Wang Lee Hom 《Change Me》

In Leehom's past two albums, "Heroes of Earth" and "Shangri-la", he had successfully fused hip hop and Chinese traditional music into a musical style he called "Chinked-out". In music, Leehom always seems to find ways to challenge himself, to be creative, and to make breakthroughs. This is why, in his latest album, he presents a new image and takes on new musical projects. The songs will take on a cleaner feel and will sound more mellow, just like the song from Ang Lee's movie, "Lust, Caution", titled "Falling Leaf Returns to Roots".

The concept for 《Change Me》 is "Environmental Safety". Leehom believes that music can touch people's hearts and there is no issue that cannot be addressed through music. Through "Change Me" (track 1), the song's fast tune, easy humming melody, and interesting lyrics, allow music fans to sing along and pass on the positive message, "Save the Environment". Just like a seed, it will one day grow to a big tree. Leehom spreads the love and changes himself and anticipates a more beautiful world.

In the title track, "Change Me", one cannot help but emphasize the world's most concerned problem such as "Environmental Safety". The lyrics go, "I wake up this morning with a headache, and it is probably because there is too much carbon dioxide in the air, and not enough oxygen". Just like that, he slightly points out global warming. For this problem, Leehom starts off by changing himself first. He insists on making the packaging for this album as simple as possible. The plastic wrap is replaced with recyclable paper. Leehom wants to start off a trend and hopes that others will follow. The album also comes with a specially made pair of chopsticks as a reminder to fans to start changing and get rid of the bad habit of using disposable plastic utensils.

Not only does Leehom have full control of the album's production and composition, but he also wrote the lyrics to nine of the songs. You can see Leehom's Chinese literature gradually improving.

"Falling Leaf Returns to Roots" (track 3) is a Chinese saying: "Tree grows to one thousand yards high, falling leaf returns to roots", which simply means a person should never forget and remember their upbringings and return to their roots. To Leehom, the title is especially meaningful to him. He also directed the MV for this song.

"Incomplete Melody" (track 9) is a musical experiment for Leehom. He combined incomplete melodies for this song to express love that is incomplete. Although the melody is incomplete, Leehom has created an easy-listening to the song. Through the song, Leehom wants to get the message that incomplete love is also a type of beauty as long as you look at it in a different perspective. In "Saturday Night" (track 12), you can hear Leehom express regret and sorrow.

The fast songs in this album are full of support and encouragement, just like the song "Love's Encouragement". By simply adding "Hey!" and "Ho!" to the song, it gives it more energy to listen to. In the love song "Our Song" (track 5), Leehom cleverly adds the song titles "Forever Love" and "Kiss Goodbye" and takes on the perspective of a small character. He actually sings out a feeling everyone can relate to. The song "In My Heart, You Are a Song" (track 6), Leehom sings with S.H.E.'s Selina. The lyrics in the song switch off from Mandarin to Taiwanese, which is quite interesting.

Through the process of always improving and changing, Leehom does not leave out his "Chinked-out" style. "Cockney Girl" (track 8) is a song about a Chinese-speaking girl he saw in London. He observed that more and more people in the world are learning and speaking Chinese. Even in an unfamiliar place like London, you can run into Chinese-speaking people. In "Long Live Chinese People", Leehom specially made it for the participants in 2008's Beijing Olympics as an encouragement. Since this will be the first time that the Summer Olympics will be hosted by the Chinese people, the meaning will be extra special. You can say it is the Chinese's pride.

《Change Me》《改變自己》

Track List:
01. Intro
02. 改變自己 Change Me
03. 落葉歸根 Falling Leaf Returns to Roots
04. 創作前言 Creation's Foreword
05. 我們的歌 Our Song
06. 你是我心內的一首歌 In My Heart, You Are a Song
07. 愛在哪里 Where Is Love
08. Cockney Girl
09 .不完整的旋律 Incomplete Melody
10. 愛的鼓勵 Love's Encouragement
11. 華人萬歲 Long Live Chinese People
12. 星期六的深夜 Saturday Night

My rating: 8/10
Compared to the previous two albums, this one is a regular album...a good regular album. It is not really a change for Leehom because he has had mellow songs before like "Only". The songs I really enjoy are "Change Me", "Falling Leaf Returns to Roots", "Our Song", "Love's Encouragement", and "Long Live Chinese People".

"Falling Leaf Returns to Roots"

Get your copy of Wang Lee Hom's 《Change Me》!

*Credits to yesasia, youtube, and sonybmg