Faye Wong, Mystery, 1994
Faye Wong, Mystery, 1994
ranking: #51 on 1993-2005 list
The Association of Music Workers’ Top 200 list can’t technically be called a list of “Taiwanese albums” if we define “Taiwanese” by either nationality of singer or location of production. In fact, the list includes albums produced by singers from Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, the United States, and elsewhere. Rather, according to the China Times Publishing book, the list is limited to albums in dialects prevalent in Taiwan: Mandarin, Aboriginal, and Minnan. (As far as I can tell, there aren’t any Hakka songs, though I’m far from having listened to them all. And sorry expats: it doesn’t seem like English is included.)
Perhaps some might criticize the list for being so lax with the rules. After all, more actively seeking to define a “national” character in popular music might be an interesting objective. But any such attempts at finding a national essence is doomed to failure, especially because the music industry in Taiwan is so tightly connected to audiences, singers, record labels, and other media throughout the Asian region. Thus to speak of “Taiwan pop” is to consider networks of heterogenization and border-crossing. The result is an industry that incorporates everything around it, and a public reared on a “local” music that’s in fact transnational.
It’s perhaps appropriate to start this discussion with Faye Wong (王菲), the Beijing-born model-turned-singer who made it big in Hong Kong singing Cantonese songs, then exploded further in her native Mandarin in her non-native Taiwan, and then to China where she continues to be a pop goddess, albeit in retirement. To speak nothing of her stint in Japanese, as well as a brief non-musical sojourn to the United States.
Recorded under Faye’s original stage name Shirley Wong (王靖雯) for PolyGram’s Hong Kong subsidiary Cinepoly Records, Mystery (迷) is Wong’s first Mandarin album, produced as she was transitioning from traditional Canto-pop to alternative pop-rock. Some of the songs are Mandarin versions of tracks from her 1993 Cantonese albums No Regrets (執迷不悔) and 100,000 Whys (十萬個為什麼). “Intoxication” (沉醉) and “Cold War” (冷戰) are sung and arranged almost exactly the same as in their original versions, while others like “Feeble” (軟弱) have undergone significant changes — in this case, the soft vocals and slow-jam instrumentation reflect the increased pessimism of the lyrics as a result of the translation.
The most enduring change is on the beloved “No Regrets” (執迷不悔), which is slowed down, but amped up, with a come-into-my-dreams intro and a marching-band beat. I prefer the acoustic-driven original (in both Cantonese and Mandarin versions) whose modest opening and anxious buildup verse let the chorus really explode with singalong ferocity: “be it hardship, be it tears, it’s still my tragedy.” The 1994 remix is the preferred version in karaokes, but all three are fantastic: pop ballads of the highest order, structurally, vocally, and instrumentally. The lyrics speak of swallowing ones tears and never looking back — the kind of new-woman independence that Faye Wong represented after returning from New York and taking control of her public image. (It’s around this time that Faye traded her supermodel locks for her now-trademark short hair.)
Mystery plays as something of a greatest-hits record, though it only compiles compositions between 1993 and 1994. The reason is because Faye’s evolving musical preoccupations are chronicled nicely, from American R&B, to melodic pop, to experimental sounds. “Heart Too Wild” (心太野) is Faye channeling early-90s soul, complete with a spoken word intro, “ooh baby” asides, and Mariah Carey vocal gymnastics.
“I’m Willing” (我願意), one of Faye Wong’s all-time best, has such beautifully soaring melodies they seem to come from an era of pop innocence thought long lost. The unbridled romantic dedication the narrator sings of (“For you I’m willing / to forget my name. / For even just a second / I’ll stay in your embrace. / To lose touch with the world would not be a pity.”) is even more powerful considering Faye’s famous independence and feminist self-stylings.
The closing track “Only Willing for Myself” (只有我自己) combines Mando-pop melodies, Chinese folk-song vocals, and electronic instruments, a fusion of the many sensibilities Faye Wong represented in her first few years. “Cold War” (冷戰) is a surprisingly faithful and effective cover of Tori Amos’s “Silent All These Years” — not an easy song to sing given its rapid delivery, long phrasings, and emotional shifts. It’s easy to criticize Wong for perhaps not retaining Amos’s darkness, but to her credit, Wong’s radio-friendly delivery is a sign of her own greatness. To turn an aching performance about rape and other traumas into avant-pop is testament to how effortlessly Faye Wong handles whatever material she’s given, regardless of genre or difficulty.
“Cold War” is more accurately a Mandarin cover of Faye Wong’s Cantonese cover of Tori Amos’s English song. With each round of changes comes thematic and stylistic transformations, and when it finally arrives in Mandarin for the Taiwan market, it has collected traces of multiple cultures interacting with each other, sometimes in concert, sometimes in cacophony. So though the song is sung by a Beijing singer for a Hong Kong subsidiary of a multinational record company, is there a more fitting metaphor for Taiwanese pop culture?
Takes on 200 
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