Butterfly Jolin Tsai Yi-lin (CD)
Anyone who has spent the last year and a half eagerly awaiting the new Jolin Tsai Yi-lin record might be disappointed.
After 10 years in entertainment, successfully developing her dance-queen image and becoming one of Taiwan's top singers, Tsai's recent transfer to Warner Music resulted in expectations of new directions and musical breakthroughs.
But the result is the same old Tsai, with no surprises. The two up-beat tracks, Butterfly and Real Man, set the tone, featuring enjoyable, easy-to-learn melodies that are perfect karaoke sing-alongs. Some of the love ballads are winning enough, though. On Compromise, Tsai sounds as she did when she launched her career with memorable songs such as Are You Happy?
But elsewhere this album lacks character or individuality. No matter how many times you listen to most of the tracks, you'll still find them hard to remember.
Musically a disappointment, Tsai still stretches herself to the limit when it comes to her music videos, even learning ballet for the Butterfly video.
If only the Taiwanese singer would put as much effort into her singing, perhaps her next album could be a real hit.
