Warner Music Taiwan vs. Gold Taiphoon (EMI)

There's a new record label in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It's called Gold Taiphoon. It's a merger between EMI Music Hong Kong and EMI Music Taiwan and it is designed to help promote EMI's Hong Kong artists in Taiwan and vice-versa. So far it has signed Elva Hsiao, Cyndi Wang, A-Mei and Zhou Bichang. Stefanie Sun and Jolin Tsai recently left Gold Taiphoon and signed with Warner Music Taiwan.

That's where it gets interesting. I've seen pictures on Facebook of Elva Hsiao standing next to Cyndi Wang or singing with A-Mei and Jolin singing with Stefanie Sun and briefly wondered if there actually was a god but then realised it was just their respective record companies trying to promote them as a kind of family. Almost as if they were a pair of supergroups: Elva Hsiao, Cyndi Wang, A-Mei and Zhou Bichang on one hand and Stefanie Sun, Jolin Tsai, Coco Lee and Vivian Hsu on the other.

Not that many of them are all that loyal to their record companies. Jolin started with Universal and then went to Sony and EMI before settling at Warner's. Coco Lee started at Capital Artits and then went to Fancy Pie Records and Sony before settling at Warner's. Vivian Hsu started at EMI and then went to Sony and Avex before settling at Warner's. Elva started at EMI and then went to Warner's before returning to EMI. A-Mei started at Forward Music and then went to Warner's before settling at EMI. On the other hand, Cyndi started at Avex and stayed at Avex for her entire career before recently signing with EMI while EMI is Zhou Bichang's first record label.

So there seems to be a kind of musical (appropriately enough) chairs going on between Warner's and EMI, almost as if they are trying to steal each other's artists. Compare to how Rainie Yang has been signed on to Sony for ten years. Mind you, we also have Karen Mok going from Star Records to Rock Records to Sony to Universal without ever signing to either Warner's or EMI.

What's my point? I don't really have a point. This is just my excuse to search the internet for information about my favorite singers. Well, except for Zhou Bichang: she kind of looks like a guy.

Martin