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SCMP Reporter

The 'Fifth Canto-pop King', Hacken Lee, is all ready to carve a slice out of the huge Mandarin song market with a new recording contract under his belt and big plans for the coming year.

After seven years with PolyGram and two years with Star Records, Lee said it was 'about time' he started focusing on Mandarin songs.

He is hoping Music Impact, his new company, will help him achieve that.

After 10 years on the Hong Kong music scene, Lee has only two Mandarin albums to his name due in part, he said, to poor promotion.

But he has big expectations of his new company.

 'I want to do something that I have been longing to do in the past but couldn't achieve, that is, to expand to the Asian market,' Lee said.

He wants to make big inroads into the non-Cantonese market.

'As I have only released two Mandarin albums up to now, music lovers may only know who I am but not really understand my music.

'For example, radio stations in Singapore cannot play Cantonese songs and of course, Mandarin [songs] have a much larger market,' he said. 'After 1997, perhaps I'll sing a lot more Mandarin songs.' Lee will come a step closer to his dream when he releases his third Mandarin album in September after returning from Atlanta, where he will be covering the Olympics for TVB as their 'Olympic ambassador'.

His first album with Music Impact hit the streets in mid-June. The company has already spent nearly $1 million for promotion with another $2 million scheduled in the coming months.

Lee's fans will have 300 more outlets on top of usual record stores where they can buy his latest album When I Find You.

A tie-up with 7-Eleven stores in the territory would make Lee's latest album 'highly accessible' to fans.

The album will be available alongside chewing gum and condoms.

'It would definitely be to my advantage as my fans could have a lot more access to buy my CDs.

'With this move, my fans can buy my album any time,' Lee said.

Though Lee's latest Cantonese album is again, dominated by syrupy love ballads, Music Impact's promotion manager Felix Cheng Kin-ming stressed the album would bring out another side of the singer.

Many of the composers and lyricists responsible for songs have never worked with Lee before, he said.

Composed by the renowned Yeung Wan-biu, with lyrics by Lam Chun-keung, the first song plugged on radios When I Find You, has topped all Hong Kong's canto-charts.

Lee will also be trying his hand at television and movies.

 'Hopefully, Hacken will take part in a TVB series sometime next year.

'We'll be very cautious and will select the type of drama that will suit his age, no more of that kind of idolist drama as he's more mature now,' Mr Cheng said. Lee believes his days with PolyGram were 'essentially a very long learning process' while he appreciated the chance to record two albums in the United States during his time with Star Records.

Two of his albums, Reborn and Hackenation were recorded in the US, which allowed him to work with top musicians, including mixing technician Michael Forsenkemper, who has worked with Madonna.

'That's a very precious learning experience,' Lee said.

'In Hong Kong, making an album is just like [making burgers in] McDonald's.

'It's all mass production, fast and commercial,' he said.

He says musicians were not at fault for producing such a narrow range of work in Hong Kong.

'Whenever somebody is plugging a new album, the media will put the blame on us and say we have no innovation, and conclude we have deliberately limited ourselves to love songs only.

'But the fact is, they simply don't understand Hong Kong is so small a market that it couldn't digest a vast variety like the US.' 



Canto-king has Mandarin plan