What Hong Kong’s Cantopop scene owes to the Cranberries

Because the world mourns the demise of the Cranberries’ lead singer Dolores O’Riordan, who handed away yesterday (Jan. 16), Hong Kong specifically remembers her as somebody who left an enduring imprint on the native Cantonese pop scene.

The Irish band impressed a variety of Hong Kong pop artists within the 1990s and allowed them to interrupt away from the normal Cantopop music format that had so dominated the trade. No Cantopop singer was extra impressed by the Cranberries than singer Faye Wong.

The Beijing-born singer, generally known as Wong Fei in Cantonese, emerged in Hong Kong’s music scene on the flip of the 1990s. At first, she was packaged as a typical younger idol underneath an strange identify, Shirley Wong. Her songs have been the usual, easy-listening love songs in style on the time. It wasn’t till 1993 and 1994 that she began masking music from the likes of Tori Amos and the Cocteau Twins, sending shockwaves by the Cantopop trade, which was on the time closely influenced by Japanese pop and epic Chinese language melodies created for martial arts TV dramas.

Wong’s most notable hit was her cowl of “Goals,” the Cranberries’ debut single and smash hit launched in 1992. Wong blended O’Riordan’s vocal type seamlessly along with her personal distinctive voice in her Cantonese model, translated as “Dreamlover.” The music was immortalized in Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 movie Chungking Specific, during which Wong even sported a coiffure that was just like O’Riordan’s on the time. From then on, Wong ditched her stage identify Shirley and began going by Faye, a nod to her Cantonese identify.

The success of the Cantonese cowl of “Goals” not solely made the Cranberries a family identify throughout the Chinese language-speaking world, but in addition widened the horizons of music followers who had till then been accustomed to saccharine Cantopop love songs. The general public grew to become extra receptive towards extra various music, opening doorways to artists who didn’t conform to the mainstream mannequin.

One of many native singers who discovered fame within the wake of Wong’s fame was Sweet Lo. Previously the lead singer of native indie band Black & Blue, Lo caught the eye of the Hong Kong music trade along with her highly effective voice that can be paying homage to O’Riordan’s. Lo went on to pursue a solo profession within the mainstream trade and launched her debut solo album in 1998.

The Cranberries additionally rocked town in 1996 on the Hong Kong Coliseum, a venue that had been generally known as the mecca of Cantopop live shows. The final time the band performed in Hong Kong was in 2012.