for Chan’s music.  But listening to it today, I realize I’ve forgotten that today’s electro-punk queen was once just a girl with a keyboard.  In fact, revisiting it now, it’s clear to me why Washington Cut Down the Cherry Tree was the only solo Sandee Chan album chosen for the Top 200 list.  Though I think later albums like her Humor (我從來不是幽默的女生) are more mature, Washington already captured everything Chan would later come to represent on the Taiwanese music scene: a sense of spontaneity, layered pop sounds, a refusal of easy harmonies, a defiantly feminine voice.

What’s most amazing about Chan’s debut is that for all of its sonic complexity and experimentation, it feels completely unforced.  The choral breaks of “Sick” (生病) don’t come off as a calculated risk.  The alternating percussive tracks on “A Sliver of Sky” (一線天) aren’t strange, but rather feel consistent with Chan’s anything-goes, slightly off-kilter persona.  Whereas earlier pioneers like Yang Hsien (楊弦) and Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑) were masters at self-consciously crafting something new – with an aim to challenge authority, as well as our ears – the unexpected sounds on Washington Cut Down the Cherry Tree are less explicitly avant-garde.  These are sounds crafted without theory.  You get the feeling that Sandee Chan stumbled upon a palette of bells and whistles on her new keyboard and thought: hey, why not!  Let’s throw in some pops on “Listen to Mermaids Sing” (聽美人魚唱歌) or some claps on “Watch a Movie” (看場電影).  That sense of discovery extends to every facet of the album, from the instrumentation, to the song structures, to the track selection.  (“The Entertainer” and “Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head” are covered…why not?)

There’s something even infantile about the eclecticism and the approach.  Sometimes that translates into music box cuteness, as on “Dr. Tao’s Orange” (陶醫生的柳丁) and “When Women Get Hungry” (女人肚子餓的時候).  Best is when it turns into terrific pop, like “Not Unrestrained Enough” (不夠放肆) and “Uncertain” (茫然), both of which are beautifully melancholic tunes that aren’t afraid to take odd instrumental and musical turns to make their points.  No matter where that sense of juvenile adventure takes her, Chan seems to land in musical territory uncharted elsewhere in Taiwanese pop circa-1994.  In some sense Washington is more Tori Amos or early Sarah McLachlan than Mando-pop, yet it’s none of the above because Chan refuses to intellectualize her experimentation in terms of familiar musical references.  It’s what slips off her fingers and onto the keyboards that matters.  If the result sounds like Sandee Chan is making it up as she goes along, all the better.

Of course, she wasn’t just making it up.  By 1994, Chan was already a hit on the college rock circuit, and had written songs for superstars like Jeff Chang (張信哲) and Huang Pin-yuan (黃品源).  Which makes Washington Chopped Down the Cherry Tree even more of an accomplishment.  Either Sandee Chan had a superior ability to let her personality shine through her music and voice; or, as producer/songwriter/arranger/singer, she was that solid of a craftswoman that she could produce fresh, sophisticated musical ideas while convincingly maintaining a child-like innocence.  In any case, it makes for a great listen, and a sign of things to come.