Event Review: Lala’s Concert‏

就在十月五日，我们南大很荣幸的邀请到台湾兴晋女歌手，徐佳莹，来到我校进行校园演唱。身为飞声广播电台一分子的思仪与宛仪也很幸运地参加这次的活动，现场感受到徐佳莹别具爆发力的动人歌声。
在校园演唱会开始之前，主办单位连续不断地在台上播放徐佳莹的音乐录像影片。尽管只是透过影像分享她的歌声，整个现场已深深地被她独具特色的音色给吸引了，迫不及待地期盼演唱会的开始。
盼了许久，主持人丁志勇正式欢迎徐佳莹入场。只见一位娇小玲珑，身高不足五尺的女生从后台步上舞台。不难发现，徐佳莹邻家女孩的外表与她浓厚的嗓音毫无直接联系！她一开场就为我们带来具有台湾歌仔戏特色的歌曲《身骑白马》。她将这首歌曲诠释得十分生动，感情细腻。尤其是她具有爆发力的歌唱演绎，可真说得上是“不鸣则已，一鸣惊人”，犹如磁铁般地将现场几百个人的目光都投聚在她身上。
紧接这首歌之后的，便是徐佳莹与志勇的简短访谈。整段访谈由主宾问答的形式构成，间中更是穿插了不少诙谐有趣的幽默问答。徐佳莹不仅外表甜美可爱，她回答问题时的对答如流，灵巧婉转，更是反映了她内在机智的一面。
徐佳莹随后也带来了首张个人专辑甜蜜抒情歌曲《VIP》。这首歌曲，曲风轻快，现场的观众朋友都逐一地摆动身子，将其融入这曲子的欢乐情境之中。之后徐佳莹陆续地演唱了专辑中动听的抒情歌曲如《一样的月光》，《失落沙洲》等。她的歌声细而不腻，在场的观众们听出耳油，被她那绕梁三日的美丽歌喉深深吸引。
以下就是一些简短的小影片。。。请尽情欣赏！

Photos:
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0026.jpg
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0029.jpg
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0030.jpg
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0031.jpg
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0034.jpg
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/img_0036.jpg

Video:
http://radio.ntu.edu.sg/lala/mvi0044.mov

Album Review: 15th Anniversary

A ‘long-lived’ group which has dominated the Japanese rock-music industry since 1984. Yes, they have been around for 15 long years and they are still as popular as ever.

Glay is a rock/ pop band which composes and produce its own songs and albums. Besides rock and pop, they have also composed songs of different genres like reggae and gospel.

In 2009, they are back with a new album named ‘15th Anniversary’ to mark their 15 years since the release of their debut single ‘Rain’. 15th Anniversary is released in 2 parts. Part 1 has already been released on June 10th and Part 2 is released on Oct 21.

Part 2 named ‘The Great Vacation Vol. 2 – Super Best of Glay’ includes their hit songs like ‘However’, Winter again’ and ‘Beloved’ and in addition, 11 brand new songs. Personally, I like songs like ‘Soul love’, ‘Winter again’, ‘I’m in Love’, etc which are more to the pop, ballad genre. However, if you are into rock, you can try listening to songs like ‘Yuwaku’, ‘Burst’, ’Acid head’ , etc.

Overall, this album is quite good and worth listening to. And if you are interested in their music, you can also try listening to the songs in Part 1 and Part 3 of this triple disc album.

Track listings:

01.Yuwaku
02.Soul love
03.pure soul
04.I’m in Love
05.Be with you
06.Winter,again
07.Survival
08.Kokodehanai,Dokokahe
09.Happiness -WINTER MIX-
10.Tomadoi
11.SPECIAL THANKS
12.Goran, Sekai ha Kanasimi ni michiteiruyo（Re-Recorded Version）
13.Two bell silence（Re-Recorded Version）
14.Theme of Shutter speeds（Re-Recorded Version）
15.Acid head（Re-Recorded Version）
16. Burst（Re-Recorded Version）

Movie Review: (500) Days of Summer

Directed by: Marc Webb
Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel
Language: English
This rather quirky romcom (romance-comedy) starts off on a rather strange note beginning not with the introduction of how the main characters met each other, but rather, with the day when they broke up. One might think that this is a rather weird way to start a movie (especially a romance movie) but it eventually works out pretty well. Director Marc Webb took a very daring approach in this movie and it paid off very well indeed. The movie is a breath of fresh air in an otherwise rather stale genre where each movie is as full of clichés as the next one that follows it.
The movie is in short, about the relationship between Tom Hansen (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Summer Finn (Zooey Deschanel) over the 500 days – from the day they first met (Day 1), till the day when Tom finally accepts the fact that their relationship is but a thing of the past (Day 500). Rather than choosing to follow a straight chronological order throughout the movie, Marc Webb chose to embark on an endless series of flashbacks, jumping to random days throughout the relationship in not much of an order.
What follows is a rather messy but splendidly done firsthand view into the memories of Tom, who was at the beginning of the movie confused by the manner in which Summer had dumped him. He tries desperately to search through his befuddled mind for any reason which could have caused her to leave. As Tom searches through his mind for the reason, he soon comes to realise that life is not always as sweet as he makes it out to be. Sometimes, people tend to choose to remember only the good memories and the bad ones are almost always chucked aside and hidden away. After finally realizing that, Tom then decided to finally step out of the shadow of his past and once again look towards the future for new beginnings.

(written by Nurul Badriah)

Album Review: Sound G

A drastic change from their usual girl-next-door image to a provocative visual style image, these girls are sparking a new K-pop trend but at the same time receiving doubts and criticisms too.

Great is the word for their 3rd full length album of Brown Eyed Girls- Sound G. Their most promoted single- Abracadabra received the most controversies because of its lyrics and music video. Abracadabra is not a song with the usual love-stuck, love-song, heart-breaking lyrics. Instead, the lyrics talks about magic spells hate and love. It’s definitely not a typical Korean pop song which bores you with their typical lyrics and melody.

Their first single, Candy man which is not as heavily promoted as Abracadabra is an upbeat R&B song. It’s a typical song that can be expected from Brown Eyed Girls. Listening to their 2 previous ablum, candy man doesn’t differ too much from heir old style.

Apart from candy man, the rest of the album shows a new style of music from the Brown Eyed Girls. It’s such a waste that neither of the girls have the talent in self-composing their own songs and lyrics. If not, they would have had made it big since their debut and not until their 3rd album.

Overall, it’s an album that you wouldn’t regret on spending your money on. =)

Track listing:

Glam Girl
Abracadabra
중독 (Addiction)
Candy Man
Moody Night
이상한 일 ( Strange Days)
못 가 (Can’t Go)
여자가 있어도 (Although You Have A Girl)
잘할게요 (I’ll Do Well)
Abracadabra (Instrumental)
Candy Man (Instrumental)

(written by Written by: Heidi Chua)

Movie Review: Inglorious Bastards

Directed by: Quentin Tarantino
Main Cast: Brad Pitt, Mélanie Laurent, Christoph Waltz

Inglorious Bastards is a film directed by Quentin Tarantino, and it has been well received for several weeks in various countries after it goes on showing. The plot is about a group of American-Jewish soldiers, “The Bastards”, who went around France killing and scalping the Nazi soldiers, thus spreading fear throughout the country. The place was set at a Nazi-occupied France in World War II. This is one part of the story. The other part is about a teenage girl who plotted her revenge for her family. At the very beginning of the film, we see how a French-Jewish family was betrayed by their neighbour who had allowed them to hide under his floorboards for several weeks. The whole French-Jewish family was massacred except a teenage girl who escaped, and let off by the commander of the killing squad. The two parts of story come together when they were to kill the same target, and with each other’s help, they finished off the Nazi.

This film, violent as it is, shows you explicitly how a scalp can be sliced off from a head. Gun shootings were generous and brutality was what that made the characters achieve their mission. The film was an interesting mix of French, German, and English. Each language took up one-third of the movie time, and it would be great if you understand any of these languages. Most of the time, the French and German languages were translated. However, at certain times, they were not subtitled, and this creates tension. It is the helpless feeling that you have when you can’t know what the soldiers were talking about. There is some secrecy retained, which is exactly what a war is about. Quentin Tarantino’s films have his style. By just watching the film, we know it’s his work. He likes to film characters from their feet, or follows a character from the back, and suddenly turns the camera to show the character’s face. Do look out for these characteristics when you are watching. Inglourious Bastards is a comical yet sarcastic movie. Quentin Tarantino fuses some jokes into the violent movie. The purpose, I suppose, is not to make a violent movie less serious, but to make funny of the some characters who can be stupid in a war at times. The sarcasm however, does not seem to be strong enough.

The movie is a really an interesting take on Nazi and it is definitely worth the money to watch (duration and quality are both good), and I’m saying from a non-film-maker’s point of view. If you are studying filming, this movie is the one that is worth learning from.

(written by Lim Chenghong)