As with her debut Mandarin album, over half of the songs here (to be exact, six out of the total ten tracks) are composed by Tanya herself.  She has even penned the Mandarin lyrics for one of her own compositions for the first time.  Three of the songs here are covers of her English numbers found originally in her latest English album "Luck" : "Take A Day Off" is the Mandarin equivalent of "Luck", "Understanding" whose English version is "(Next Time Around) I Won't Feel The Same" and "Stretch A Bit" which is the Mandarin counterpart of "Drive!".

The first single is the title track ballad "Remember" composed by Tanya and written by Yao Qian.  The song is basically about reminiscing a past love.  It is produced by local musician Adam Lee who has collaborated with her since her very first English outing "Bored".  

The second single is the mid-tempo country-folk song "Your Temperature" written and produced by Yuan Wei Ren.

Other producers include Tanya herself, Chen Wei (who composed Tanya's hit song "Breathe" or "Hu Xi" and has written a new track for her here), local music arranger Joshua Wan and her musician boyfriend Bernhard "Lupo" Groinig.  Speaking of her beau, her record company gave her a pleasant surprise recently by flying him into Taiwan secretly without her knowledge and arranging him to appear in her album press conference.  Tanya was reportedly overwhelmed with emotions that she openly showered her boyfriend with public affection via hugs and deep kisses right in front of the whole media. 

Finally, members of her recently established fan club "The Blue Toby Gang" may be pleased to see a more feminine, softer and beautiful image of Tanya featured in the cover photo and the inner album sleeves.

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For the benefit of those who have no inkling of what's going on, here's a summary : Fei Xiang is the idol of popular TV host cum singer Matilda Tao Jing Ying.  That was way back in the early eighties when she was still fifteen years old.  The dare-to-say Tao Zi not only revealed that he was her first fantasy sex partner, she even thought of bearing a child with him!  When Fei Xiang "mysteriously" disappeared from the Taiwan music scene without a word,  there have not been much reports about his whereabouts.  Tao Zi therefore hoped to enlist the assistance of the "Super Sunday" segment - "Super Task" - to search for her beloved long-lost idol.  When Fei Xiang finally appeared in the show, everyone in Taiwan was bowed over by his charm and good looks, this particular episode has become the highest viewer rating achieved by "Super Sunday" in its last two years of broadcasting.  And that begins the Fei Xiang-craze in Taiwan.

In "Super Sunday"

For those younger-generation surfers, here's some background info on Fei Xiang : he is around 40 years old now, he is of American-Chinese mix blood and can be considered as the very first ABC singer to enter the Taiwan pop music scene,  he towers at about 190cm, he began his showbiz career twenty years ago by acting in a TV serial segment directed by Sylvia Chang, he released his first album "Liu Lian" in 1982.  Between 1982 to 1986, he churned out a total of four albums, the first three with EMI Music and the last one with the then Polygram Music (now known as Universal Music).  Because of family concerns, he shifted his career base to China in 1986 (note : he reunited with his grandmother who was living in China).  As the China-Taiwan relations were not that cordial back then, he sacrificed his Taiwan career and stayed put in China to further develop his music showbiz life.  He shot to stardom in China by doing the cover of Gao Ling Feng's hit "The Fire In The Winter" (or Dong Tian Li De Yi Ba Huo) and has since then released as many as six more albums in the mainland.  Beginning 1991, he began another new phase of his career by participating in Broadway musicals in New York.  The latest word is that he is presently working with musicians in China to come out with a brand new album which should be released sometime this year.

Meanwhile in Taiwan, his former record company EMI Music has taken advantage of the current craze over him by importing 5,000 copies of his collection album from Malaysia.  Altogether, there are twenty songs here and include hits such as "Liu Lian", "Hai Kuo Tian Kong", "Wen Xie Yang" and my personal fave ballad "Wen Bie" (note : it's also Tao Zi's favourite track).  Refer below for the full song listing in Big-5 Chinese.

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MUSIC STYLE : MOSTLY ELECTRONIC MID-TEMPO/SLOW BALLADS

OVERRIDING THEME : LOVE

Being hyped as an album filled with electronically-arranged music, I wasn't disappointed with this aspect of the production work.  I'm sure local musicians Martin Tang, Terence Teo and Goh Kheng Long have probably applied everything they know about synthesizers, music programming etc .... into this album.  Some of the tracks such as Track 4 "Today's Sun" (arranged by Martin Tang) and Track 5 "Song" (arranged by Terence Teo) are entrusted  with an additional layer of ambience and mood via their outstanding music arrangements.

Although Mavis has continuously strived to give a new facelift to her music, I'm sure a lot of us are ultimately still smitten with her ballads.  I've always thought that she is blessed with one of the most soothing and tender vocals around to interpret sentimental tracks (others include Tracy Huang and the late Teresa Teng).  Fortunately her mentor Chen Jia Ming has not forgotten this trump card of hers and hence we are able to hear some good ballads here like the first single Track 1 "Close" (composed and co-written by Pan Xie Qing), Track 3 "Happening Autumn" (composed by Dick Lee and written by Chen Jia Ming) and the third single Track 10 "When Sunshine Becomes Cold" (written by Chen Jia Ming).  It is also for the same reason that I don't particularly fancy the second single Track 2 "Flower" which is an electronic trance-rock piece that doesn't quite suit her vocals.

Let's keep our fingers crossed that Mavis will not cut down on ballads in her future albums as it will be a big waste of vocal talent and a bitter disappointment to her fans if she ever does that.

The ten-track album is so titled because it contains mostly songs arranged via electronic music instruments.

As usual, long-time collaborator Chen Jia Min took charge of the whole music production work.  However unlike previous releases, half of the tracks here are written by other song-writers such as Dick Lee, Pan Xie Qing, Sandee Chan Shanni, Xie Ming You and Mavis herself.

The first single "Close" is a crowd-pleasing ballad composed and co-written by Pan Xie Qing.  The second single "Flower" is a mid-tempo electric-dance track composed and co-written by Chen Jia Min.  The third single ballad "When Sunshine Becomes Cold" is another Chen Jia Min work.

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MUSIC STYLE : MID-TEMPO/SLOW BALLADS

OVERRIDING THEME : LOVE

Sad to say, she won't find any such song in her latest offering.  While the album contains mostly ballads which make easy-listening such as the first single Track 4 "Unbreakable Love" and the title Track 2 "Enjoy Now", however they do not sound like chart-potential hits at all.  The rest of the tracks also lack the "oomph" factor to make me sit up and take note, by the time I was halfway through the CD, my attention was already wandering elsewhere.  

Let's hope her music team can come up with stronger material next time.

For those uninitiated, Ann Kok is one of the top ten most popular TV actresses of Singapore and is also one of the very few female TV artistes around who can actually sing to a certain extent.  She is regarded by the media as the number third TV queen of Television Corporation of Singapore (Singapore's main TV station), after Zoe Tay and Fann Wong.

This eleven-track album is produced by local musician Ke Gui Ming and contains mostly local works, including those by Ken Lim, Jim Lin Yi Xin (one of the members of the trio group Dreamz FM) and of course Ke Gui Ming himself who alone took up more than half (six to be exact) of the compositions here.  Ann herself even wrote the lyrics for one of the songs "Lost" composed by Jim Lin Yi Xin.

The first single that is being aired over the radio waves is the ballad track "Unbreakable Love" composed by Ke Gui Ming and written by Taiwan lyricist Liao Ying Ru.

The title track "Enjoy Now" is another easy-listening ballad which is composed by three people by the name of Victor Tan, Nick Tan and Gabriel Tan (note : hmm .... all Tans, wonder whether they are related) and written by Alan Poh.  There is also a bonus acoustic version of "Enjoy Now" found here.

The album comes bundled with a stack of post cards, understandably for those fans who can't get enough of this sweet-looking dimpled girl.

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