Only Love Strangers

Only Love Strangers
Studio album by Faye Wong
Released September 1999
Genre Mandopop, Cantopop
Label EMI
Faye Wong chronology

Changyou
(Sing and Play)
(1998)		 Only Love Strangers
(1999)		 Fable (album)
(2000)
Only Love Strangers
Traditional Chinese 只愛陌生人
Simplified Chinese 只爱陌生人

Only Love Strangers[1][2] (Chinese: 只愛陌生人; pinyin: zhī ài mòshēngrén) is a 1999 album by Beijing-based C-pop singer Faye Wong. It contains 10 tracks in Mandarin with bonus Cantonese versions of two of the songs.

The title is from a line of the refrain in track 4 (... 我只爱陌生人, I only love strangers...). Although there is no official English title on the original Chinese version, the lyrics card in the Japanese release bore the English subtitle Lovers and Strangers, and this is sometimes given as the title in English media.[3]

The album sold more than 800,000 copies and reached number one in the album charts of Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.[3][4]

After the release of Only Love Strangers, Guinness World Records declared Faye Wong the best selling female Cantopop artist of all time.[5]

The album title Zhī ài mòshēngrén has been used for the model of several less well known Chinese novels,[6] but as a book is now associated with the Chinese translation of Ian McEwan novel The Comfort of Strangers.[7]

Track listing

No. TitleUnofficial translation Length
1. "開到荼蘼" (Kāi dào túmí)"The Last Blossom" 5:13
2. "當時的月亮" (Dāngshí de yuèliàng)"The Moon at That Moment"/ "Once in a Blue Moon" 3:52
3. "催眠" (Cuīmián)"Hypnosis" 4:27
4. "只愛陌生人" (Zhī ài mòshēngrén)"Only Love Strangers" 3:42
5. "百年孤寂" (Bǎinián gūjì)"Hundred Years of Solitude" 5:18
6. "蝴蝶" (Húdié)"Butterfly" 3:27
7. "過眼雲煙" (Guòyǎn yúnyān)"An Ephemeral Cloud" 4:06
8. "嗶一聲之後" (Bì yī shēng zhīhòu)"After the Beep" 4:14
9. "推翻" (Tuīfān)"Overthrown" 4:23
10. "精彩" (Jīngcǎi)"Spectacular" 4:47
11. "守望麥田" (Sau2 mong6 maak6 tin4)"Keeping Guard over the Field" 5:19
12. "郵差" (Jau4 caa1)"Postman" 4:18

Tracks 11 and 12 are Cantonese versions of tracks 5 and 6 respectively. Only track 12 has a different musical arrangement.

The title of track 5 is the Chinese name of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' novel One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Use in other media

Track 10, the rock song "Spectacular", featured in a Pepsi commercial. A VCD showing the filming of the commercial was released with some versions of the album.

The title track, "Only Love Strangers", was featured in the Sylvester Stallone film Get Carter.[9]

Track 5 was used by Taiwan's STAR Chinese Channel as the ending theme song of the Chinese television series The Taiping Heavenly Kingdom. The original ending theme song was sang by Mao Amin.

References

  1. ↑ Max Woodworth (26 November 2004). "Faye Wong is all woman". Taipei Times. Retrieved 25 April 2013.
  2. ↑ Shane Homan Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture 2006 p224 "... almost exclusively on contributions from Hong Kong-, Beijing- and Singapore-based composers along with her own compositions on Sing and Play (1998), Only Love Strangers (1999), Fable (2000), Faye Wong (2001) and To Love (2003)."
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Cantonese record for Wong, BBC, 17 May 2002
  4. ↑ BBC China bans 'opium' song Thursday, 30 October 2003 "Her 1999 album, Lovers and Strangers, has sold more than 800,000 copies and was number one in Hong Kong, China, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia. "
  5. ↑ Guinness World Records. March 2000. Retrieved 2 November 2006 at Internet archive.
  6. ↑ Zuojia 作家 - Issues 7-12 2009 - Page 34 "我早期创作的一个小说借了王菲《只爱陌生人〉的欹名,小说内容与歌中所唱意味相去甚远。"
  7. ↑ 紙上的王冠:誰是下一位諾貝爾文學獎得主 -p205 "麥克尤恩迄今已出版2部短篇小說集《最初的愛情,最後的儀式》(First Love, LastRites, 1975)、《床笫之間》(In Between the Sheets, 1978), 11部長篇小說《水泥花園》(The Cement Garden, 1978)、《只愛陌生人》(The Comfort of Strangers, 1981)、.."
  8. ↑ Only Love Strangers at Discogs, Japan version
  9. ↑ Faye Wong "Only Love Strangers", a Stallone film episode, 163.com, 19 October 2000 (Chinese)

External links