IFPI's Best Selling Singers in Hong Kong

IFPIHK, the Hong Kong arm of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, announced its Top Sales Music Awards for 2009 on April 7. Unfortunately, the four major labels - Sony, EMI, Warner and Universal - belong to a rival industry association, HKRIA, so their record sales weren't considered. This meant that major Hong Kong singers like Eason Chan, Khalil Fong and Hins Cheung, went unrewarded.

There's a little bit of confusion over the winners, with Oriental Daily initially reporting that Joey Yung (容祖儿, pinyin: Róng Zǔér) was named Best Selling Female Singer. Other websites have picked up Oriental Daily's report, including the Asian Fanatics forum. It's probably the logical choice, seeing as Yung's the undisputed Queen of Cantopop. However, it seems that Oriental Daily might have jumped the gun. The official IFPIHK website itself has Janice Vidal (卫兰, pinyin: Wèi Lán) as the Best Selling Female Singer winner, and I guess they ought to know better than anyone.

(Janice Vidal at the IPFI Awards)

The Hong Kong born singer with the exotic heritage - Janice's father is Filipino and her mother Chinese-Korean - released two albums in 2009, Serving You (well, actually released in late 2008) and Wish. Often known by her first name only, Janice began her career in 2004, first coming to the Hong Kong public's attention with her English language cover version of the Leon Lai hit Long Distance. The following year she went on to win Best Newcomer at most of the major Hong Kong award ceremonies. She has recorded six studio albums in total, all of them containing a mix of English and Cantonese language songs.

Best Selling Male Singer was awarded to Raymond Lam (林峯, pinyin: Lín Fēng), who profited from the ineligibility of heavyweight singers like Eason Chan and Khalil Fong. Lam, better known as a TV actor, released his second album in 2009, Let's Get Wet. On that album was the multi-award winning single If Times Comes. Last year he also released a successful Mandarin language single, After Tomorrow.

Best Sales for a Mandarin Release was awarded to Taiwanese singer-songwriter Cheer Chen (陈绮贞, pinyin: Chén Qǐzhēn). The veteran performer - she released her debut EP back in 1997 - tends to stay out of the limelight, and consequently is not as well known as some of her Mandopop superstar compatriots. As well as her skills as a lyricist she is also highly regarded as a concert performer. The IFPI award was given for her album Immortal, released in early 2009 on the WOW Music label.

The List of Top Ten Sales from Local Artistes is:
Janice
Raymond Lam
Andy Lau
Joey Yung
Ivana Wong
Charlene Choi
G.E.M
Denise Ho
Justin Lo
Stephanie Cheng

The full list of all 52 winners is at the IPFIHK website.