Crazy Rich Asians soundtrack: Mandarin version of Coldplay’s Yellow tops music charts … but it was almost cut from the film
Katherine Ho’s version of the song Yellow is No. 1 on the Spotify Viral 50 Global chart. The song was almost cut from the film because the word ‘yellow’ is considered derogatory towards Asians
Many people who watched Crazy Rich Asians would have left the cinema with some deeply embedded earworms. The film’s soundtrack features well-known Mandarin numbers by Ge Lan (Grace Chang) from the 1950s and 1960s and American pop classics including Sally Yeh's 1980 Cantonese version of Madonna’s Material Girl.
But it’s the song Yellow, a cover of the 2000 hit by British band Coldplay, which accompanies the final scenes of the film (track 12 on the official Crazy Rich Asians soundtrack) that is striking a chord with global audiences.
It’s been less than a month since the film opened in Hong Kong, yet the Mandarin cover of Yellow, recorded by Katherine Ho, a Chinese-American YouTuber who appeared in season 10 of the US TV show The Voice, has reached No. 1 on the Spotify Viral 50 Global and Hong Kong charts.
The 19-year-old’s single is also No. 1 on the Spotify Viral 50 chart in the USA, Australia, Malaysia and Singapore.
Spotify rankings are based on how often a tune is streamed and shared.