The 29th Golden Melody Awards was grandly held at the Taipei Arena on 23 June, 2018. This year’s opening act was the Remember Tonight performance brought by Jam Hsiao. Dressed in a black suite, Hsiao showed off his dance skills to warm up the crowd while serenading the audience in a suite of carefully crafted songs, including many nominated works from this year’s GMA such as Remember Me, Rain in Taipei, The Gray, Sea Urchin, Catfight, I Miss You, and Little Big Us, honoring all the nominated artists in the process. At the end of the performance a giant LED screen was raised behind the stage, projecting the photos of this year’s nominees.
The first secret guest of the evening was Mickey Huang, who presented the best composer and the best instrumental composer categories. This year’s ceremony was hosted by Jam Hsiao, who couldn’t help but crack a joke upon setting his feet on the stage, “I’m looking for something, does anybody see my hosting stick?” His entrance was met with non-stop laughter from the audience. He also wore the white suit from last year’s ceremony filled with signatures, an eye-stopper guaranteed to generate gossip. This year’s best instrumental composer was awarded to the noted music producer Baby Chung, who encouraged himself during the acceptance speech by saying that “Old soldiers never die, and they shall keep going.”
Presenter for song of the year category was Wu Tsing-Fong. Wu stated that since he is not good with words, he decided to string all the nominated songs into a suite. His clear and fresh voice won applause of the audiences. Crowd Lu on the other hand, won the best composer and song of the year categories with his single He-R. Lu expressed that upon hearing the win, he was quite unable to suppress his excitement at the news, he gave special thanks to the production team of the album, the production team for the TV series A Boy Named Flora A, his teacher Chung Cheng-hu, and his maternal and paternal grandmas, both have passed away. He also shared during his acceptance speech, that the most romantic status over the course of writing is song, is to “arrive at a place where you like it, and I like it as well”, and that he was quite ecstatic that such a romantic coincidence happened for He-R.
Before the new talents of the year were to take the stage, host Jam Hsiao unveiled a carefully designed segment of shadowgraphy, exhibiting a rabbit running into the forest, euphemizing the path that young artists would have to go through, and the hopes and wishes for them from their forebears. This artistic side of Hsiao and the vivid performance also won a round of applause from the audience.
“Future-ING” is one of the themes for this year’s GMA, as well as the focus of the New Talent Show. The segment arranged for all the nominees for this year’s best new artist category to give performances on the stage, demonstrating the energy of this new generation of musicians. Paige Su performed Luna Mare on her harp, J.Sheon brought us a song from his album You’ll Never Know, Dean Ting performed The Detective, while Leon Zheng brought us Childish. Jerry Li performed Do We Still Got an Eye For Each Other? Janice Yang brought the audience I Have Myself, while EggPlantEgg serenaded them with Back Here Again. Before unveiling the winner, r presenter of the category Julia Peng shared her own experience of not winning any award at the GMA for 20 years right after her nomination to the best new artist category during the 8th GMA, all the while encouraging the new artists that it also meant that they were capable enough to sustain and endure within the industry for 20 years. During his acceptance speech for the best new artist category, EggPlantEgg vocalist Ng KiPin reminisced that while there was nothing particularly special about the path he took, he was grateful that his parents endured years of his terrible practice sessions, and now they could finally hold their heads up high and tell people that “yes, my son’s in the music business.”
The show Khuì-Kháu was brought by singers Hsieh Ming-Yu and Lin Sheng Xiang, with performances of Ukulele Cover and My Lovely Girl respectively, utilizing the “tones” (khuì-kháu) of the Taiwanese and Hakka languages to express a man’s inner voice.
In the middle of the awards ceremony, the host Jam Hsiao began to introduce this year’s panel of judges. Hsiao walked up to Eric Chen, who was also the chief organizer of the event, and asked whether he was under a lot of pressure and felt nervous. Little did he know that Chen would respond to the question by saying “My pressure came from the fact that you might botch this hosting job!” The audience burst into laughter at the unexpected answer; however, Hsiao kept his cool and produced a Hello Kitty calculator as well as an abacus, asking Chen to calculate how much time it would take for the judges to finish reviewing all 20,000 nominated songs, which came to a final tally of 325 days per judge. Hsiao then stated “I hope to let everyone appreciate how much work the judges had to go through, a whole year!”; Hsiao then proceed to introduce the choir from Jiaxing Elementary School, who had just won the gold medal and the special award at the International Choir Competition in Vienna. “You guys embody the ‘future-ING’ theme perfectly, and a future A-mei is probably already among you!” Hsiao said emphatically. The Jiaxing Elementary choir serenaded the audience with their beautiful voice, and the audiences were completely entranced by it.
The best aboriginal language vocalist category, presented by Jia Jia and Sanpuy, was awarded to Seredau. She delivered a heartfelt acceptance speech stating that the glory belongs to the tribe. Jia Jia expressed a certain trepidation right before announcing the best aboriginal language album category. However, Sanpuy comforted her by saying that the elders in the tribe use to say “everyone should relax, and we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it”. The quote was effective in alleviating the tension; the category was won by the CMO Group’s album NAOMI. Their acceptance speech also included an impromptu sing along of Amis songs with the audience, while confidently expressed that the aboriginal people should rise up and demonstrate their ambition and aggressiveness, and to earn their chance to shine.
The performance DUO was conducted by “natural`-born singer” A-Lin and “queen of rock”Tan Weiwei. A-Lin graced the stage with her blonde hair and a striking set of pant suit, Tan on the other hand wore a pair of black and white pants to go with her fishnet and rhinestone outfit, classy yet sexy. The two competed for the attention of the crowd both through their voice and their outfits, performed many classic female duets such as Awake, After Those Days, Dreamland, and River. The two’s performance was also enhanced by the visual projection on the scene. With A-Lin’s alto and Tan’s soprano voices covering both range of the spectrum, and the impressive special effects contributing to the experience, the performance was lauded by many netizens for its achievements.
For the best male Taiwanese vocalist category, Hsiao Huang-chi managed his fourth win over the years. He thanked his family, his agent and his team during his acceptance speech, and humorously remarked “Since I won’t see the last few seconds of the speech, just let me keep going.” But he did express later on that he was grateful for everyone in his life, and that he wish to salute all of them with this award, proclaimed “here’s to you, life!”; the best female Taiwanese vocalist category was won by Elly Chang. Fighting back tears, she stated that the path to this was hardly an easy one and thanked her family for coming up all the way from Pintung. As a vocal teacher, she was also proud that from now on, she gets to tell her student that “your teacher won the GMA!”The crowd responded with thunderous applause.
EggPlantEgg won their second award of the night with the best Taiwanese album category. Presenter Kang Kang humorously remarked during the announcement that “I guess this means they’re gainfully employed again” The four members shared their excitement with a group hug. Vocalist Ng KiPin also mentioned that his dad had insisted that the acceptance speech must be made in Taiwanese; “We’re so happy be honored like this, thanks to the support of the judge and everyone, and thanks to our parents for nurturing us, EggPlantEgg will keep on fighting for the cause, appreciate everyone’s support along the way!”
A-mei’s Left Behind took the best music video category. Director Lo Ging-zim explained the special meaning of this music video during the acceptance speech, that the music video helped us to mark this era that whether we could learn from those painful and traumatic goodbyes can only be answered after the passage of many years. A-mei was also moved to tears in her seat.
The popular Korean band Huykoh took the stage amidst dazzling visual effects next and brought the audience the song Wanli in perfect mandarin. Even though there were only 8 sentences for the entire song, the audience was still moved by it. Collaborating with Yao Chung-Han, who specializes in audio and visual effects, the two constructed a sense of futuristic high-tech through the employment of fluorescent lighting, further complementing the epic sense of the song, and truly brought out the best of both music and the technology of art.
The best vocal collaboration category was won by the MJ116 group. Muta raised both his arms and exclaimed “truly awesome!” but that he did not have an acceptance speech prepared, hoping that his mom and dad were watching. All three members Muta, E-SO and Kenzy thanked their families, the judges, their brothers and sisters in Mucha for their support and company. The hip-hop focused group, represented by Muta, also stated rather emotionally that “There are still a lot of people out there working really hard for hip-hop, we all deserve this award together!”
The host Jam Hsiao also decided to present a special talent – oil painting – during the ceremony, sketching the portrait of this year’s special contribution category winner Su Rui with an upside-down technique on the spot. The work won immediate praise from Su herself. GMA laureate Eve Ai then proceed to perform two classic scores Falling Flowers and Whether in honor of Su Rui and her award. The performance was accompanied by Jazz pianist Yu Ying Hsu, in combination with Eve Ai’s unique interpretation, to create a brand new story; After Su received the award from industry veteran, and also her teacher, Chen Fuming, the crowd all stood up and joined in singing the classic score The Same Moonlight, host Jam Hsiao also joined in the chorus. Su Rui was extremely moved and told the crowd “I love you guys! This award belongs to all our partners, and here’s hoping all the music-loving friends keep fighting toward our ideals, my heart is with you always!”
The MJ116 group, fresh from their win at the best vocal collaboration category, returns to the stage to present this year’s best arrangement and best musical group categories. Wen Yizhe took the best arrangement category while The Chairman won the best musical group of the year, the group admits that it’s been 10 years since their last win, but they have kept working hard on it, and hoping that they’ll have the same fortune in another 10 years, while continuing to work on better albums in the future. PoTek, Kasiwa, Andrew Chou and Miss Ko then took the stage and unveiled the set Taiwan Already Got Hip-hop. First PoTek took the stage cosplaying as Naruto, all the while rapping around the year’s theme of “future-ING”. Kasiwa followed up with a rendition of “tribal hip-hop”, Andrew Chou reminisced that since he started with hip-hop at the age of 13, he has grown to an 186cm-tall adult. When the time came for Miss Ko to out on the show, she announced her guest dancer for the night Ron Myles from Tennessee and brought us the latest in style-Jookin. Last but not least, veteran musician Liu Fu-Chu a.k.a. The Father of Taiwanese Rap arrived on the stage riding a tricycle and performed a rap version of his early work You Can Distinguish Yourself at Any Trade, all the while gesturing the universal hip-hop sign to the audience, the crowd ignited into a frenzy, even A-mei was impressed, making this creative segment one of the highlights of the ceremony.
David Tao was invited to present the best album producer and best single producer categories. Due to the somewhat “special “circumstance he encountered last year, he brought two gigantic microphones along with two bullhorns onto the stage. Tao also humorously remarked that he might be the only person to present the same categories two years in a row, the humor was well received by the crowd. The best single producer was taken by Lin Sheng Xiang for his work on the single Youwu. Best album producer category went to Jonathan Lee, who needs no introduction. Lee’s pupil Li Jian Qing accepted the award on his behalf. He stated that in the 14 years he has been working with Lee, he always regards Lee as a role model, and wish that Lee will fare better and better in the future.
This year’s special contribution award was presented by the “Love Song Prince “Jeff Chang himself, to the virtuoso bass player Joy Kuo, who passed away last year. Chang remarked upon taking the stage that since this is his seventh time at the GMA, he hope everyone would still tolerate his diatribe. He expressed that it was his honor to collaborate with Kuo when he first started as a singer, and even though that they have worked together, Kuo was still extremely timid in asking for a photo together, which made an impression on Chang. The award was accepted by Kuo’s fellow pupil Huang Rui-feng in his stead.
The last performance of the night was JJ Lin. Wearing a gray cape around his immaculate suit, Lin and 42 members of the Taipei Philharmonic Orchestra and US musicians, along with the internationally renowned dancer, winner of the Bessie Award Chien Pei Ju, brought the assembled audience the ceremony’s final segment Little Big Us. The segment utilized augmented reality (AR) technology, allowing the audience to experience the wonder of a universe been destroyed and reborn. The same NCAM broadcast grade AR 3D tracking system were used in the movies Independence Day: Resurgence, Beauty and the Beast, and Avengers 2, as well as the live broadcasting for the National Football League (NFL). Lin serenaded the audience with a series of songs from River South, If Only, Westside, Little Big Us, Hundred Days, to Twilight, and successfully brought the ceremony to its unforgettable conclusion.
The final winner of the night, Lala Hsu, took the best mandarin female vocalist and best mandarin album categories with her album The Inner Me. Giving her boyfriend Bill Chia, who sat in back of her, a sweet kiss before taking the stage, Hsu thanked him for his patience. Hsu was also grateful for her own uncompromising perseverance on the road of being a musician and hope she can be a person that contributes more to the society, stating that she intends to donate the prize money to the Association for Stray Dog Rescue. Eason Chen also won the two coveted categories of best mandarin male vocalist and best album of the year, he expressed his joy and surprise at winning the two categories but stated that he felt he didn’t feel been weighed down by the past, but felt instead that he’s taking a lot of things home with him today.
