Luck |
Tanya (Chua) Luck
Universal/Yellow Music
By Chia Han-Leon
Listening to Tanya's first album, Bored (1997) , I wondered honestly if she could possibly improve upon her already beautiful and mature voice, her totally liberating and musical style. And she did. Here in Luck, the impossible happens: Tanya makes us even more proud.
Between the songs, Tanya showcases yet another ability of the best singers - different voices. Carefree tone is her trademark, whether it is the grinning smoothliness of "Luck" or the slight self-pity mixed with nonchalant 'doesn't matter' of "All Right". Soft and simply lyrically beautiful are "Inside Out" and the ethereal "Let You Down". Listen to Tanya's deep defiant (but ever so attractive) mezzo in "Dont You Dare" then the next track, her soft high casualness of "All Right" - different. And of course, despite the occasional reference to her "female rocker" image - she's really full of life and humour. Just witness the self-reflexive "The Wicked Signs of Trying to be a Superstar" in which she paradies, in jazz band style, her own fairly recently found fame. Tanya, you're a genius.
(Tanya spent half a year in LA studying and playing music while making this album. Some of the songs were recorded in the US. Tanya is a bilingual singer and has also released two highly popular Mandarin albums, which include transcriptions of her English songs.)
Leon has Tanya's autograph! Yes, it's on my copy of "Bored".
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Her songs, all music and lyrics by Tanya, are already widely and firmly acknowledged as "radio-friendly" - to the most pleasant extreme. Music has rarely been so enjoyably infectious. But in addition to this, now hear the sexy confidence of the deeply voiced "Dont You Dare" with its smashing chorus; or the smooth and catchy (damn, they are all catchy) "Outer Space, Shuttles & Satellites" and "Drive!"; or the developing rhythms of "Cipher", or the honey bossa nova of "Everything is About You". More than a hint there is of the mannerisms of Alanis, but Tanya is all original (both incidently call Joni Mitchell their inspiration). Tanya, with her consistently pleasant voice in many styles, exudes vocal, musical (and of course, physical) babe.