Top musicians are hard to find, but singer Hins Cheung King-hin has shown that there's plenty of talent in Hong Kong.
For his latest album, Love & Living, Cheung (above) collaborated with a host of local treasures including Anthony Lun Wing-leung, Tsui Yat-kan, Calvin Poon Yuen-leung, Duck Lau Cho-tak, George Lam Chi-cheung, Peter Kam Pui-tat and Alvin Leong, who over the past 20 years have been behind many Canto-pop legends including Anita Mui Yim-fong, Sandy Lam Yik-lin, Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, Alan Tam Wing-lun and Danny Chan Pak-keung.
'To me, these great musicians are like classic fashion labels known for the quality of their work. They helped build the glory days of Canto-pop in the 1980s and 1990s. I believe they are still capable of this even though our music industry is deteriorating,' Cheung said.
The 28-year-old singer said that during the boom time singers might only release one song and the profit generated would be enough to support them for the rest of the year.
But those fairy-tale days are gone. Cheung said he once sold one of his songs to another singer for a mere HK$68. And today, thanks to illegal downloading, releasing an album could mean losing money, so record labels are cutting production costs.
This is a vicious circle: lower budgets for albums can discourage artists from recording. 'When there is so little money to be made, you can't blame musicians for being disillusioned.
'But when a music icon dies, people create these two-hour special programmes or present the late star with a lifetime achievement award but it is already too late,' he said. 'Why can't we appreciate them more when they are still around? This is exactly what I'm trying to do with this album, I want to pay tribute to all these living music legends.'