TAIPEI, June 28 \u2014 Mandopop megastar Jolin Tsai won album of the \u200cyear on Saturday in Taipei, at one of the most prestigious entertainment events in the Chinese-speaking world, Taiwan\u2019s Golden Melody Awards.<\/p>\n
While Taiwan has only 23 million people, its pop \u200cmusic scene has an outsized cultural influence across East Asia, especially in China, thanks to creativity unfettered by censorship or government control.<\/p>\n
Tsai, who cites the likes of Madonna and Kylie Minogue as influences, won for her concept album Pleasure, which was inspired by the seven deadly sins. She also won best female Mandarin singer.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaking this album, for me, felt like I had been comfortably sitting in the passenger seat for a long time, and now I\u2019ve finally taken the steering wheel myself \u2013 driving forward with all the partners who, like me, understand my \u200cmusic,\u201d she told the audience.<\/p>\n
Tsai, 45, has been hugely popular across the Chinese-speaking world \u2060since the release of her debut \u2060album in 1999.<\/p>\n
The awards celebrate not only Mandopop but \u2060artists singing in Taiwanese \u2013 also known \u2060as Hokkien or \u2060Hoklo \u2013 Hakka and indigenous languages like Paiwan, once suppressed but now supported and promoted by Taiwan\u2019s government.<\/p>\n
Best Hakka singer Sarah Chan, who gave her acceptance speech in Hakka, \u2060Mandarin and English for the album Blue Hour Bloom, said the recording had a much broader meaning for her.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Hakka-language album gave me the chance to speak more Hakka with my mother at home, and to have more exchanges with my family,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Hakka make up about one-fifth of Taiwan\u2019s population, \u2060but many do not speak the language \u2013 which has five different dialects across the island \u2013 fluently after decades of its public use being discouraged.<\/p>\n
Chinese artists \u2060in recent years have largely stayed away from the Golden Melody Awards given tensions \u2060between democratically governed \u2060Taiwan and China, which views the island as its own territory over the Taipei government\u2019s objections.<\/p>\n
While China\u2019s Jude Chiu and Shan Yichun received nominations, neither attended, though Hong Kong\u2019s \u200cKaren Mok both sang and presented, her first appearance at the awards in a decade. \u2014 Reuters<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAIPEI, June 28 \u2014 Mandopop megastar Jolin Tsai won album of the \u200cyear on Saturday in Taipei, at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":523037,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[93,222942,222945,61,60,222941,222943,278,222944,2073],"class_list":["post-523036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-golden-melody-awards","tag-hakka-language","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jolin-tsai","tag-mandopop","tag-music","tag-sarah-chan","tag-taiwan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=523036"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/523036\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/523037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=523036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=523036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=523036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}