~*//The Official Elva Hsiao Thread\\*~

[orbitalaspect]

Originally Posted by Linoa62

Err, hell no to me. I'd rather have 1 nice or great album every 5 years than have 5 shitty albums released in 5 years o_O

About being forgotten, I can't tell about Elva. But when it comes to Jolin, after PLAY promo ended:
► she had a World Tour (2015-2016)
► she also had lots of events (performances at festivals, awards ceremonies, press conferences for endorsements, guest appearances at concerts, Fashion Weeks attendance... the list here per year: http://www.jolinjenerationgallery.com/index.php?cat=24)
► she won the Best Album Award at the GMA
► she had her first dubbing job as the lead role, Judy Hopps, in Zootopia. I also read back then that Zootopia became the most watched animation movie of all time in Taiwan (don't know if it's still the case today though)
► she released 7 singles [I Wanna Know feat. Alesso, PLAY remix by Alesso, EGO-HOLIC (with the MV controversy), We Are One feat. Hardwell, On Happiness Road, the song for Mother's Day Let Love Spread Out, and Stand Up for Monster Hunt 2, the 4th highest-grossing film worldwide of 2018 at the moment]
► she broke up with her boyfriend of 6 years, Vivian Dawson
► she recently released a DVD/BD for her Tour.

What I mean is, even if she hasn't released an album in almost 4 years, she still got lots of media coverage.
I agree though that her international fanbase might turn to other singers since most of it doesn't really follow her latest news.

But if the delay is basically "Jolin's fault", it's not really Elva's fault if she hasn't released anything since 2014.
Elva left Sony in 2015 to create her own music production company (and find another record company), she wanted to release her new album in summer 2016. So she founded X & Y Entertainment with her younger sister. But things didn't go as scheduled, and she only signed with a new record company, EMI, this year.

In the last four years, aMEI released three albums: one in 2014, another in 2015, and STORY THIEF in December 2017... all of them are critically acclaimed records. And trust me, I desperately wanted aMEI to do a release in 2016 too. But my point is that Jolin and Elva are maybe trying too hard. To be honest, I didn't hear anything on Jolin's Pei or Elva's Shut Up & Kiss Me that was at all a significant change from the album prior to it. If Jolin decides to release a classical piano album of original compositions or go Country then I totally understand taking four years. But there just isn't anything so tremendously career-changing that's happened since Pei or Shut Up & Kiss Me.

TBH, my favorite Elva records are Diamond Candy, Ms. Elva, I'm Ready, and Shut Up & Kiss Me. And really, if I had to say which albums were the best, it would be Diamond Candy then Ms. Elva then I'm Ready. So I think when Elva isn't trying to take the reigns of everything, she actually puts out her best work. And I think that's also true of her earlier albums.

MUSE was a game-changer for me with Jolin. I did not like her until The Great Artist came out and then she blew me away. But that album was literally made in only a little more time than Myself or Dancing Diva. Pei didn't land with the same impact, but it landed well. I just don't see how taking twice as long to release a record is really at all correlated with higher quality and memorability.

My first love in Mandopop is Angela Chang. But I strongly believe her music has only gotten worse since Ang 5.0 and Di Wu Ji. With the exception of her self-titled album in 2014, I honestly couldn't stomach Visible Wings and Head Over Heels. Just really not, not what Angela is good at - not creative, not interesting, not refreshing as her past albums were. In the last 8 years, she's done three albums. None of them really connect to me as effectively as Di Wu Ji or Ang 5.0 or Flower In The Wonderland.

Again, compare aMEI here. She's 19 albums into her career. I cannot tell you how grateful I am for FACES OF PARANOIA and AMIT2, and how those albums really grounded me through 2014 and 2015 and 2016. I was more excited for STORY THIEF than I was to go on holiday vacation from the office at the end of 2017. I've literally listened to those three albums collectively about as much as I have listened to Ayumi Hamasaki in the last 10 years.

So, I get it, I'd rather have 1 good album than 2 bad albums, but I don't think there's any guarantee that we will get a good album after 4 years of work when we know that most of these people put out their most memorable material after like 6 months of work.