Explore the Electrifying World of Cantopop with Edgar Chung through his CantoTalk Music Podcast on Spotify!
Mission: To promote and preserve Cantopop & to provide materials for Cantonese teaching and learning.
CantoTalk Episode #1
Please go to Quizlet for 66 vocabulary items: 
Welcome to the first episode of the CantoTalk Music podcast, I’m your host, Edgar. We mainly want to promote and preserve Hong Kong music and provide teaching materials for learning Cantonese. In the information column of this podcast, you will find the text version of our episode, English translation, Cantonese pinyin, and some new words, hoping to help friends who learn Cantonese. We’re going to have a theme in each episode, and then we’re going to introduce four or five songs about that theme. And our theme today is funky Cantonese songs.
Funk was a kind of rhythmic dance music in the United States in the sixties. It was very popular in the seventies and eighties, and it also had a profound influence on many music genres that have emerged since then. Especially in the 1980s and 1990s, because there were many Cantonese songs at that time that were still cover songs from Japan, the United States, South Korea, etc. As a result, many dance songs of this funky type were brought into the Hong Kong music scene, and at the same time, it also influenced the composition and arrangement style of many Hong Kong musicians. For example, when the most classic funky Cantonese song at that time is like Jacky Cheung’s Hair Was Awry, a song itself is a cover of a Korean song. But the song I want to introduce today, which has also been launched in recent years, mainly wants to explore how this funk style affects the current pop music. This modern pop funk is heard a lot in foreign countries when Bruno Mars is heard. What is the spark in this Cantonese song?
Our first song features Luna is a Bep and Charming Way’s Boogie Baby. Luna is one of the few female rappers in Hong Kong. She wanted her name to something stylish and nasty in her debut. She was ready to call herself Luna is a Bitch, but she did not want the name to have profanity, so she was ready to filter her name to Luna is a Beep, like TV filtering swear words. But then she missed the letter e when she was typing, resulting in Luna is a Bep. Probably because she graduated from the Chinese department of CUHK, her songs are famous for having a lot of wordplay and interesting words.
Charming Way is a Hong Kong band that plays retro rock, but its composition is mainly in English. The story behind the name of this band is very interesting. It originated from the Chinese name of the lead singer, Zhang Mingwei. Reading Zhang Mingwei Zhang Mingwei changed into Charming Way. And the First Time they worked with Luna on this Boogie Baby song, it was to bring out a retro feel of ’90s party music. Without further ado, we have Luna is a Bep and Charming Way’s Boogie Baby!
We just played Luna is a Bep and Charming Way’s Boomie Baby. How was it? Do you want to dance after listening to it? It’s all right. Our funky Cantonese music will continue to come. Our next song is from the all-boy band MIRROR that has enchanted the entire city of Hong Kong! This twelve-member male dance group debuted from a talent show called “King Maker” a few years ago. At that time, there were no such idol artists in Hong Kong, so soon Hong Kong rolled out a MIRROR boom. Their appearance has made many Hong Kong people pay attention to the Hong Kong music scene again: in addition to meeting them in songs, television, movies and advertisements, they will also see fans in Hong Kong and even in foreign countries helping them with large-scale publicity.
IGNITED, the song we’re talking about today, is filled with sexual euphemisms in its lyrics. When the song first came out, a lot of fans criticized lyricist Chan Wing Him, “why write such a dirty song for my idols?” In his defense, many famous Western songs talk about this sort of topic anyways. Moreover, the song ultimately performed very well in the local music scene: it topped radio charts, and was awarded and performed in several music award shows at the end of the year, introducing and enamoring many audiences to MIRROR. Well, let’s experience the magic of MIRROR together! We have IGNITED by MIRROR!
The song just now was MIRROR’s IGNITED! The next song we have is by Justin Lo, who just held a concert here in San Francisco. Justin Lo is one of the most popular male Hong Kong singers in the 2000’s, having had held his own concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum just a year after he debuted, which had then never been accomplished before. A lot of his love ballads are widespread and well-known. However, the song we’re talking about today is not one of his earlier, more famous songs, instead, the song’s released after he became an independent artist, 10 years after his initial debut. The song is 450蚊 (lit. 450 dollars), featuring cooking show host Maria Cordero. Every track in The Drug Called Music, the album which 450蚊 is from, talks about something addictive, just like drugs. For example, “Heads Up Phones Down” talks about smartphones, “咖啡因萬歲” (lit. hail caffeine) talks about caffeine, and “Watch Out” talks about alcohol. In this case, what addictive thing is 450蚊 about? See if you can find out from listening? We have 450蚊 by Justin Lo, featuring Maria Cordero.
The song just now was 450蚊 by Justin Lo, featuring Maria Cordero. We just mentioned that Justin Lo’s one of the most popular Hong Kong male singers in the 2000’s. If that’s the case, then the title of the most popular Hong Kong male singer in the 2000’s, and even in the 2010’s, without “one of”, must be Eason Chan. If anyone’s listened to Cantopop, they must have also heard of Eason Chan’s name. A lot of his songs can be recited and sang by many in Chinese-speaking regions. From 2005 to 2013, he won the publicly-voted Ultimate Song Chart Awards My Favorite Male singer 9 times in a row. Today’s song is We Zzzid It from his 2018 album L.O.V.E. The artist of this song was credited as Eason and the DUO Band, because in 2010, Eason held a series of world-tour concerts called DUO. The L.O.V.E. album then is comprised of songs written by Eason and his crew from DUO as a testament to their friendship. For example, in We Zzzid It, you can find members from the DUO Band almost “playing” with Eason, harmonizing, rapping, and even soloing on the violin. Carl Wong and Chan Wing Him from the DUO Band, besides being the composer, producer, and lyricist of this song, is also the team behind MIRROR’s IGNITED we played just now. Let’s find out if the two songs trigger a familiar feeling? We have We Zzzid It by Eason and the DUO Band!
The song just now was We Zzzid It by Eason and the DUO Band. For our last song, we have one that has just been released several weeks ago: Happy Me by Jerald! When we talked about funky, groovy songs in the Hong Kong music scene, it’d be a shame not to mention the songs by Jerald Chan: whether they’re from his time as the singing duo Swing, or the ones he wrote for other artists, e.g. Eason Chan’s 碌卡 (lit. Swipe Card) and 人車誌 (lit. Tale of Car and Man), they’re all full of grooves and danceability. Happy Me, as the first solo Cantonese song sang by himself, was surprisingly not composed by him! The team behind this song, including Jerald, is from a movement called the Vantopop Collective. Vantopop is the combination of Vancouver and Cantopop. As its name suggests, it’s an collective of Vancouver musicians that produces Cantonese songs, with everyone involved all living in Vancouver. This movement is really inspiring for people like us, who love Cantopop but lives in a foreign country. Okay, for our last song, we have Happy Me by Jerald!
The song just now was Happy Me by Jerald. That’s about it for today! Thank you for listening to the CantoTalk Music podcast. I am Edgar and I will see you next time!
To the right is a screenshot preview of a comprehensive handout that includes a full transcript, vocabulary, comprehension questions, and a featured song. The handout will be available for purchase, with the added benefit that CantoLTA members can enjoy up to 2 complimentary handouts and can purchase additional ones at an exclusive 20% discount.
Thank you for tuning in!
Please give credit to Edgar Chung and the Cantonese Alliance of North America!
What a great resource, and so much work has gone into these podcast. I’m just wishing the podcasts were uploaded to other sources as well as Spotify. Spotify is very restrictive in terms of what you can do with them. If Cantonese learners were able to download mp3’s of the podcasts as other podcast platforms allow, they could be used in conjunction with language learning apps and software to greater aid learning and understanding.
Thank you for your suggestion! We’ll ask the host if he can post the podcast to another platform.
I like your blog
Thank you!