Show Luo Dominates Album Sales with Rashomon's Release

Taiwan's King of Dance Music, Show Luo (罗志祥, pinyin: Luó Zhīxián), went straight to number one with his new album, Rashomon (罗生门, pinyin: Luóshēngmén), released on 15 January. According to the G Music charts, Rashomon - Show Luo's seventh studio album, accounted for a massive 39 percent of all album sales in Taiwan in the week 15 to 21 January. Luo dethroned another member of Taiwan's pop royalty, the Princess of Cuteness, Rainie Yang, whose two week reign at the top came to an end, dropping to the number 3 position.

Both Show Luo and Rainie Yang are co-starring in Hi My Sweetheart (海派甜心, also known as Shanghai Sweetheart), a romantic comedy TV series currently airing on Taiwanese TV on Sunday evenings. Like Rainie Yang's recent album, Rashomon contains a handful of songs that were also heard in the TV series, such as the opening theme song Love Madness (爱疯头), Love is Not a Solitary Walk (爱不单行) and Biological Clock (生理时钟). The TV series has struggled a bit ratings-wise - the first few episodes in particular suffered dismal ratings figures - but at least the original soundtrack has produced some decent music.

In another connection between Show and Rainie, the former has chosen an album title based on one of Japan's best-known and most celebrated movies. I'm not sure if this flags an attempt by Luo, who is fluent in Japanese, to capture the Japanese market (the title might just be play on Luo's own name, the two sharing the same initial character). Last year he already made preliminary efforts to launch his fashion brand, Stage, in Japan. If Rashomon is released in Japan Luo will be following in the footsteps of Yang, who has just released a Japanese version of one of her biggest hits, My Intuition.