Mamma Mia!

I'm touched to blog about this movie and their music, as they involve my very first idol, the ever amazing ABBA. I grew up with a very musical father, and music was one of the fundamental background in my childhood, listening to Elvis, Beatles etc, and loads of music from the 60's and 70's like Close To You, Let It Be, Bridge Over Troubled Water, He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother, Tell Laura I Love Her, It's Now Or Never, and the list goes on. But my very first idol, was definitely ABBA. Mind you, at the of four, I've already started having teenage symptoms like going ga-ga over idols, and I would be running to the stores everytime their out with a new album.

If I remember correctly, their first album I ever bought was Arrival, with songs like Dancing Queen, Knowing Me, Knowing You and Money, Money, Money. Then I started collecting their older albums with songs like Honey, Honey, Waterloo, Hasta Manana and Ring Ring.

These three music videos are some of my most favourite songs from ABBA, Super Trouper, Take A Chance On Me and Chiquitita. But there are just so many more. While I grew up listening to ABBA, my brother indulged in Bee Gees.

When the movie Mamma Mia! came I knew I had to go watch, and what more, the great Meryl Streep is in it! The movie started with the song I Had A Dream, and revealed a totally story line of its own, and it involves a mother and daughter relationship, both in search of love in their lives, a romance for the mother, and tracking down the real father for the daughter.

The movie absolutely did not disappoint at all. Music was great, they improvised the musical arrangements, not too much that it changes the orignal ABBA feel, plus altering some of the lyrics to suit the story. The characters were hillarious, scripts were entertaining. And of course, lots of colourful costumes & grand musical scenes.

Watching Mamma Mia! brought back many great memories to me. I will definitely continue listening to ABBA's music, their tunes still get me singing and moving anytime.

Agnetha, Frida, Benny & Bjorn, this post is dedicated to you. You guys rock!!

Ting-A-Ling-A-Ling...It's The Ting Tings

This is one of the more recent songs which is in my daily humming and must-listen-tracks in my car ride home after work, That's Not My Name by The Ting Tings.


It's just so cool. Their album contains tracks which are just like this song, similar to beats like Toni Basil's Mickey and The Knacks My Sharona. Their style and vocals remind us of the once popular girl-band The Shampoo.

HK After The 80's Diva

I use to follow the music scene in HK during the 80's. It started with Anita Mui. I suppose not one single PLU/trans (who listens to Chinese music during 80's) was not a fan. Then there was Sandy Lam, what a mesmerizing voice. I was never a fan of Sally Yeah, although she was also a diva then. After that it was all about Faye Wong for me. She just became the ultimate trend-setter for Chinese artists then, introducing alternative vocals and tunes, querky and unique fashion senses, absolutely adored her.

Then it all faded. HK's music industry went down the drains for me. Their artists went from bad to worse. 90% of them can't even sing live. Songs were all monotonous. I stopped following their music since then, only holding on to Faye's Mandarin albums which were actually produced in China anyway, not HK.
Then after so many years, finally came Ivana Wong 王菀之. A friend introduced her to me as he knew I would love her similar vocals to Faye. And he was right, I started collecting all Ivana's albums.

What's great about Ivana is, she is a great composer as well. She writes all her songs and also for other artists. She started to gain popularity after singing 'I Am Really Hurt' (我真的受傷了) with Jacky Cheung during his concert. That song was also written by her.

Beyonce - Get Me Bodied (Live Performance)

Everyone who knows me knows how much I love me girl Bee, here's one of my favourite song ever from her, Get Me Bodied. This is a live performance from her Beyonce Experience Tour in L.A. I was lucky enough to witness her concert live in St Louis last year. It was without question the best concert experience in my lifetime. Crowd was crazy, everyone's standing from the beginning till the end. The fact that St Louis had majority blacks made it even more special. They just knew how to move their booties and get on down in the stadium, awesome...

When the song got to the part 'Do the Oh-Oh, Oh-Oh', everyone went "Oh-Oh! Oh-Oh!", when it went 'Stop! Cool off, cool off', everyone fanned themselves like divas, when it went 'Do the old school dance, the old school dance', everyone did the old silly school-dance moves, when it went "Do the Naomi Campbell walk, the Naomi Campbell walk', everyone strutted themselves up & down like nobody's business, and when it went 'Pose for the camera now click, click', everyone posed like they never posed before. Now tell me where in the world can we get that kind of craziness in concerts here in Malaysia, like never!!

Some people asked me whether was it worth it to spend more than a thousand ringgit to fly to St Louis (a detour from my main routes during my US hols trip) just to watch her, my answer would be "I'd do it all over again if I could," and gave them a Beeeeyoncilicious smirk...

Jason Mraz - It Keeps Getting Better

Jason for me has one of the most beautiful voices by far. His light-hearted tunes sung in his soothing yet cheeky & querky vocals, are just lovely to listen to. I fell in love with his music when I heard his 'You and I Both'. That was back in 2002 I think. Still love the song each time I listen to it. But lately Jason has shown us that he has more to offer besides good tunes and a good voice.

He has progressed quite a bit hasn't he? Way to go, Jason. Keep the good things going I'd say, wink wink!!

This is his latest single 'I'm Yours'

Give It To Me - Maddie's Next Single

Give It To Me is Maddie's next single from Hard Candy after 4 Minutes.

Here's just Matthew Allen Clasby & Michael Troy reviewing Hard Candy in 12 Inches (The Gays On Film). Tot it was quite fun seeing two fairies talking bout the album thee hee...