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I can't get enough of this record. I've racked up almost 20 full listens of the whole album and between Story Thief, Damaged, Indulgence, and Whatever, I've easily listened to those a combined 150+ times since the album was released.
I didn't like Whatever at first, but now I am enamored with it. Still, my favorites are the title track and Damaged. Damaged is just the perfect continuation of song styles like Insomnia, which was my second or third favorite track from AMIT2. I'd love for her to come back in the next year or two with a more balanced 20th album. The only gripe I have about this record is that she explores this kind of hip hop or trap style on songs like Catfight, and there's just nothing that's upbeat like Jump In or R U Watching Me? on the record.
Still, this is aMEI at her best. And I find myself getting emotional at how mandopop has given me back the experience I've lost from jpop over the years. I just didn't expect to be tuning in this late into aMEI's career and reliving what it felt like to be around for Secret when Ayu released it in November 2006, which was my first Ayu album.
I hope artists like aMEI, Sun Yanzi, A-Lin, Elva Hsiao, and Jolin become more popular internationally. There's just so much life in this music scene and any lack of attention easily translates to people missing out on these artists literally being in their prime.
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