Music Awards Controversy Reaches Boiling Point

Saturday January 5, 2008 Hong Kong

The third of this year's music awards ceremonies took place last night, with Joey Yung (容祖兒) and Andy Lau (劉德華) emerging as the big winners of the evening, each taking four of the awards handed out at the Roadshow Ultimate Music Awards 2007. Hacken Lee (李克勤) also did well, taking three and a half awards, but there was a shock result as Eason Chan (陳奕迅) was left empty handed, despite earlier success at the Metro and CRHK awards shows.

A spokesperson for mobile media company Roadshow revealed that the awards were selected by an SMS vote and the reason why Eason did not win any awards was down to him not receiving enough votes and was not related to his notable absence from the awards ceremony. This has once again sparked off the rumours around award-fixing and the fairness of the "special relationships" forged between the media and record companies, especially after the very different and unusual results from the last two sets of awards.

With two more controversial awards ceremonies to go, from RTHK and TVB, the debate looks like that it has a while to burn as fans, netizens, artistes and record companies are whipped up by the annual wind that blows in around this time of year.

Joey was very surprise that Eason did not receive any awards last night and revealed that she thought that Eason was absent from the event because he was unwell. She said that she was unclear about any underlying reasons, but she respects the results and she will continue to work harder each year to win more awards and not be upset about not winning everything. However, she added that the record company treat her like she is their child and do not want her to be disappointed.

With Kary Ng (吳雨霏) reported as a black horse siding up to take the album awards, Joey said that she feels that Kary's success is totally deserving and she is not surprised with the results. She added that much of the criticism comes from the internet, where many people express opinions without thinking about the consequences and they are not representative of the rest of the audience, so she will not be upset. Asked if she is confident of being the top female singer of the year with her results so far, she said modestly that her competition is strong, so she will not build up too much expectation.

Netizens have also expressed their disappointment at the Chik Chak awards for presenting the bronze female singer award to Kay Tse (謝安琪) over Miriam Yeung (楊千嬅). When Miriam was asked about this, she expressed her thanks to the fans for their support, but said graciously that Kay has done some good work over the year and she will not think too much about things that have passed. She commented that as she has entered the competition, then she must abide by the rules of the game and she has to look at the situation positively and strive to do better next year. She added that she is already very happy to have won the Most Popular singer award.

As for the whispers of the awards being rigged, Miriam said that she will just do her best and if she wins an award, she will be happy, but if she does not win, then she has not lost anything by it. Denise Ho (何韻詩) has already announced that she will not be making an appearance at the RTHK Top Ten Gold songs awards ceremony because she has not made it into the top ten and asked about the outcry from the netizens that Denise is by no means inferior to Janice Vidal (衛蘭), who has made it into the top ten, Miriam said doubtingly that everyone has their own standpoints and most of her colleagues see awards ceremonies as a promotional opportunity. As for Eason losing out at the Roadshow awards, Miriam believed that he simply just chose not to join this particular game.

Hacken's track record with CRHK has not been great and emerging from the Chik Chak awards ceremony with just one award, which he did not even turn up to accept in person, he explained that people were reading too much into the situation. He insisted that he was busy at another event on that night and CRHK have not asked him for any explanation.

Asked about his thoughts on all the gossip surrounding the music awards ceremonies this year, Hacken said that every company has their own way of determining the award winners, such as broadcast rates and votes, so it will be difficult to please all the fans all of the time. He added that if anyone has ideas for a better way, then they should make a formal suggestion and not just criticise the situation. Asked if he will continue to support CRHK, Hacken said that he will, but he did not know what to say when asked if he would be appearing at more events and singing more of his songs.

Hins Cheung (張敬軒) took the Ultimate Song award at the Chik Chak event for "Ardently Love" <酷愛>, but reports later emerged that Eason preferred Stephy Tang (鄧麗欣)'s song "Electric Lightbulb" <電燈膽>. Asked about the reports, Hins felt that Eason did not mean this negatively, but agreed that many people in the industry felt that Stephy's song should have made it into the top ten. Asked if he believed that Eason was bitter in losing out to him, Hins said modestly that Eason was the real winner and he had just scraped the award.

credits: batgwa.