Yes, that title does merit three exclamation marks. You have no idea how happy I am right now. Pardon me if I sound too fangirly but if I could have only one artist ever release a new album ever again, it would be Hou Xian aka Hoho (but let’s not use that name too much), and I don’t think I ever anticipated a new release as much as this one (his last album was from 2005).

Hou Xian with his CD

I first discovered Hou Xian at the Beijing Rocks community at Livejournal, a couple of years ago but no image was attached to the download and I forgot about it. I wanted new music to try out on a long drive, so I finally listened to it and was blown away. He sounded like Jay, but while I like some of Jay’s songs, I never liked an entire album of Jay’s quite as much as I did Hou Xian’s album. His beats really blend very smoothly RnB and Chinese instrumentals. Ho Xian’s music is modern and yet very traditional Chinese at the same time, which i think is part of the appeal, for me at least. I don’t think I ever ever saw a post about him that wasn’t gushing over his awesome music.

I don’t really think I should give a review of this album because 1) My expectations were way too high 2) I like him way too much. Those things should supposedly cancel each other out, but I’m not sure. All I can say is that he improved a lot in vocals, and I’m really enjoying it right now and you should totally buy, burn or steal it. Support Hou Xian, an artist who is where he is today completely because of his raw talent not because of a company backing him, or great promotion. Word of mouth is what helped him become as known as he is and I’m doing my part.

I can’t find any new music videos from this CD, but you can listen to some of his old ones.

Edit: Chinese Handwriting (Calligraphy) MV from new album (oh Hou Xian…do you still not have enough money to make decent MVs? Why so poor Hou Xian? Your release came out without notice.)