Boycott Results in Mediocre Solid Gold Music Awards

A boycott by the major record companies of the Jade Solid Gold Top 10 Music Awards left the event deprived of many big name performers. An important date on the Hong Kong music calendar, the awards honour the best in Cantopop and are based on TVB's long running Jade Solid Gold show and its Billboard charts. The 2009 Awards, however, were reduced to a second-rate version when artists from EMI, Sony-BMG, Universal and Warner failed to take part because of a dispute between the four labels and TVB. This left the majority of awards handed out to performers from the EEG label, diminishing the status of this year's event in many fans' eyes. (The dispute over copyright issues is explained in this post on the Asian Entertainment News blog.)

The biggest winner of the night was EEG's major star, Joey Lung (容祖儿, pinyin: Róng Zǔér), seen pictured above with two of the seven trophies she won in total. Two of her songs were honoured in the Top Ten Song Awards, with one of them, My Own Book of Legends (搜神記), taking out the Gold Song Gold award (ie best song of the year). The complete list of the ten songs of the year is:

• A Letter to Myself (給自己的信) - Sherman Chung
• My Own Book of Legends (搜神記) - Joey Yung
• If the Time Comes (如果時間來到) - Raymond Lam
• The Diamond Sutra (金剛經) - Denise Ho
• Earth is Dangerous (地球很危險) - Leo Ku
• Here We Are - Kary Ng
• Two Without One (二缺一) - Charlene Choi
• Borrow (借) - Stephanie Cheng
• Actually I Am Very Happy (原來過得很快樂) - Miriam Yeung
• With Songs and Tears (可歌可泣) - Joey Yung

Joey Yung also took home one of the major female awards, the Most Popular Asia Pacific Hong Kong Female Star, but missed out on the Best Female Singer which went instead to Miriam Yeung (杨千嬅, pinyin: Yáng Qiānhuà).

In the male categories there was controversary when the Most Popular Asia Pacific Hong Kong Star was awarded to Raymond Lam (林峯, pinyin: Lín Fēng) - a very popular actor but relative newcomer to the music industry. In the absence of better credentialed singers like Eason Chan and Hins Cheung it was more or less a two-horse race between Lam and Leo Ku (古巨基, pinyin: Gǔ Jùjī). Nevertheless Lam's announcement as winner was reportedly met by boos from some of the more passionate audience members in the Hong Kong Coliseum. Lam's name now joins an exclusive but illustruous honours board of previous winners, alongside 10-times winner Andy Lau, fellow Heavenly Kings Jacky Cheung and Aaron Kwok, and winner of the previous two years, Eason Chan. Leo Ku didn't go home empty-handed, winning the Best Male Singer award.

A full list of the awards winners, in both Chinese and English, is at this Asian Video Network post.