Moo-sic to the ears

THERE was hardly a dry eye in the Taipei Convention Centre last weekend when Eric Moo Chii Yuan received his prize as the most popular and best-selling artist of 1994 in Taiwan.

Moo had to break off in mid-song when his girlfriend of seven years, Jazreel Low, joined him on stage and both were overcome by tears. Before long, even the emcee and the audience were sporting puffy red eyes.

For Moo, the award comes after the best year of his 10-year career. The Malaysian-born singer-songwriter reported staggering sales of 1.4 million copies of his album Too Silly - quite a feat for a compilation.

His achievements have not been missed by Billboard magazine in the United States either, which presented him with the first Billboard Asian Artistic Excellence Award last month.

'These two awards certainly mean a lot to me because it represents recognition of what I have been doing with my music,' said Moo, whose compositions have been covered by singers such as Jacky Cheung Hok-yau and Alan Tam Wing-lun.

'But awards are not what matters most because that is not the be-all and end-all of my music career. I love music and I take a lot of joy in writing my songs and singing.' Surprisingly, although his songs have received tremendous airplay in Hong Kong, Moo has so far been largely ignored at the local awards.