Read about Leah Dizon in my previous post.

Official site link: Click Here

Pictures link: Click Here

BoA Kwon is a South Korean singer. Her stage name is BoA which is an acronym of “Beat of Angel”. She has released albums in Korea as well as Japan. Amongst Korean pop stars, BoA is one of the most influential in Japan due to her company’s active promotion of her music in Japan.

BoA Kwon ambition was to become a singer when she was a kid, but her route to star hood came with a bit of faith and coincidence.

When BoA was 11 years old, her brother went for a talent quest audition organized by Korea entertainment agency, SM Entertainment (SM).

SM was planning to produce an international superstar and wanted to train the prospect from young age, and BoA’s brother was asked if he got any younger siblings, and BoA was invited by SM for audition as well, and BoA was chosen to be the future star.

BoA’s parents were persuaded to allow BoA to pursue her childhood dream of becoming a singer, and she started her training in singing, dancing and foreign languages. She was once sent to Japan to learn Japanese and sing & dance skills, which according to BoA was some of the toughest time she ever had.

BoA released her first Korean album, “ID; Peace B” in 2000 and immediately noticed by Japan’s Avex and signed a contract.

In March 2002, BoA became the first foreigner to top the Japan Oricon chart, with her debut Japanese album “Listen to My Heart.” The album was co-produced by Avex Japan and SM Korea; Boa showed her talent singing in English, Japanese and Korean.

The BoA sensation spreads to all around Asia, with numerous Japanese and Korean hits in the past few years. She won the MTV Asia The Most Influential Asian Artist Award in 2004, she was just 18 then.

In February 2006, BoA released her 4th Japanese album “Outgrow” and top the ORICON chart again and became only the 2nd singer to have 4 consecutive album topping ORICON chart (after Ayumi Hamasaki).

It’s also a known fact that BoA is interested in acting as well. Her first movie involvement was as voice-actress for Korean version of Anime movie “The Hedge” in May 2006.

Picture link: Click Here.

I was an amateur guitar player sometimes back in the late 80s and early 90s. I used to own a nice Fender Stratocaster, Ampeg SS35 Guitar Amp and few sound processor gadgets from Boss and Zoom Player. Together with few friends, we setup a jamming studio in Penang, Malaysia; we named it “The Top Basement Studio”.

If you are a guitarist, you can choose to play in your garage studio or (even though the songs are limited) play guitar online at Songsterr.

Songsterr is a service offering an extraordinary experience of playing, learning, and singing guitar on-line.

Songsterr provides a realistic guitar sound and gives you a full control over the playback - it’s up to you to decide when it’s time to move to the next chord and to sing a new verse.

All you have to do is press the button during playback when you feel it’s time to. Alternatively, you can use Songsterr’s autopilot mode and play the song without any interaction.

Since it is still in a proof of concept stage, you can contribute your idea to them. Songsterr can be one (or combination) of the following:

• Service for beginner guitarists with instructions on finger positioning, strumming techniques, etc.
• Service for songwriters with features to create and edit songs by writing lyrics, arranging chords, choosing patterns and rhythm. Our guess is that there can be many users who would want to add their own songs or songs of their favorite artists contributing to Songsterr’s song library and forming a community around it (think online version of Guitar Pro).
• Entertaining service like Guitar Hero allowing you to play and sing your favorite songs on-line.

For more information: Click Here.

I just read about this young lady Che’Nelle or real name, Cheryline Lim on the news today. It was reported, her father is a Chinese Malaysian while her mother is mixed Indian-Dutch. Together with her family, she moved from Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia to Perth, Australia when she was 10.

Since I’ve never heard of her before, I searched online and was pleasantly surprised to see the results. She’s on the right track to make her name on the international scene.

She signed up to a New York-based label Virgin Records America, the same label that houses Lenny Kravitz and Ben Harper. It is most surprising to know that she was discovered through her MySpace page. Click Here.

Her debut album “Things Happen For A Reason” was released on September 25, 2007 and almost entirely self-written. Her current single “I fell in love with the DJ” is making waves among the club scenes in the United States and UK.

You can listen to her song on her official website. Click Here.

Good luck to Che’Nelle !

What is Bollywood?

Bollywood is the name given to the Mumbai-based Hindi-language film industry in India. When combined with other Indian film industries (Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada), it is considered to be the largest in the world in terms of number of films produced, and maybe also the number of tickets sold.

The term Bollywood was created by conflating Bombay (the city now called Mumbai) and Hollywood (the famous center of the United States film industry).

Bollywood films are usually musicals. Few movies are made without at least one song-and-dance number. Indian audiences expect full value for their money; they want songs and dances, love interest, comedy and dare-devil thrills, all mixed up in a three hour long extravaganza with intermission. Such movies are called masala movies, after the spice mixture masala. Like masala, these movies have everything.

The plots are often melodramatic. They frequently employ formulaic ingredients such as star-crossed lovers, corrupt politicians, twins separated at birth, conniving villains, angry parents, courtesans with hearts of gold, dramatic reversals of fortune, and convenient coincidences.

How big is it?

Bollywood makes more than 800 films a year – twice as many as Hollywood. About 4 billion cinema tickets are sold each year for Bollywood films, a billion more than Hollywood.

How does it connect people?

It connects 4 billion customers worldwide; Bollywood helps to meet the needs of different audiences. From escapism for people who have little else; through a sense of identity for diasporic communities; to jobs and business opportunities. Most Bollywood movies follow a tried-and-tested formula of love/romance/ comedy and good guy-bad guy scenarios which have a universal appeal. Bollywood has produced some exceptional movies over the years such as ‘Lagaan’, ‘Devdas’ and ‘Black’ which are highly respected in film circles. The UK general public is very familiar with ‘cross-over’ movies such as ‘Bend it like Beckham’, ‘Bhaji on the Beach’, ‘Monsoon Wedding’ and ‘Bride and Prejudice’.

What language is used?

Bollywood films are made in Hindi with a smattering of the more poetic Urdu. Some English is not uncommon. So the first targets are Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati and Bangla-speaking people throughout the world – and that’s a big audience. But it’s only a start. Bollywood films are regularly subtitled or dubbed into Arabic, English, French, Japanese, Russian, Spanish and so on.

Feel it!: Click Here.