Beyond : The Greatest CantoRock Band

Well, I have been listening to alot of the old CD’s that my dad had and I came across this CD, Beyond’s album Paradise. I remember being first exposed to them thanks to the famous Peter Stuyvesant commercial that used their Sea As Wide As The Sky as sountrack. They along with Anita Mui, Jacky Cheung (his old shit and old shit acoustic) and Sam Hui were the few artistes from Hong Kong that I could really listen and respect because they really made good music unlike the new generation of garbage that comes out of Hong Kong these days who try to ape western hip hop with recycled lovey dovey tunes or blatantly take a backing track of a western song and make it as a chinese songs. While some would say that I am overly critical of Chinese music since I have a very westernized mindset but look people, Hong Kong did not come up with anything original after the 80’s. All they do is “Hey this is hot in America, lets just grab <insert good looking hongki’s name here> and make the fella sing a lovey dovey song based on that. Oh yea, blatanatly rip off a backing track of a western song  if you have to.” I mean its this money minded attitude that really screwes up the music industry and to make matters worse HK does not have a underground movement to speak of unlike the west who have a massive underground scene.

Back to the main topic about Beyond. The classic line up consisted of Wong Ka- Kui (Vocals, Rhythm Guitar), Wong Ka-Keung (Bass Guitar), Wong Koon Chung @ Paul Wong (Lead Guitar) & Yip Sai Wing (Drums). They were one of the rare groups in Hong Kong who do not rely on songwriters to write their songs, like all great rock bands they write their own songs wit ha few covers along the way to pay tribute to their heroes. Their music prior to the death of their lead singer(1993) who died of a head injury was rooted in 80’s Rock (some critics would say prog rock but I don’t seem to hear any of that) which spawned some awesome anthemic songs such as  Sea As Wide As The Sky, The Great Wall and Truely Love You. When Paul Wong took over the helm they have a more Alternative sound which supposedly Paul Wong was forced to take when they signed on to a major label. After awhile the band went on hiatus and stooped producing music as they felt that they were being forced into making music they did not want to play. The only song they made in recent memory was for the Infernal Affiars II soundtrack named 長 空 (Vast Emptiness). Later in Early 2005 they said they want to go their seperate ways and pursue their own musical interests and from what I heard their solo music projects are very non mainstream which is good since now Hong Kong’s music scene makes the western music scene look diverse in comparison. The only music scenes which seesm to be making good music would be in Japan, Korea and Sweden. Lets hope that Beyond will return one day and kick ass like it previously did.

Famous Beyond Quotes:

“Life is not measured by the length of it, but by what you have achieved.”             – Wong Ka Kui

“I want to open a studio to help aspiring unknown musicans when the band makes it big.”                                                                                                                                         – Wong Ka Kui

More Info on Beyond can be found on these sites :

Hong Kong Rock City

The Greatest Band Hong Kong Will Ever Have

Beyond’s Wikipedia Profile