Friday, November 18, 2011

Midnight Kiss

午夜的吻別

Seemingly out of nowhere Aaron Kwok (郭富城) stormed the CantoPop scene with his 1991 album 到底有誰能夠告訴我 (If Only Someone Would Tell Me). If ONLY someone would tell us to prepare for the Mandarin invasion. For decades Cantonese lyrics dominated the Hong Kong music industry ever since Sam Hui (許冠傑) popularized it. A lot of us grew up with Cantonese pop culture and we would refuse to listen to Mandarin music or watch movies in Mandarin simply because we don't understand the dialect. Then in the early 90's Mandarin made a come back with artists like Aaron Kwok and Jimmy Lin (林志穎). Even established CantoPop artists such as Leon Lai (黎明), Andy Lau (劉德華) and Jacky Cheung (張學友) would have to produce a Mandarin album every year along with their Cantonese albums in order to stay in the game. Along with the music we grew a comfort to Mandarin and ultimately appreciated the diversity of dialects and languages of not just Chinese pop culture but with Asian pop culture as a whole. We grew out of the island. Do we have Aaron Kwok to thank for this?

午夜的吻別 (Midnight Kiss) was the last song on the A side of the 到底有誰能夠告訴我 (If Only Someone Would Tell Me) album. With a soothing guitar melody and longing lyrics Aaron reminds us that it is tough to leave that special someone after a kiss goodnight. Haters can hate all they want (including myself) but, Aaron earned his place with the 4 Heavenly Kings of CantoPop (四大天王). How many male singers can hit those high notes? Also, how many singers can choreograph their own dance moves? Aaron first started his career as a TVB back up dancer. His biggest influence is Michael Jackson and he aspired to be like him. In his own right, I can safely say that Aaron didn't do too shabby being one of the biggest idols in Hong Kong history. There's no dancing in the video below for 午夜的吻別 (Midnight Kiss). I'll cover that part of Aaron Kwok later but, in the meantime, come reminisce with me. Which goodnight kiss do you remember most?

powerofwe's channel
The sound is a little funky because this video is ripped from a karaoke VCD where the left and right channel is separated. Left being instrumental only and right having Aaron's singing. If you know the song you can shut off your right channel and sign along with the music.

作詞:蔣東良 作曲:徐嘉良 編曲:郭小霖

輕輕的說聲 Good night
耳畔穿梭的風
是我深情的夢
人漸漸散去 夜漸漸冷卻
世界剩下我和你

輕輕的說聲 Good night
印在臉龐的吻
是否你也會懂
夜已經沉醉 燈光也熄滅
轉載來自 魔鏡歌詞網
我的心跳動不停

午夜的吻別
就像星星燃燒不睡
捨不得離去 怕自己空虛
把你留在夢裡

午夜的吻別
就像海洋狂熱不定
多盼望明天 愛不會改變
天天送你回家
直到永遠

2 comments:

  1. it's a karaoke vcd but why does Aaron's voice still there??????? why can't it be like THAI MUSIC karaoke where the singer's voice is block completely??? THAI music karaoke have both the vocal and instrumental track where you can ether block the vocal track to hear on the instrument or you can block the instrumental to hear only the vocal, or you can play both tracks. CHINESE KARAOKE TECHNOLOGY IS LACKING BEHIND THAT OF THAILAND.

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    1. For changing audio tracks on VCD's, either the Left or Right Channel must be chosen. So you'll have to turn down the left speakers to just have the track without Aaron's voice. DVD's on the other hand, you can choose multiple audio settings without sacrificing stereo sound. It's not because of Chinese Karaoke Technology that is lacking it's just the limitations of CD (VCD) technology.

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