As someone who grew up listening to Hong Kong music in the 80s and 90s, Beyond and Wong Ka Kui hold a special spot in my - and I'm sure many other people's - memories. I was quite young when he passed away so I didn't really understand back then what Wong Ka Kui represented for Chinese music, and what his premature death stole from Chinese music fans. But as the years passed, where the idol crushes fade away, Beyond's music remains. Already, it's been 15 years since Wong Ka Kui passed away, and three years since Beyond parted ways. This year, for the 15th anniversary of Ka Kui's death, younger brother Steve Wong Ka Keung especially released the Wong Ka Kui Memorial Album, singing five compositions that Ka Kui left behind.
In releasing this album, Ka Keung said that he wanted it to be a Ka Kui release, and he has largely succeeded as the album very much evokes early 90s Beyond. In Beyond's early years, Ka Kui and Ka Keung's voices often sounded quite similar, a trait that Ka Keung left behind as he developed his own vocal and musical style. But Ka Keung's singing in this album readily takes us back to the early 90s, back to that voice bearing his older brother's indelible influence. The same can be said of the clean arrangements applied to Ka Kui's compositions, and piercing lyrics by Ka Keung and Lau Cheuk Fai, all of which deliberately return to the band sound of Ka Kui-era Beyond. Other than Lau Cheuk Fai, who penned many of Beyond's most memorable songs, Taichi's Joey Tang and Gary Tong, Blue Jeans' Sin Lap Man, guitarist Wong Chung Yin, and, of course, Wing Yip and Paul Wong all participated in the album.
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