To Love () is the tenth Mandarin studio album (nineteenth overall) by Chinese recording artist Faye Wong.Shane Homan, Access All Eras: Tribute Bands and Global Pop Culture, 2006, p224. "... almost exclusively on contributions from Hong Kong-, Beijing- and Singapore-based composers along with her own compositions on Sing and Play (1998), Only Love Strangers (1999), Fable (2000), Faye Wong (2001) and To Love (2003)." Released on 7 November 2003, it was Wong's first album to be released under Sony Music Asia. It contains thirteen tracks, ten in Mandarin and three in Cantonese. Wong wrote the music and lyrics for three songs, the title track "To Love", "Leave Nothing" (不留) and "Sunshine Dearest" (陽寶), as well as the music for "April Snow" (四月雪). To Love remains the singer's last original album to date.
Background and release "All-In" versions were issued with the music videos on VCD and DVD. These versions had a different cover with a portrait of Faye Wong printed in black on a red background. Before the album's release, the Cantonese version of the title track "In the Name of Love" (假愛之名), with lyrics by Lin Xi, was banned in some areas such as mainland China and Malaysia because the lyrics mentioned opium.China bans 'opium' song, BBC News, 30 October 2003. Retrieved 1 May 2013.Pop diva Faye Wong performs in Kuala Lumpur, China Daily, 23 April 2004. Retrieved 25 September 2010. Interviewed in December 2003, Wong said that she preferred her own Mandarin version of the song, which made no reference to drugs.
Songs Wong said that her favourite track was "MV", written by Nicholas Tse with whom she had an on-off romance. She admitted that her song "Leave Nothing" was a reflection of her love life, but declined to identify the other persons referred to in the lyrics. The album also includes "Passenger" (乘客), a cover of Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home". Asked about the pattern of 2-character titles for the songs, Wong said that this was not important, but reflects a modern habit of abbreviating things in everyday speech.
Reception To Love was more successful than her previous self-titled album, both financially and critically. It sold more than one million copies in Asia within a week of its release, half of those within China. Afterwards, she held numerous successful concerts for over a year; ticket sales in Hong Kong set a new record. Taipei Times called it a mixture of "saccharine pop and daring avant-garde".Faye Wong is all woman, Taipei Times 2004-11-24. "Her most recent album, To Love (將愛, 2003), is a mosh of her two recent artistic tendencies: saccharine pop and daring avant-garde."
Accolades +Awards and nominations for To LoveOrganizationYearCategoryResultChannel [V] Awards 2003 100% Perfect Award IFPI Hong Kong Sales Awards Top 10 Best Selling Mandarin Albums Chinese Music Media Awards 2004 Top Ten Chinese Albums Golden Melody Awards 2004 Best Pop Vocal Album Award
Track listing
Tracks 1–10 are in Mandarin, and the last three are Cantonese. Tracks 12 and 13 are Cantonese versions of tracks 1 and 5 respectively.
Charts Chart (2003)Peakposition Malaysian Albums (RIM) 2 Singaporean Albums (RIAS) 3
Sales
Release history RegionRelease dateLabelFormat(s)TaiwanNovember 7, 2003Sony MusicCD+VCD (first batch of limited hardcover edition)CD (paperback version) Hong KongSony Music Hong KongCD SingaporeSony Music Entertainment SingaporeMalaysiaSony Music Entertainment MalaysiaCassetteChinaShanghai Audio & Video Publishing HouseCD (hardcover version)CD (lite version)Cassette South KoreaDecember 12, 2003Sony Music Entertainment KoreaCD TaiwanMay 7, 2004Sony MusicCD+DVD (All-in Special Collection Edition)
References