Is Taiwan in the House?

There are three artists from Taiwan whose CDs I am willing to purchase with my hard-earned New Taiwan Dollars: A-Yue (張震嶽), Wonfu (旺福), and Tizzy Bac. It's a ragtag group of artists, but still, a group that's at the forefront of listenable Taiwanese Rock.

A-Yue is best described as the black sheep of Taiwanese pop music. Ironically, he got his start as a "pop idol" singer (If you're unfamiliar with the concept, an idol is someone chosen by a record company for his looks, is paired with a succesful producer, and subsequently idolized by brain dead zombies teenaged schoolgirls, which leads to a crossover acting career, modeling, and later, talk show hosting). What saved him from being relegated to the bargain bin of pop music history were likely two skills: his inability to act like a normal, well-behaved, sweet-talking pop star, and his uncanny break-up-song-writing ability.

"Let's Break Up Then (分手吧)", "Freedom (自由)", and "Love Me, Don't go (愛我別走)" ensure that no teary-eyed parting of ways goes without a soundtrack.

Wonfu exists to counterbalance all the rock acts that take themselves way to fucking seriously. Encorporating kindergarten sing-song melodies and momentary lapses of sanity, their brand of cute-taiwanese-rock would likely be categorized as joke- rock. But with a guitar wiz at its core and two uber-cute girls providing bass and lead vocals in the wings, Wonfu work it (their drummer, while unremarkable, is at least a decent drummer). If you're down with google video, you can check out a bootlegged video of one song that I shot at one of their shows.

Their "hits" include "When I Was a Kid I Used to go to Spin (我小時後都去Spin)", "Miniskirt (迷你裙)", and "The Peach Song(水蜜桃輓歌)".

Tizzy Bac is one of those "we don't need no stinkin guitar" bands that substitute a keyboard for lead guitar and rely on the rhythm section to cover the rest. Works for me. As far as I'm concerned, Tizzy Bac rule as king of Taiwan's indie scene. Musically, Tizzy Bac is the freshest, and most mature band I've heard in the two years I've spent in Taiwan. I saw a review somewhere on in worldwideweb-ernet that described their latest album as a mix between jazz, electronica, and rock. That's rubbish. Plain and simple, this is indie Taiwanese rock at its finest - nothing anywhere as shit-disgusting as "electro-jazz-fusion".

Unbeatable: "Anthony (安東尼)", "Ashes (灰燼)", "Seven Years (七年)".