Zhang Ruohan, or Angela Chang's new album's title track Aurora quickly became a favorite on both mainland and Taiwanese music charts.
Taiwan based pop singer Zhang Ruohan, or Angela Chang has recently released her new album, Aurora, with the title track quickly becoming a favorite on both mainland and Taiwanese music charts. Let's follow Xiaohua to have a listen to the songs of this slight girl, who is jokingly known in Taiwan as the "hobbit singer."
At Channel V's 11th Chinese Music Awards Ceremony earlier this year, it was Angela Chang who deservedly took the Best Newcomer Award. An incredible success story of the past year, this actress-turned singer has a sweet but robust voice. Chang made her first hotly anticipated appearance on the music scene with the stylistically diverse album "Over the Rainbow." Therefore let's begin the music with a listen to the chart-topping tune "Fable," from this debut album.
Angela first made a name for herself by starring in two trendy dramas, namely "MVP Lover" and "Dolphin Bay Sweetheart." Actually, this slim, tiny girl had signed with Taiwan's Linfair Records back in 2001, before making her name as an actress. However, at this early stage she wasn't really given the chance to prove her singing ability. Angela's first ever song was part of the soundtrack for the aforementioned drama, MVP Lover, but this background music didn't leave much of an impression on the TV audience. In marked contrast, her second song, "Lost Beauty," became an instant hit, as well as the most frequently downloaded ring-tone for mobile phones. In 2004, Angela finally had her first album released. Now, let's listen to "Cry," a pop rock effort on which Angela's impressive vocal strength came as a surprise to many listeners.
Angela actually grew up in Canada, and before returning to Taiwan, she had taken part in various singing competitions there. She even won a few of these Canadian contests, but yet still failed to find favour with the Taiwan record labels. Finally Zhang Gengyu, head of Linfair Records, decided to take her on, even though the company considered her voice to be too 'stiff.' Despite misgivings, Angela's first album rewarded Linfair's faith, by selling over 500,000 copies, a success which came in part because of her presence on-screen as an actress.
At the end of last year Angela released her second album, "Aurora." We would now like to play you the title track, which makes use of some choral singing as well as the distinctive sounds of a bagpipe.
Weighing only 35 kilograms and standing at a mere 1.58 meters, Angela has been given a lot of nicknames, like "Pocket Singer" or even "Super Dreamy Doll with Magic Eyes." Many people say that in appearance Angela resembles famous mainland actress Zhou Xun, and in vocal delivery she imitates the style of Singapore based singer Stefanie Sun. Despite her initial success, Angela may find it hard to sustain her long cherished dream of making a career in music. On the one hand, this 23-year-old has the potential to become a versatile star, with her love of R & B, Soul, Blues, Jazz and Reggae. On the other hand, some critics have said that her lack of experience has weakened some of the musical material provided by her songwriters. Indeed, far from encouraging her versatility, they consider that Angela is more suitable for love songs with relatively simple melodies. Yet despite the uncertainty of her singing future, Angela has already begun to prepare for her third album. And while you wait for this upcoming release, we'll leave you with one more track from her second album, this time called "Floating Cloud."
