Some background info : she's 20 years old; currently a first-year Sociology student in the Arts faculty of National University of Singapore (NUS); knows how to play the piano and guitar; won the 1998 Cover Girl award from Singapore magazine "Go Flirt"; was discovered by local music company Hype Records after she appeared in a series of ads, including a 1999 beverage advertisement alongside Malaysian singer/composer A Niu.

Her debut album is a local-made effort, which is wholly produced by Kevin Quah (or better known as Ke Qui Ming) and contains mostly light-hearted and easy-listening songs.

The first single cum title track "Waiting" is a cover of Swedish singer Meja Breckman's (or better known as just Meja) 1999 work "All 'Bout The Money".  

The second single "First Winter" is a ballad composed by Ke Qui Ming and written by Lou Nan Wei.  A piano version of the song is also included here.

The third single "Boring Day" is a light-tempo song written by Stella.  She reportedly took only 15 minutes to complete it.  In fact the most impressive thing about this album is that over half of the tracks (seven out of ten, excluding the eleventh piano version of "First Winter") are written by the young lady herself and they are not that bad, considering it's her debut contribution.

No offence here, on the low side, I personally thought Stella's vocals sound a bit too "cutesy" and at times "whiny" especially when she reaches for the high notes.  You can judge for yourself  by previewing her tracks below.  But there's no doubt the gal can sing all right.

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Some background info : she is 25 years old; born in China; she began her music career in Japan after winning a couple of competitions there; she formed a female quartet called "Taiyo & Ciscomoon" (later changed their name to "T&C Bonba") and went on to release a string of singles which reach the Top 10 Oricon charts; she reportedly caught Yao Qian's attention when she did a rendition of Whitney Houston's (or rather Dolly Parton's) "I'll Always Love You" in Japan; Yao Qian finally signed her to Virgin Music after RuRu decided to record her very first Mandarin album.

Coming back to her debut Mandarin release, there are altogether eleven tracks which are produced by, among others, Jim Lee, Chen Wei and Paula Ma Yu Fen.  The songs are a mix of ballad, R&B, dance and retro.  A note-worthy mention is that two of the songs here are produced by Japanese musician Ken Matsubara who is the producer for current Japanese R&B hot fave Ken Hirai (or Ping Jin Jian). 

The first single cum title track "Beautiful Feeling" is a nice, slow ballad which is a cover of the work by Japanese song-writer/singer Miyuki Nakajima (or Zhong Dao Mei Xue).  The Mandarin lyrics are furnished by (who else) Yao Qian.  There is also a one-minute-plus guitar version of "Beautiful Feeling" which has RuRu humming alongside the guitar.

The second single "In Love" is a dance track with a Japanese flavour, composed and produced by Chen Wei, but personally I thought it sounds a bit out-dated.

On the whole, I am quite disappointed with RuRu's first Mandarin offering.  Most of the songs do not leave a deep impression on me.  Let's hope Virgin Music can come up with a better follow-up album for RuRu.

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Produced by, among others, Liu Tian Jian, Yuan Wei Ren and Power Station themselves, their latest offering infuses a combination of rock and ballads.

The first single cum title track "Walk Nine Times Around Zhong Xiao Dong Road" is a nice ballad which is inspired by one of their fans' breakup experience whereby the poor guy strolled around the streets of Taiwan's Zhong Xiao Dong Road for close to two years so as to revive his fond memories of the times he spent with his girlfriend who initiated the separation.  The touching song is composed by Guo Zi and written by Wu Yu Kang.

Another recommended song is the ballad "So Be It" written and produced by one of the Power Station members You Qiu Xing.  It is also the supporting theme-song for Singapore TV station TCS's social-worker drama serial "You Light Up My Life" (or Ru He Dui Ni Shuo) starring Ix Shen and model Celest Chong.

Another note-worthy mention is that they attempted their very first Hokkien song, a slow-rock ballad titled "If I Haven't Loved You" written by Xie Ming You.

Alas, there are also a few dated-sounding tunes such as the second single "Drunk Tango 2001" and the cover of the oldie titled ... er.... "Drunk Tango".

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