What comes to mind when you think of JJ Lin? Mandopop King? Not quite. Prince? In some way it doesn’t seem a fitting term for a veteran such as himself. So what defines JJ Lin? In my opinion, nothing and everything.

Known initially for his immensely likeable melodies and ballads, I would say that his consistency in producing popular ballads and songs that are loved by all is what I most respect about him. From Cyndi Wang’s当你 to Fahrenheit’s 我只对你有感觉 to his own numerous classics such as 修炼爱情 and 如果有如果, JJ’s songs have set a high standard for ballads within the Taiwanese music industry; hedging an equilibrium between popularity and quality. I would say that in comparison even with the likes of musical kings Jay Chou and Wang Leehom whose reputations have been secured but are producing songs nowadays with a lower emphasis on popularity (with Leehom recently taking on the EDM genre and Chou attempting new experiments in his works), JJ’s works are almost always guaranteed top spots on the charts that are in for the long haul, rather than dropping out after a month or two. In fact, his music could be said to be in one sense an apt representation of the Taiwanese music industry and what it has been looking for.

Yet at the same time, JJ’s loyal composition and arrangement style could instead turn its back on him, leaving him with nothing. It is true that his songs are well-loved by mainstream audiences; however audiences are fickle sometimes. In my opinion, his songs, although well-done and of a consistent quality, are just not enough to make audiences passionate about his music and what he stands for. Furthermore, what I believe JJ’s music represents is the stereotypical work of the industry; just sad love songs constantly rephrasing breakups and romanticising love in a way that sometimes just doesn’t even seem to make sense. (See JJ’s song 修炼爱情-the lyrics seem to just be poetic phrases strung together and are partially incomprehensible. Although JJ wrote the song in memory of a classmate who died in the Silkair plane tragedy, the lyrics missed the point of the song completely.) And as the Taiwanese music industry approaches the tail end of its ballad era, JJ’s ballads although still popular, are allowing him to be defined as just another balladeer, along with the rest of the artists trying to milk what they can out of their audiences with ballad-filled albums while others show their innovative side, contributing instead to the new era of Mandopop.

But to look again on the positive side, JJ is kind of like a chameleon. He’s versatile and able to adapt to any kind of environment with ease. He’s shown that he’s not just adept at ballads, but also at rap, hip hop, etc. What really stood out to me in every single album of his I owned was the amount of collaborations in each of them. While many artists would only attempt one duet per album, JJ’s albums are always chock-full of them, with 3 or 4 spliced into each of his works. And it’s not just any artists he’s been collaborating with-Lin counts the greats such as Leehom, Mayday, Jason Mraz and Gem Tang as a mere handful of the big names he’s worked with over the years, with the artists he chooses to work with becoming more and more unimaginable. And JJ does have this certain collaborative dynamic which I really enjoy; no matter who he’s collaborating with, he has this ability to meet them on their level while holding his own all the while. He did it especially well in his duet with Mayday’s Ashin “黑夜骑士” and with Charlene Choi in “小酒窝”.

However, once again this strength of his could just as easily turn into his weakness. The reason why people don’t do more than one collaboration per album is pretty obvious. It’s their album, and they don’t want to be outshined. And although JJ is certainly capable enough to hold his own in any duet, the starpower of these other singers could work against him, and kind of suck out his personality from each collaboration. When he collaborated with Leehom (who was only on the violin), I was mainly listening out for and analysing the violin rather than concentrating on his voice. All these things kind of add up and are detrimental towards the one thing that I am always looking out for in an artist’s works: their unique inner voice. What makes an artist grab your attention? You’re going to either need an artist who is extremely out there, and just has this amazing charisma to grab everyone’s attention or you’re going to need that special feeling you get; be it from their voice or more usually I like to listen out for it in their compositions. Any one time I listen to a song by Khalil Fong (even if it wasn’t sung by him) I can tell almost immediately that he wrote it. Because that’s just his signature arrangement style, and it’s so strong and so influential that you really can’t miss it. So although Khalil’s just an unassuming guy, you can really hear his talent, his subtle passion and love for the blues/funk/R n B in his music. However with JJ it’s really hard to tell where this special something lies, and I honestly don’t think it’s because I’m not looking hard enough. JJ’s songs are nice and all, but they don’t tell me about him. They don’t tell me his story, they don’t tell me about his experiences, it’s all very two-dimensional to me. Audiences can’t relate to that. And when audiences can’t relate to something you really have a problem on your hands. So JJ’s music in my opinion toes the line between like and love. Technically speaking its immensely listenable but in terms of the lyrics and perhaps the arrangements he uses, they come off somewhat boring, making JJ’s music a familiar addition to their collection they’ll happily listen to, but when it comes to the crunch, he’s not going to be their no.1 favourite artist.

What he needs to do is to think outside the box and break this crazy equilibrium he’s trying to hold onto with being everything he thinks the mandopop audience wants at the same time; trying to produce songs which sound good and are of a good quality at the same time. Because really all I’ve ever wanted to hear from him was his story, but I’m always left disappointed in this aspect which is of the utmost importance to me. I could be wrong about this, but to me there’s still a lot more to JJ that he’s not showing through his music, and I hope that soon he’ll be able to put more of his personality into his music; to TRULY show us what he’s made of.

There's just something about Bii that makes everyone love him-it may be the fact that he's korean, and chock full of boyish appeal that's done it for most girls (and boys), but for me it's all about how he's created his identity as an artist using this idea of fusion that makes him stand out from the rest. In the early stages of Bii's music, he wasn't given much of a chance to showcase his creativity in terms of songwriting, but his perseverance paid off when his song <Come back to me> hit the big time on the charts, not only because of the catchiness of the melody itself, but also because of the fact that it consisted of three languages-Chinese, Korean and English. Since then, Bii as a Korean-Taiwanese has begun to experiment even more with his language melding antics as he gains more control over the songwriting aspect of his album, and the response so far has been absolutely amazing. His latest album <Action Go> has a little of everything-Chinese, English, Korean and even Taiwanese to top things off.

To me it's interesting because the Taiwanese industry has an astounding amount of examples of these kinds of artists who often incorporate a little bit of English into their Chinese songs, but none have gone full-out as Bii has to make it part of his signature style, as reflective of his unique cultural identity as a Korean-Taiwanese. Also, it's a pretty smart move for a music industry that has tried somewhat aimlessly so far to compete with the huge Kpop wave as well as Western music in general at the moment. Bii's attracting fans from Korea, Asia and the Western world not only with his looks and charm, but also his strong grasp on this signature sound that no-one else but him possesses. Good on you Bii!