THE good thing about having a bad year is that you can always look forward to better days in the next one. The past year has not been a good one for the music industry - or the entertainment scene - where death and violence have been lead characters.
In the music business, in particular, three deaths have had a profound effect on the players and the scene. In January, the accident which took the life of a 17-year-old fan during Andy Lau Tak-wah's debut concerts may not have had far-reaching consequences for the industry in general, but it must have left a lasting impression on Lau and made concert organisers more aware of the problem of safety.
In June, it was the death of Beyond lead singer Koma Wong Ka-kui that brought the biggest setback for the music industry. Wong, who was spearheading Hong Kong's resurrection of original compositions, was seen as an idol in the slowly growing rock scene.
And, in October, Danny Chan Pak-keung finally slipped away after 17 months in a coma induced by a suspected drug overdose. The untimely demise of these two musicians has left Hong Kong with still fewer singer-songwriters in an already shrinking pool of talent.
On the upside, Hong Kong and Taiwan appear to have entered into an exchange programme where they swap Canto-pop stars for teenage Tai-pop idols - Jimmy Lin Chi-yan, Nicky Wu Chi-lung and Takeshi Kaneshiro are sending Hong Kong girls into a frenzy, whileHong Kong's four ''Don't Call Us Canto-pop'' kings - Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung Hok-yau, Leon Lai Ming and Aaron Kwok Fu-shing - are notching up impressive sales in Taiwan.
Taiwan should prove to be a good influence on Hong Kong because its trend of original compositions should force Hong Kong singers, who have so far been doing cover versions of Taiwanese or Japanese numbers, to come up with their own songs.