Grady Guan(關喆) - Well Enough(足矣) Album Thoughts(Cpop)

   This next release came out at the end of last year. I won't lie, Grady Guan wasn't on my radar until a week or so ago. He is a Chinese singer that did a lot of singing competitions in China and he has released five albums including this one entitled Well Enough. The Voice of China was the show that gave him a raise in popularity which is why I didn't know about him before now. What kind of English name is Grady anyway? I could have sworn that he could have picked a better English name….. Let me stop being mean.

01.想送你的禮物 - Xiang Song Ni De Li Wu
02.念舊 (Nostalgia)
03.黑白 - Hei Bai
04.老腊肉 - Lao La Rou
05.沐夏之戀 - Mu Xia Zhi Lian
06.有我在 - You Wo Zai
07.無畏 - Wu Wei
08.足矣(Well Enough)
09.光束(Lights)
10.更好的我們(Better Us)
11.石板街 - Shi Ban Jie

   Well Enough is his fifth album by the singer. He knows how to compose and write his own songs as seen by the large list of producer credits that he gained for creating songs for other artists. Grady looks to be just another ballad singer when I first heard a few of his songs. There's that music contestant curse that follows singers sometimes. They don't know how to stop performing like the are still on the show that they took part in. He came across like this to me and it made me scared that another talent was being wasted placed in the same stereotypical box. Grady showed me that his originality shine through with the album's track that is the same name of the album. The track is a alternative rock number that lyrically speaks to the underdogs while giving them a pat on the back. It's music video has a great emotional message about an Albano child who feels like he doesn't belong anywhere. Well Enough contains different moments of shifts during each the the chorus plays. Med tempo drums in the first chorus lead into a band of guitars and drums after the second chorus. I would say the Well Enough is my favorite song on the album. Grady performed enough ballads on Well Enough as well, I think he did this to remind listeners that he has a TV singing contest kind of voice(Most singers that come from these shows in China can actually sing well outside of the studio.). I connected well with some of the album's slower moments, especially when Well Enough's ballad production feels more consistent on giving listeners a bigger vocal performance. Ballads are not the only music genre touched on Well Enough. Grady visits many other types of music in a short time. Music such as Jazz, pop, rock, and even rap. That dreaded whisper rap that every singer does when they can't actually rap. I love that Chinese singers are not afraid to try music far out of their normal musical area. One quality that I notice while listening to Grady's new album was that his music sounds tightly composed. All the songs are accompanied by solid music composition. I don't like every single song but Well Enough has more good going for the album than bad.

  Grady's voice has a vibrato that sounds a bit operatic to me. It's defiantly all in the vibrato. He can belt then he can sing softly and also in a controlled manner. Sometimes he sings too proper… If that makes any sense? I would like to hear him do more songs that don't sound so precise. Kind of like how he seems like he's making sure he sounds perfect on every note, which isn't alway necessary. of course, Your pitch and key need to be right when you sing but it's alright to let go and feel the music too.

   Well Enough as a track by itself made me a fan of Grady Guan. I'm just sorry that I didn't talk about his album when it first came out. Well, gotta live in the now, right?