BY2's Grown Up Shoots to the Top of the Charts

It was a case of one girl band toppling another girl band, as Singapore's BY2 pushed Taiwan's S.H.E from the top position on the latest G Music album charts. BY2 are twin sisters Miko and Yumi Bai (白纬芬 and 白纬玲), and their latest release is titled Grown Up (成人礼) - after all, they did just turn 18 last month. Grown Up had 18 percent of all album sales in Taiwan for the period 9 to 15 April, and 33 percent of all Chinese-language sales.

Grown Up is BY2's third studio album, released on the Ocean Butterflies Music label. The group was created by the record label, who carefully groomed them from the age of 13. They received three years of intensive singing and dance training, even dropping out of high school to concentrate on their musical career. In 2007 they moved to Taiwan and a year later, at the age of 16 the twins released their first album. Their catchy music, a kind of hybrid of bubblegum pop and hip hop, cute looks and energetic dance moves made them an immediate success. Grown Up provides more of the same, with four of the album's songs having "love" in the title. The first single is the track This Is Love (这叫爱).

After just two weeks in the top position, S.H.E's album SHERO dropped to number 2 on the charts but still sold a healthy 20 percent of all Chinese language albums in Taiwan last week. Another Mandopop superstar, Jane Zhang, also debuted on the Taiwan charts last week with her fourth album, Believe in Jane. (Actually the album was released everywhere else almost three months ago; I'm not sure why it's only now surfacing on the Taiwan charts). Believe in Jane holds the number three position on the charts, with a respectable 7.8 percent of sales.