Produced by her mentor Jonathan Lee, Paula Ma Yu Fen and Guo Wen Xian, her latest offering contains a total of eleven tracks and are mostly easy-listening & mid-tempo songs.

The first single "Unconditionally For You" is a cover of a Korean hit and looks set to conquer the KTV charts again with its soaring melody. 

The second single cum title track "The Shining Star" sounds like a charity cum advertisement jingle and its repetitive chorus lyrics do get a bit tiring and boring after a few listening rounds.  The song-writer Lotus Wang Mei Lian is the same gal who composed Sammi Cheng's recent dance hit "Firing Glamour" or "Mei Li Ran Shao".

Some recommended songs include:

- "The World Desired Best To Travel" : a nice and soothing ballad composed by producer Guo Wen Xian and written by Yao Ruo Long;

- "A Plan To Visit The Sea" : a catchy and light-hearted track which reportedly garnered Fish's vote after she listened to the demo;

- "I'm Not Happy" : another nice and touching ballad, very well written by Pan Xie Qing and very well interpreted by Fish.

Also look out for Fish's debut love collaboration work : "This Day (We Are Healthy And Young)" is a light jazz/retro piece composed by Fish and written by her Malaysian beau Guan Qi Yuan. 

The CD comes with the Power CD function which enables her fans to view multimedia privileges over the net, such as snippets of her concert performances and photo shoots.

The World Desired Best To Travel  最想環遊世界 --------  

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The eleven-track album is produced by, among others, Lin Ming Yang and Ling Wei Wen.  Unlike her debut album, there is a lesser music emphasis on R&B in this second offering.

Nevertheless her first single cum title track "All 'Cause Of Him" is a nice R&B love ballad which should not disappoint her fans.

The second single "Haven't You" is a super slow ballad which needs some listening patience before one can really appreciate Freya's heart-felt interpretation of a destined-to-end relationship.  The song is composed by mainland singer Ching (or Liu Qing) and written by Li Zhuo Xiong.

Other highlights:

- "Power Of Love" is the Mandarin cover of the original theme-song of Dreamworks' animated movie "Shrek";

- Just like her debut album, Freya did a few more cover versions in her latest offering, albeit in different languages.  A competent English cover of Sarah McLachlan's "Angel" is included here, which is reportedly requested by her fans after they heard her live performance of the song in her past concerts.  There is also an impressive Cantonese cover of Sammi Cheng's hit "Can't Bear To Leave You" (or She Bu De Ni), which is given a pared-down acoustic rendition by Freya (hmm...does this mean that Freya has set her sight on the Hongkong music scene?).

- Besides cover versions, Freya also sings an original English composition "Make Believe" written by two Western song-writers.  A Mandarin version "Three Wishes" is included as well.

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Containing a total of fifteen tracks, the collection includes two previously unreleased songs "Lonely Diary" & "You Won't Understand After All" and thirteen of her past hits (refer below for the full song listing in Simplified Chinese).

Hits that can be found here include "Tear Sea" (or Lei Hai), "The Clouds Know?" (or Ru Guo Yun Zhi Dao), "Place De Sun Airport" (or Ri Guang Ji Chang), "Still Loving You" (or Wo Yi Ran Ai Ni), "Don't Say Goodbye", "Dreams Come True" (or Mei Meng Cheng Zhen), "Always A Fine Day" (or Yi Zhi Shi Qing Tian), "Good Weather" (or Nan De Hao Tian Qi) and more recently "Love Is Left With One Second" (or Ai Zhi Sheng Yi Miao).

However other songs which are sinfully left out from this collection include "Breaking Dawn" (or Po Xiao), the duet with Panda Xiong "Love Movie" (or Ai Qing Dian Ying), "Love You Suddenly" (or Tu Ran Xiang Ai Ni) and "Victory" (or Zhen Ai Wu Di).  Furthermore after churning out so many albums and hits in What's Music, to have only thirteen hits included in the compilation seems a bit stingy to me.

Ultimately this release is meant strictly for Xiu Xiu's die-hard fans.

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Being a two-CD compilation, there are altogether seventeen songs, including two brand new tracks and fifteen past hits (refer below for the full song listing in Big 5 Chinese).

Let's talk about the new tracks.  The title track "Harvest" reunites the potent combination of song-writers who are responsible for her renowned hits "Love You More And More" (or Heng Ai Heng Ai Ni) and "After That" (or Hou Lai), namely the Japanese female duo Kiroro (as composers) and Taiwan lyricist Shi Ren Cheng.  "Harvest" is a folkish and easy-listening track which should go down well with her fans.  The second new track "I Believe" is a ballad produced by Big Brother Jonathan Lee.

As for the collection hits, besides the afore-mentioned two Kiroro numbers, others include Rene's very first hit "A Key For You" (or Da Yi Ba Yao Shi Gei Ni), "Transparent" (or Tou Ming), "I Wait For You" (or Wo Deng Ni) and her most recent hit "Aside" (or Cheng Quan).

In order to increase the value of the collection package, Rock Records have included audio snippets of Rene's working and personal life, which are interspersed throughout the songs.  Personally I find them a bit annoying as they hamper the smooth listening flow of the tracks.

Being a Rock Records product, the Power CD can be found here which allows Rene's fans to watch the music video of her first Kiroro hit "Love You More And More" (or Heng Ai Heng Ai Ni) as well as her past records' TV ads.

Overall, I think it's quite a good buy.

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