WINNIE HSIN (WHY) (ROCK RECORDS) (OCT99) 

MUSIC STYLE : MAINSTREAM POP BALLADS / LIGHT-TEMPO TRACKS

OVERRIDING THEME : LOVE

After more than one year, Winnie Hsin (or Xin Xiao Qi) has come out with her long-awaited brand new Mandarin album "Why".  Originally slated for a late October or early November release date, it was brought forward to 12 October because the record company felt that many victims of the 921 Taiwan earthquake need a reassuring voice as Winnie's to soothe their weeping hearts.

Like her previous "Every Woman" album, the music production in this new release is supervised by Jonathan Lee.  Producers include Li Zheng Fan, Xue Zhong Ming, Jim Lee and Liu Zhi Hong.  The final ten tracks included here are reportedly chosen from over one hundred demo tracks.

There are two music versions of the ballad title track "Why" : one (Track 1) is produced by Jonathan Lee while the other (Track 4) is produced by Li Zheng Fan.  Personally, I prefer Jonathan Lee's version as it is more dramatic relative to Li Zheng Fan's calmer version and as such, better portrays the female protagonist's heartache on learning that her ex-boyfriend has still not gotten over their past relationship. 

After the previous successful hit ballad "Admit", Pan Xie Qing has once again composed another nice and recommended new ballad Track 7 "Lost Way" for Winnie.

This album contains a fair mix of ballads and light-tempo tracks.  In fact, besides the afore-mentioned two ballads, the rest of the slow tracks are also highly-listenable, such as Track 6 "Let You Fly" (composed by Huang Zhong Yuan and co-written with Jonathan Lee), Track 9 "Rainbow" (composed by Xue Zhong Ming and written by Adam Hsu Chang De) and Track 11 "Silent Rain" (composed by Wu Xu Wen and co-written with Jonathan Lee).  However the same cannot be said of the light-tempo numbers - most of them sound rather forgettable, only a handful of them stand out, example the western-folk style Track 3 "I'm So Fortunate" (lyrics written by Hong Kong's Lin Xi) and Track 5 "Vent" (written by the duo Liu Zhi Hong and Liu Si Ming).

On the whole, the good-quality ballads and the impeccable vocals of Winnie make this latest offering a touching listening experience.

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