Heart Beat

Erm, excuse me Jay Chou. LEE HOM'S BACK.

+Just when we were all wondering what this guy's been up to, he springs back to the A-list once again with his brand new album, HEART BEAT心跳. And. That. Cover. Isn't it super cool? (I have those sunnies too! LOL.)

+This guy is truly a genius. While listening, you think to yourself, "Wow, the music arrangement is amazing! I like the feel of the whole album! I like how the piano and guitar and strings weave together seamlessly! I love the drum beats! I adore the lyrics of the song!" So you check the book for its credits. And guess what? Lee Hom is the lyricist, composer, producer, music arranger, pianist, guitarist (yes, both acoustic and electric), drummer and recording engineer! The only thing he doesn't do is mixing. If we didn't know any better, we would think SONY-BMG was low on budget or something. He really deserves the title MUSIC MAN.

+The genre is wide as well, ranging from the techno-rock of 爱得 得体to heart-wrenching rock ballad 心跳, to the funky bad-ass 我完全没有任何理由理你, a duet 另一个天堂, R&B 竞争对手to chinked-out 摇滚怎么了!!. In this song, the amount of "Chinese-element" added is just right, without sounding too over and deliberated, unlike the superfluous 心中的日月. There are also many more ballads in the album worth listening.

+Okay, we can't really compare him and Jay Chou, because these 2 singers have their own unique style. It's like when you hear an unknown song for the first time on the radio and by the first few seconds, you will go, "Hey, that's a Jay song." or "Hey, that's a Lee Hom song.". Their individual style is that unique. Overall, Lee Hom's style is a more mature one, while Jay's song is really more bubblegum.

+So here's the low-down. In this album, Lee Hom is how we all liked him: cool, floppy haired, bad-ass and sophisticated; not the short hair, all-against-globalwarming preacher in the last album - which flopped. So, yes Lee Hom, we liked Heart Beat, so stop producing crap like 改变自己and just 做回自己.

+Overall: 4/5. Half a star for the freebies.