I think this album showcases some of the more radical musical styles that Tracy Huang has tried up till that point in her career, in 1993.
For one, her collaboration with the rocker Wu Bai, and Chen Sheng, the musician with the rustic and earthy charm, could not fail to add a hard-edged masculinity and a steeliness into her music as well as her way of singing. A prominent example of such radical changes in the singer can be found in the DA XUE SHENG (THE UNDERGRADUATE), which is the closest that Tracy Huang gets to rock n' roll, what with the brutal power and rugged passion of the electric guitars, the raw metallic sound of the drums, as well Chen Sheng's earthy and guttural vocals in the background. Tracy's voice here reveals much of the steel in her, some of that hard and passionate glitter in her voice that makes it more rugged and hardy than any of the other voices of hers that I've heard. Chen Sheng's evocative lyrics recreate with nostalgia some images of the 60s, and I cannot help but wonder whether some of the words actually record what Tracy Huang was feeling at that point in time: "Fate has changed me, Has led me wandering through life, So many years searching for my innocence/ Fate has changed me, But it cannot change Rock n' Roll, I'm a singer in pursuit of perfection, without regret".
This husky scent of masculinity sets the flavour for much of the second half of the album where the influence of Chen Sheng is distinctively stronger. In BEI FENG (SOUTH WIND) Tracy Huang actually sings together with him and, to match his vocals which are rougher and coarser in texture as compared to hers, Tracy had to pack in that extra bit of punch and force into her own singing. The result is a nice combination, with Chen Sheng's earthy voice being set against Tracy's own forceful and no-nonsense singing style. The music arrangement of this song is also rather distinctive, being equally charged with adrenaline and packed with a rustic power. Tracy Huang shows that she can sing with character and with a certain masculinity so as to be able to hold her own against the rest of the men.
The third song which is stamped with the distinctively Chen Sheng feel is BA HAO QIU YI (THE NUMBER 8 JERSEY). First of all, Chen Sheng's lyrics are among some of the most evocative that we have seen in all of Tracy's songs, and nostalgia features strongly in the several songs that he wrote for her in this album. The earthy charm of JERSEY comes in its description of life of a simpler generation: purple flower blossoming on a fence; an old father and his mutt sitting by the door; red bean ice balls in the month of August; night breeze blowing away the smoke as the sun sets. Tracy's duet with Chen Sheng sounds more like the narration of a story than the singing of a song. It is a story of perhaps a schoolgirl's infatuation with a boy, dressed in a number 8 jersey, as he stands at her fence with his bicycle, the evening breeze blowing. It is a remembrance of things past, and the feeling of a sense of loss and sorrow in watching how the years have passed. Indeed, this gentle sorrow and regret is present in many of the songs that Chen Sheng wrote in this album, and the melancholy is unmistakable. However, the story of JERSEY is told with a direct and straightforward candour so that it does not sink into excessive sentimentality or affectation.
This mood of reflection and remembrance continues with the final track HUANG JIN SE SUI YUE (THOSE GOLDEN DAYS), whose lilting and simple tune and the music of the harmonica end the album like a lullaby. Again, it is not clear as to how much of the (rather sentimental) lyrics actually record the singer's state of mind at that time: "When my hair is white will I still remember clearly those golden days, or will they also fade along with memories? I wish to exchange all my wealth for a warm embrace from my kin, on every night where dreams come, I can smile like a child".
If the second half of this album has a harder and more rugged edge to it, then the first half retains much of Tracy's femininity under the production of Jonathan Lee and Dick Lee. Dick Lee's JI MENG (SENDING A DREAM) is a tour de force performance for Tracy Huang who, with her lush and sweetly fragrant vocals, convey the ethereal and dream-like qualities of the song. Jonathan Lee's DONG CHENG SHI LI WAI (TEN MILES OUT OF DONG CHENG) is another tale of regret and sorrow, but this time with a distinctly Chinese feel to the song, in terms of its more poetic phrasing and selection of imagery, as contrasted with the earthiness of Chen Sheng's lyrics.
By now one can tell that this album is one of Tracy Huang's stronger performance in recent years, with her revealing a spunky and gritty side to her singing style that one would not have thought possible. There is also a candid and straightforward strength in her interpretation of several of the Chen Sheng numbers that harks back to the ease and confidence with which she handled the folk-rock pieces in the album NI NAN. However, Tracy's fragrantly feminine vocals also found full expression in lovely songs like SENDING A DREAM, her femininity providing a subtle contrast with her strength in the second half of the album.
Unfortunately, the album fails in not having a strong enough title track which will serve to provide a common thread that links all the songs together into a coherent whole. The title piece, NING YUAN XIAN XIN (CHOOOSING TO BELIEVE) is unfortunately rather run-of-the-mill and colourless, both in terms of the melody, music arrangement, and singing style. Notwithstanding this little glitch, the overall selection of songs in this album is bold and innovative, even refreshing. Older fans who have become accustomed to Tracy's decidedly feminine singing in her past albums may find BELIEVE rather difficult to accept. Others have said that her voice is unsuitable for singing rock influenced songs. However, unless she tries she will never know and for Tracy Huang, change has always been her trademark, without which she would not have survived the vagaries of the music scene for over 25 years. |
