TVB News World - Asian Entertainment News Daily

Many people say TVB music producer Tang Chi Wai is Joseph Koo's successor. His representative works includes Speechless 講不出聲 (Susanna Kwan), My Departure is Also Love 我的離開也是愛 (Alfred Hui) and CHOK (Raymond Lam). Tang will soon be holding a concert, not only did he invite TVB's Four Siu Sangs to help him shoot the promotional clips, Raymond Lam's fans also called him 'Chief Tang'. Chief Tang's other identity is a member of an independent band called Primary Shapes (PS), formed 12 years ago. Their style of music includes ambient and progressive rock, but none of their music were mainstream nor did their albums sell well. "I am a very blessed musician. Shouldn't I think this way? And not complain about 'how come I spent 4 years producing an album, but only sold 200 copies, was there a mistake, why don't people know what's good?'"

Nobody knows the music, its possibly because of the wrong match of resources: "I spent 4 years producing the Primary Shapes album, but there weren't many listeners. But I spent 20 minutes composing a song that had 4 million audience listening. How do I feel about this huge difference? I already have no feeling."

Before his debut, Tang is a person that never watches TV series. His reason for joining TVB is very simple -- 'poverty'. Back in 2000, Tang Chi Wai was still a student, he started playing the piano at age 4. He and his friends made a group called PS, and the demo to their first EP Bell Lab went to England, then to the doors of a large studio. "Even Massive Attack's Robert Del Naja praised us, but we were so poor that even the basis of living was a problem. So, we must go back to HK. Back in HK, I saw TVB was hiring a soundtrack director, so I gave it a try. I didn't want my family to worry." Switching from independent music to the soundtrack department at a TV station, if there wasn't any struggles, then that's a lie. "Even you would ask if PS was already disbanded. I have never thought I would do mainstream music, but my job at TVB was a 'screen director', I have to enhance the atmosphere of what is seen on screen. Actually, it's considered music service, as long as I think like that, its comforting."

Raymond Lam - Deserved

Tang's first music composition was Raymond Lam's Deep Breath 深呼吸 (The Last Breakthrough), at the time the two were not really known yet, so they debuted together and were criticized together. "Just as you said: 'What is TVB doing? Compose songs and then using their own artists to sing them?". At the time, a lot of people were criticizing Ron Ng's Don't Blame Her, but indeed that year the entire HK were singing Don't Blame Her." It was only until Susanna Kwan's Speechless (Heart of Greed) that Tang's works started getting positive response and also the over 40 songs that he composed for Raymond Lam. This year, when Raymond got the Asia-Pacific Most Popular Male Singer Award and the Gold Song Gold Award, it was very shocking. CHOK was a Gold Song? "I know when Raymond got the award, I was also like: 'Huh? It's really him?' But in fact, he did win the votes. He really did win. Without the Big 4 singers, what songs are left? Raymond got the Asia-Pacific Male Singer award, you all wondered if that's a mistake, but you should watch clearly when he goes to China for functions, there are thousands and thousands of people surrounding him. He really is popular. One year many people were talking about karaoke songs. Ah Fung (Raymond) launched a few fast and trendy dance songs, like Chok. Aiya, but then you all go and criticized that Chok is a song? Sometimes I feel the people of HK are quite contradictory."

Melody is the Beginning of Sorrow

Due to this interview, readers take the 12 year old Bell Labs out of their collection and listens to it again. In the stash for 12 years, it is the story of his time as a youth in England, a memory of the tremendous dreams during youth.

Tang was asked, TV series theme songs can get extremely repetitive? "I asked myself too, are my creations too repetitive? For example, after shooting the first installment of Forensic Heroes, then the second and third installment, I would wonder in between, what exactly is the difference? How to resolve this? No way to solve it (laughs) because that's just how the nature of it is. There's no reason for me to say: 'I think this song is OK, but the opening is filmed differently, it really affects the entire song.' This often happens in TVB, after all it is a large company, you cannot control every element in the production of every series.' He said no matter what music he's doing, the beginning of sorrow starts off with the melody. "The Hippocratic Crush, a series about doctors, many people automatically think of Healing Hands. Following the old path, definitely can't go bad, but I'm not like that. Joey Yung's Dramatic Series 連續劇 is a sentimental piece, making people think of love, life, and impermanence. It even changed the direction of the promotional clip editing. In the past, I liked to yell yell yell, but after working for so many years, I understand its best to do my own part, appreciate people around me and the music will just be better. When editing clips, may even do better in the editing."

Source: JET #116, TVBChannel
Translated by: aZnangel @ AsianEU Forum