Lee-Hom Wang (Chinese: 王力å®?; pinyin: Wáng L“hóng; born May 17, 1976; also referred to as, Wang Leehom, or just Leehom) is a four time Golden Melody Award-winning American singer-songwriter and actor who has achieved highly recognized success in Taiwan, Mainland China, Malaysia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Thailand and the rest of Southeast Asia. One of his most notable contributions to Mandopop was the introduction of "chinked-out" music, a genre heavily influenced by traditional Chinese music. Wang is managed by and records albums with Sony BMG. As of 1995, the beginning of his musical career, Wang has contributed in over 25 albums, topping to nearly 13,000,000 sales. In addition to his album sales, he also set a new attendance record at the Taipei Arena for his Heroes of Earth 2006 Concert on March 2006 as the concert had broken over six national records. Wang also participated in several films, his role in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution gaining the most attention. Recently, Wang was listed among "The 80 Most Inspiring Asian Americans of All Time" by Goldsea Asian American Daily.
Alexander Lee-Hom Wang was born in Rochester, New York on May 17, 1976. He attended Jefferson Road Elementary School, Pittsford Middle School, then later Pittsford Sutherland High School in the town of Pittsford. Known for its excellence in education, the Pittsford School District cradled Leehom as a youngster, making him a well rounded person. Leehom graduated from Sutherland High School with a perfect 1600 SAT score. After graduation, he studied at Williams College and graduated with honors majoring in Music & Asian Studies. He furthered his studies by attending a semester at Berklee College of Music in the Professional Music program, with voice as his principal instrument.
In 1995 he was signed to a professional recording contract while visiting his grandparents in Taiwan. Since then, Wang has become one of the new songwriters and musicians revolutionizing the Chinese-language music industry. He is active in all areas of music production, from composing to producing, to music arrangement, to lyric writing, to directing his own music videos.
Although he did not begin learning Chinese until he was 18, Wang is now fluent in Chinese in both speaking and writing and has written many Chinese lyrics for his songs. Wang plays over 10 musical instruments. In his albums and live concerts, Wang can be heard playing piano, drums, guitar, bass, violin, vibraphone, erhu, xun, and more.
An experienced musical background enables Wang to pull from a variety of musical styles and continuously reinvent his own sound, that is distinctly Chinese and international at the same time. His 2005 release, Shangri-La (心ä¸çš„日月) drew heavily from R&B, dance pop, and the musics of Chinese ethnic minorities of Tibet, Mongolia, and Yunnan. In 2006, Heroes of Earth (蓋世英雄) centered around R&B, hip hop, rap, and with a strong emphasis on Beijing opera and its predecessor Kunqu.
1995–1997: Just a beginning
In 1995, during a summer trip to Taiwan, Wang's music talent was discovered. His debut album Love Rival Beethoven (情敵�多芬) was released by BMG Music in the winter of 1995.
He was asked to leave his college study to pursue a full time singing career in Taiwan. Wang insisted to stay on to finish school, and at the same time, he was able to convince Decca Records to include some of his own writings in his next album. One of his writings became the title song or zhuda (Chinese: 主打; pinyin: zhÇ” dÇŽ) for his second album If You Heard My Song (å¦‚æžœä½ è?½è¦‹æˆ‘çš„æŒ). Wang continued his study at Williams College, and released Missing You (å¥½æƒ³ä½ ) during winter break of 1996 and White Paper (白紙) during summer of 1997. His music breakthrough did not come until a year later when Revolution (公轉自轉) was released after his graduation from Williams.
1998–2002: Revolution
Heroes of Tokyo photobookAfter graduating from Williams College, Wang was able to devote full time to his music career. He signed with Sony BMG Taiwan[1] and released his fifth album, Revolution (公轉自轉) on August 21, 1998. The album became a huge success and won him numerous notable awards including Best Producer of the Year and Best Male Vocalist of the 10th Annual Golden Melody Awards in 1999. He was just 22, making him the youngest person ever to win the award in either of the two categories.
His sixth album Impossible to Miss You (ä¸?å?¯èƒ½éŒ¯é?Žä½ ) was released 10 months later. It was just as successful as his previous album. Although he was nominated again for Best Male Vocalist at the 11th Annual Golden Melody Awards and ever since thereafter, he did not win the award this time. However, the interesting style of music Wang had incorporated in this album had attracted many new fans. Since his release of Revolution, each album Wang produced conveyed different styles of music and sounds, attracted numerous fans from different regions in Southeast Asia.
Although raised in New York, Wang always felt the deep root in his Chinese heritage. He started to incorporate Chinese sounds into his music. In 2000, the year of the Dragon in the Chinese lunar calendar, Wang remade a popular Chinese song "Descendants of the Dragon" (é¾?的傳人) to include in his seventh album Forever's First Day (æ°¸é? 的第一天). The song raised the pride of the young Chinese generation, soon became a must-sing song in all of his concerts.
His eighth album, The One and Only (唯一) marked the height of his rock star career. "The One and Only" (唯一) became his signature song. The song has won him over 7 different prestigious awards and being on the ringback tone number one download charts for over a year.
2003–2006: Chinked-out
Promotional image for Heroes of Earth album.Having established himself as one of the most important, influential, and prolific artists in Chinese music, never repeating himself, Wang continues to invent and experiment with new sounds and voices.
His ninth album, Unbelievable (ä¸?å?¯æ€?è°) marked another mile stone in his career. Not only did the album heavily stressed mainstream R&B and hip hop, it also sold more than 1,300,000 copies in Asia and won him Best Producer of the Year again for the Golden Melody Awards 金曲ç?Ž in 2004. The first title song (zhuda) of the album, "You're Not Here" (ä½ ä¸?在) was ranked #1 in several music charts and stayed for well over 10 weeks. Before the release of Unbelievable, Wang began his first world concert tour titled "Unbelievable". The concert tour received rave reviews from fans and critiques in all regions in Asia.
In his tenth album, released on the last day of 2004, Shangri-La (心ä¸çš„日月), Wang incorporated the often unheard music of Chinese aboriginal music into mainstream hip hop and coined this style "chinked-out". He experimented with the tribal sounds of China, Tibet, and Mongolia, traveled to remote villages, carrying 15 kg of equipment while fighting bouts of altitude and food sickness.
Within ten days of its release, Shangri-La sold past an outstanding 40,000 copies, an excellent start as the first album to be sold in Taiwan of 2005.[2] In within a month, the album sold past 300,000 copies.[3]
Continuing the "chinked-out spirit" by infusing elements of Beijing opera and Kunqu into the songs, Heroes of Earth (蓋世英雄) was released on December 30, 2005. Heroes of Earth again won him Best Male Vocalist in the 17th Annual Golden Melody Awards in 2006.
Heroes of Earth broke the record of impressively selling more than 1,000,000 copies ten days after the release.[4] The album stayed at first place in the G-Music Charts for 6 weeks.[5]. Ultimately, the album stayed in the charts for a total of 23 weeks and became third for the most sold album in Taiwan of 2006.[6]
Wang's Heroes of Earth concert toured cities in Taipei, Shanghai, Hong Kong , Singapore and Kuala Lumpur. Breaking over six national records, the concert set a new attendance record at the Taipei Arena, and a sold out concert in the 80,000 seat Shanghai Arena.
1 在梅邊 Beside the Plum Blossoms 2 花田錯 Mistake in the Flower Fields 3 蓋世英雄 Heroes of Earth 4 Kiss Goodbye 5 完美的互動 The Perfect Interaction 6 大城å°?æ„› Big City, Small Love 7 第一個清晨 The First Morning 8 哥兒們 Homies 9 讓開 Move Over 10 æ„›å› ç‚ºåœ¨å¿ƒä¸ Because Love is in the Heart
2007-Present: Change Me
Recently, Wang released his much anticipated 12th album, Change Me (改變自己). The album was released on Friday, July 13, completely disregarding the superstition generally attached to Friday the 13th.[7]. Through this album, Leehom promotes the issue of global warming and eco-awareness. Thus the packaging of the CD uses recycled paper and contains no plastic. Wang believes that little changes in each person can affect the world. The CD also comes with a pair of reusable metal chopsticks in a pouch. This is also to promote eco-awareness.
Wang's first promotional single album for the new album, "Falling Leaf Returns to Roots" (è?½è‘‰æ¸æ ¹) gave its world premiere at Hito Radio on June 20, 2007. The music style is very different from Wang's previous singles. Wang had said that the inspiration behind the song was due to the influence of his portrayal of Kuang Yumin in the new film, Lust, Caution.[8] The song accompanies melodic violin and piano solos. In addition, Leehom collaborated with Selina Ren, a member of the famous Taiwan girl group S.H.E in ä½ æ˜¯æˆ‘å¿ƒå†…çš„ä¸€é¦–æŒ where he approached singing in Taiwanese for the first time.
source credit: wikipedia
