Ever since the success of crossover sensations Vanessa-Mae and Maksim, many musicians have blended pop music with classical instruments. 12 Girls Band is another gimmicky success.
The ensemble is comprised of a dozen mainland conservatory-trained young women who fuse modern arrangements with traditional Chinese instruments. The group is popular in Asia, particularly Japan, and the US. Their success is largely due to their record company's savvy marketing, for choosing to rearrange songs that appeal to western audiences.
The group plays the same old trick in their new album Romantic Energy, except this time the flavour is more Japanese. Ruten is written by Takuro from Japan's super rock band Glay, and Whispering Earth, the most impressive track on the album, nicely merges the sound of erhu with the world music of new age icon Kitaro.
Despite the marketing effort, the album package design is dated, and the album itself does not live up to its claims of revitalising Chinese music.
