RTHK Top 10 Golden Songs Awards

The last of the big four Hong Kong radio networks announced their music awards on January 30. RTHK's Top 10 Golden Songs Awards are the oldest of the four awards, dating back to 1978. (The other three awards are the Jade Solid Gold Awards, covered in this post, Commercial Radio FM 90.3's Ultimate Song Awards, summarised here, and the Metro Radio Hit Awards which handed out a ridiculous 149 awards - a translated winners' list is here).

At the RTHK ceremony Eason Chan (陈奕迅, pinyin: Chén Yìxùn) and Joey Lung (容祖儿, pinyin: Róng Zǔér - both pictured right) continued their domination of the Cantopop awards scene, both artists winning six awards each. Yung's achievement was especially noteworthy as she took home the Outstanding Female Singer award for the six consecutive year. In a remarkable display of consistency she has also had a song in the Top 10 Golden Song list every year since 2000. 1999, the year she commenced her career, was the only year she missed a place on the list, but even then her debut single, Unknown, was awarded Best Cover song that year.

Eason Chan won Outstanding Male Singer for the third year in a row, and he also took out the Global Chinese Best Song Award for 700 Years Later. The National Best Song Award was given to Hins Cheung (张敬轩, pinyin: Zhāng Jìngxuān) for Yes & No, while the Best Mandarin Song was won by Khalil Fong (方大同, pinyin: Fāng Dàtóng) with A Trip for Three People (三人游).

The Top Ten Songs list was as follows:

• My Own Book of Legends (搜神記) - Joey Yung
• 700 Years Later (七百年後) - Eason Chan
• You Hide I Hide (你瞒我瞒) - Jason Chan
• My Memory Isn't Mine (我的回憶不是我的) - Vincy Chan & Hai Ming Wei
• Turns Out I'm Really Happy (原來过得很快乐) - Miriam Yeung
• The Moon Says (月亮说) - Ivana Wong
• Even If the World Has No Fairytales (就算世界無童话) - Janice Vidal
• Song Of The Year (年度之歌) - Kay Tse
• Earth is Dangerous (地球很危險) - Leo Ku
• If I Was Eason Chan (如果我是陳奕迅) - Mr

The Golden Needle Award, a lifetime achievement award, was given posthumously to 80s Cantopop star, Danny Chan (陈百强, pinyin: Chén Bǎiqiáng - pictured left). Possibly his best-known song was Ripples, but he had a string of classic melancholy ballads like Hoping for Destiny, Tung, Pien Pien Hee Foon Ni (Slowly I Love You) and his last hit song Yut Sung Hor Kau (What's To Be Expected of This Life?). Chan retired from the music business in 1992 when he was just 34 years old, and a little more than 18 months later he was dead.

The cause of death has remained a mystery to this day - officially it was a heart problem that left him in a 17 month coma before he passed away. However rumours quickly surfaced that he died as a result of his long battle with the bottle, that he had overdosed on a mixture of drugs and alcohol. Another theory had it that, believing his career was in decline, he became depressed and took his own life. The Golden Needle Award was accepted by Chan's father.

The full list of RTHK Golden Song Award winners can be found at Wikipedia.