Lest you forget, Alec first entered the showbiz as a singer and not as an actor.  He is the ex-member of the now defunct trio group Small Tigers (or Xiao Hu Dui) (side-note : the other two ex-members are Nicky Wu Qi Long and Chen Zhi Peng) (refer below for their pic).

From Right : Alec Su, Nicky Wu, Chen Zhi Peng

In the last year, Alec has made a comeback with a bang by acting in the highly successful TV serial "My Fair Princess" (or Huan Zhu Ge Ge) co-starring Zhao Wei and Ruby Lam (or Lin Xin Ru).  His new-found fame as a TV leading actor has allowed him to crossover back to the music world.  

He made headline news recently when he reportedly returned from China (where he was in the midst of filming a new Qiong Yao TV serial co-starring Zhao Wei and Leo Ku) to Taiwan secretly to work on this new album, under the "disguise" that he was seriously injured in a horse accident during filming.

This album is produced by lyricist Xu Shi Zhen and Chen Guo Hua.  It contains mostly easy-listening ballads, interspersed with a few Taiwanese-style light tempo tracks.  The first single and title track "Are You Happy Or Not" is a mid-tempo ballad which is the cover of the latest Japanese hit "Sakurazaka" by Masaharu Fukuyama (or Fu Shan Ya Zhi). 

Other song-writers contributing to this offering include local composer Jimmy Ye Liang Jun, Li Fei Hui, Xie Ming You, Ling Dong Song, Yi Jia Yang and Wu Yu Kang.

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Freya first caught the attention of the media when her voice cover of Sandy Lam's "Night Is Too Dark" (or Ye Tai Hei) appeared on the MTV channel.  This is also the first single taken from her debut self-titled album.

Some background info : Her father is a Malaysian, mom is Taiwanese and Freya herself was born in Taiwan.  She is presently a first-year student in a Washington university, pursuing a psychology degree.  She was first discovered by Jacky Cheung's Mandarin album producer Lin Ming Yang when she visited the KTV during her school vacation in Taiwan.  She was then signed on to the music production company Treasure Island Music Ltd headed by Ronald Cheng (or Zheng Zhong Ji).  

Her vocals reportedly caught the interest of music guru Jonathan Lee when the latter heard her demo recordings.  Even David Tao was impressed and agreed to her doing a cover of his earlier hit "Beach" (or Sha Tan).

Her debut album focuses on her vocal strong point, namely, her R&B style of singing.  Besides the afore-mentioned two cover tracks, other note-worthy mentions include singing a duet song "Thinking Of Your Love" (composed by David Tao) with her boss Ronald Cheng and co-writing an English funky dance track "Do You Wanna Play".

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All the thirteen songs here have two things in common : first, they were theme-songs from TCS's television serials and secondly, they are sung by TCS's A-list stars such as Zoe Tay, Ann Kok, Phyllis Quek, Tay Ping Hui and Evelyn Tan.  Refer below for the full song listing in Simplified Chinese.

Personally, I am most curious about how Tay Ping Hui fares in his maiden singing as I have already heard the rest of the artistes' vocals before.  Surprisingly, it's not that bad at all. 

Good news for fans of Fann Wong : the album contains a fourteenth bonus track "Secret Of The Moon" sung by her, which has not been available so far in record stores yet.  Being a re-make of an oldie, this is the main theme-song from Fann's latest movie of the same Chinese name or "When I Fall In Love ... With  Both" and it has already topped the radio song charts in Singapore.

I've never been impressed by the visual packaging of Hype Records' releases.  The same goes for this current album.  But one thing that irritates me most is that they even got the sequence of the songs in the lyrics booklet wrong.  While the lyrics in the booklet were categorised according to the TV serials, the songs in the CD are, on the other hand, randomly arranged, the result of each I have to flip frantically through the pages to find the right song every time the next track is played.

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Billed as a more grown-up album than her previous debut teeny-bopper effort, it is produced by, among others, Cao Jun Hong, Chen Wei, Paula Ma Yu Fen and Huang Shu Jun.

The first single in Taiwan is the slow ballad and title track "Hope In Love".  This is actually a cover of voice angel Aimee Mann's composition "Wise Up" taken from the soundtrack album of the movie "Magnolia" starring Tom Cruise and Julianne Moore.

On the other hand, the first single that is being aired over the Singapore radio waves is the light-tempo "Nobody" written by local song-writer Liang Wen Foo.

In order to beat piracy in Taiwan, the first batch of the limited-edition album comes bundled with a bonus CD which is essentially A Baw's first self-titled release.  Yup, you've heard me right, you can now buy A Baw's two albums for the price of one.  

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