Sunday, March 24, 2013

HK Artist Spotlight: Terry Zou

I've wanted to write a post on Terry for a while now, but I wanted to wait until his album was released and yay! It's finally here ^_^.


As of right now, one of my favourite Hong Kong singers is Terry Zou. I'm aware that not a lot of people know him because he is still relatively new but here goes...

Terry Zou Man Jing (鄒文正) is a Hong Kong singer who debuted back in 2011. He's back with his second album this year in 2013 called "Terry Zou Album 2013". He is from Guangzhou, China, which makes him fluent in both Mandarin and Cantonese. If I'm not wrong, he was already a singer before he was signed to his music company Gold Typhoon. Terry can play the guitar, the piano, the drums, the violin and the Chinese instrument, Er-hu.

In case you're wondering, the first time I noticed Terry was on TV. His MV was playing, and I quite liked the song so I Google-d it; because he was a new face, I was curious to who this singer was and where he came from.

Terry's a big fan of rock music. He fell in love with rock music because of his dad. His dad was in a band and he would bring Terry along with him when he was on tour. This influenced Terry a lot, because once he was in high school, he joined bands making him a good guitarist, drummer and pianist. He still mentions his dad a lot in his interviews nowadays. =) In his first album, he incorporated rock music into a couple of songs.

Terry Zou Debut Album tracklist
01. 我是人
02. 城中人
03. 留低她於廁所
04. 肚餓
05. 盲目
06. 我只是童鞋
07. 城市人 (國語)

The first track, "我是人", is a playful, whimsical song that I really like. This was the first song he plugged. The second song, "城中人", was arranged and produced by HK band Rubberband. The song is quite slow at the beginning, but it gradually speeds up with its rock elements. "城市人" is the Mandarin version of "城中人". The first MV I saw of Terry's was actually "城中人"!

The third track, "留低她於廁所", is a song with an unusual song title. He wrote the lyrics for this song, if I remember correctly. The MV for this song is quite interesting too. The song's pace is kind of the same throughout but still a catchy song!

"肚餓", which translates to "Hungry" in English, is a catchy rock song that I really like. Track 5, "盲目", is my absolute favourite song of Terry's! It might sound like a typical love song, but I love it. It is one of his most popular songs amongst them all. "我只是童鞋" is also one of my favourite songs by Terry. The song showcases his singing skills very well because of the long notes at the end and I love how sweet it sounds. It is actually a remake of a Korean song.

Earlier this week, Terry FINALLY released his second album (it was postponed several times). I am quite disappointed since there are only 7 songs on the album, and 4 of them I've already heard beforehand, but nevertheless, I still really like the songs from this album overall. 

01. 非人生活 (Inhuman Life)
02. 無關痛癢 (Irrelevance)
03. 糟蹋 (Ruin)
04. 最後警告 (國) (Final Warning)
05. 因為難得,所以難 (國) (Because It's Precious)
06. 愛得不是時候 (國) (Wrong Timing)
07. 紅茶或咖啡 (國) (與AOA合唱) (Tea or Coffee)


"Inhuman Life" was released last year, around 6 months ago, so it's actually quite old. Funny story, I actually thought the song was kind of boring when it first came out, but I think it's one of those songs that grow on you after a while.


Live version of "Because It's Precious" on 360 music show


"Tea or Coffee" MV

The songs "Because It's Precious" and "Tea and Coffee" were also released last year along with their MV's. My favourite out of the three is "Because It's Precious". I loved it from the first time I heard it! "Tea or Coffee" is a cute upbeat Mandarin song with AOA.


Live version of "Irrelevance". The album version of this song has different lyrics now.

 
Live at press conference

My favourite song out of his new album at the moment is "Irrelevance". I loved it the first time I heard him sing it, which was on Music Cafe. There's just something about this song that makes it different from the rest. I like the softness in his voice in this song. I highly recommend this! "Ruin" is a song that I also highly recommend and I think this is the song he will plug next. "Wrong Timing" is the Mandarin version of "Ruin" and I have to be honest, I think the Mandarin version sounds better but I still like both versions.

"Final Warning" is a rock song (so his style). I'm glad he included a rock song because it's a style of music he likes and this song is pretty fast compared to the rest. I remember he mentioned in an interview that people like him singing slow songs more, so that would explain why there are more slow songs in this album.

I think Terry needs more exposure because he's a very good singer (he sings well live too ;)), and I feel that more people should know who he is. A lot of people call him the "pirated" version of Raymond Lam (in terms of look), but I don't see the resemblance.

Terry also was in an episode of Music Cafe with new duo group GoldEN (he recently recorded his own episode of Music Cafe!) and covered songs by Eason Chan and Sandy Lam. I really like the Eason song he covered.



And one more clip of Terry singing Faye Wong's "A Love Letter to Myself". I'm a fan of this song and I just love the fact he sang it even if it was just a tiny bit of the song and he didn't know all the words.



Terry's already filmed the MV for "Irrelevance", and he's filming another MV for "Ruin". This means there might be another version of his 2013 album coming out soon, considering the fact that it has no MVs included at the moment. Anyway, I do hope his album sells well! Let's support this talented Gemini male together ;)

If you're interested in following his news, here's his weibo: http://weibo.com/terryzou

If you've gotten this far...thanks for reading ^_^ If do you end up listening to his songs, please do comment in the section below and tell me what you guys think!

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