Hacken Lee
Hacken Lee, is a Hong Kong singer, television host and actor, active since the 1980s. In 2013, Lee's song "House of Cards" swept multiple awards in many Hong Kong award ceremonies, including "World's Best Song" and "Broadcasting Index" in Metro's Awards. As of 2013, he has reached 14 times in receiving the "Outstanding Pop Singer Award" at RTHK's "Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards" and has established an irreplaceable status in the music industry of Hong Kong and Asia.
Life and career
Early years: 1980s
Lee was brought up in a middle-class family. He lived in Arts Mansion in Happy Valley during his teenage years. He studied in Pun U Association Primary School and Wah Yan College, Hong Kong.After his HKCEE in 1985, he entered the TVB new talent show along with Alex To, William So, Vivian Chow and Grasshopper, though he was unable to make it into the top 15 finalists. He then participated in the Second Hong Kong 19 District Singing Contest in 1985, a competition which he won with his rendition of Alan Tam's song "Love in the Fog". He was subsequently offered a contract with PolyGram Records.
Lee however continued his studies at Wah Yan College while singing part-time. He turned full-time in the summer of 1987 after failing to gain a university place due to poor HKALE results.
His debut EP Hacken Lee EP sold less than 10,000 copies. Symbol of Destiny was released in 1987. His musical popularity lacking, he gained recognition by starring in TVB dramas in the late 1980s, especially the youth drama series "Teenage No More", for which he also sang the theme song. In 1989, his song "Unchanged in Lifetime", the theme song of ATV's Cantonese version of the drama series "Blue Moon," won both the RTHK "Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards" and "TVB Jade Solid Gold Awards."
1990s
In 1990, Lee, Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau were dubbed as "Three Musketeers in the music industry" by the media and were hailed as "tomorrow's highly anticipated superstars". Later on that year, however, due to the contract disputes between Hacken and his company, Hacken's career faltered.In 1992, Lee's career began to rise when he released the song "Red Sun", for which he penned the Chinese lyrics that made it popular. In 1993, Hacken switched to Star Record Company and released the song "Look Back," which once again boosted his singing career and allowed him to win TVB Jade Solid Gold's Golden Award as well as reach the top five nominees for the Most Popular Singer Award. His first solo concert at Hong Kong Coliseum, later that year, sold out in just a few hours.
In 1994, Lee was crowned the title of "Zero Defect Vocals," alongside Jacky Cheung who was named "Perfect Vocals" the year before, and as well as the successor of the famous Alan Tam.
In 1995, after the unprecedented success of his first solo concert, Hacken held his second concert again at the Hong Kong Coliseum, "Dragon '95 Hacken's Contact of Hear Concert", for a span of 10 days. However, sales had declined around 40%, to which only grew worse after the concert, leading to contractual disputes between the record company.
In 1996, Lee was signed on to another company where he released the album "When I Found You", with which sales and popularity improved slightly. However, due to several personnel changes and contractual disputes since the release of his album "By Hacken Side", his album eventually was postponed indefinitely.
In summer 1998, Lee was chaired as TVB for World Cup association football's sportscaster, and he composed and sang the song for the program, "Adventure of Football Fans", with the success of it leading to the release of a compilation album.
After the contract was expired with the record company, Lee's inability to find a recording company led him in several attempts in maintaining popularity by foraying beyond his singing career into acting in dramas and hosting TV programs.
In late 1999, Lee eventually signed onto Universal Music and issued his album "A Year Or So". In December, he had a musical performance with the Hong Kong Repertory, named "Adventure".
2000s
With his signing to Universal Music, Lee released several hits with "Feet of Fortune" and "Flying Flowers" 飛花" in 2001, and "The Grasp of Love" and "Tall Girl" in 2002.In late 2001, Lee performed in collaboration with the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra, "Hong Kong Philharmonic & Hacken Live", organized total in 4 concerts and 2 additional concerts. The concert series was very well-received, as was a recording released CD and VCD of the series, both CD and VCD got "Ten Best Selling Album Award" at IFPI. In July, he launched the album "Flying Flower ", with the song in same title, he won TVB Jade Solid Gold Awards's Golden Melody Award, "Metro Music Awards" Metro Best Song Award, and RTHK "Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Award" Outstanding Pop Singer Award.
In early 2002, Lee held his solo concert "Hacken Lee Live in Concert 2002" and got the praised again, and its recordings were equally well received at IFPI. In addition, he sang for TVB World Cup program's theme song "Victory"; the song "Tall Girl" was composed by Gigi Leung, with lyrics written by himself, and later on ""The Grasp of Love ". At the Jade Solid Gold Awards 2002, he won the "Most Popular Male Singer Award" for the first time, and he had been re-confirmed as the successor of Alan Tam. Around the time of the 2002 concert, he co-starred in the TVB drama "Legal Entanglement " which was aired. The series achieved high ratings and was one of TVB's most popular dramas that year. He won the "Most Favourite Character" award at the "2002 TVB Anniversary Awards" for his role in the series. Additionally, he was appointed the host of the 2002 World Cup and sang the theme song of TVB, which dominated the local charts for some time. He also won his first Most Popular Male Singer in TVB Jade Solid Gold Award.
In 2003, 2004 and 2009, Lee partnered with Alan Tam in a series of concert tours around the world, including multiple shows in Hong Kong and Las Vegas. Known in English as "Alan & Hacken", the show's Chinese title, "左麟右李", is a play on the Chinese four-character idiom "左鄰右里" which means "neighbor", by using the artists' names homonyms 麟 and 李. By the end of 2003, Hacken won the Most Popular Male Singer in TVB Jade Solid Gold Award" for the second time.
In November 2004, Lee partnered with Joey Yung in a collaboration of a concert, which is better known by another four-character idiom "刻不容緩 ", a play on their names with the homonyms 克 and 容, releasing a single with the same name. He was called one of the "New 4 Heavenly King" by Alan Tam. In the end of 2004, Hacken swept the awards in music award ceremonies again, including Top Ten Chinese Gold Song by RTHK's "Best Pop Male Artist Award", his live album "Alan & Hacken 2004 Concert" got "10 Guangdong Album Sales Award" by IFPI, and he won the "Best Sales Local Singer" again.
In 2005, Lee released his fourth Mandarin album Ask About Love, and he started a series of promotion activities in mainland China. By the end of 2005, He was the first Chinese artist to release a DualDisc, entitled "Hacken Lee Concert Hall". For this album, Universal Music invested over a million dollars, invited 4 Chinese musicians to perform the songs of album, moreover, they gave up the general recording mode, moved to the music hall for recording, the CD side using a coherent approach to record the live recordings of the songs in surround sound, and the DVD side featured the making of footage. The album was out of stock twice in a week after it launched and sales broke through a platinum figure very soon. In December, he won the "Most Popular Male Singer" of TVB Jade Solid Gold Award again, his third such win. He then won "My Favorite Singer" award and 5 song awards at "Metro Music Awards". On 1 January 2006, he won the bronze prize of the "My Favorite Singer".
From 28 January 2006 to 5 February, Lee held a series of sell-out concerts at Hong Kong Coliseum, named "Hacken Lee Live In Concert 2006", which was sponsored by Carlsberg) during the Chinese New Year period, and it was the first high-definition video in Cantonese concert. Meanwhile, he hosted the World Cup program for TVB, his third time being a football sportscaster, and wrote the lyrics and sung for the theme song, "I'm Number 10". In mid 2006, Hacken traveled to Seoul for recording the live songs of next album, "Hacken Lee Seoul Concert Hall II". All songs were recorded at the Harmony Theatre, Koyang Culture City Hall, Korea from 28 to 31 August 2006 for live taking. Many local Korean musicians participated in the recording project, including Kwak Jung "Harpist K" on harp, So Kyoung-Jin on Korean big drum, Jang Hyo-Seok on saxophone, Kim Won-Jin as boy soprano, Kim Hyun-Mi and Jung Hyun-Suk performed "Joy of Strings" on violin, Kim Hae-Ryeon on viola, and Chung Yu-Young on cello, David Hodges from New York played an antique 1920 bandoneon while recording. The album was released on a CD with an accompanying DVD using high-definition 1080i format, dated in November 2006, and following the success of the original Concert Hall, became the favorite of hi-fi enthusiasts, selling over 80,000 copies.
In 2007, Lee launched the selection album "Hacken Lee No. 1 Hits", it was released on 22 November 2007, which contains 4 CDs of his classic hits and new songs. He participated in the concert held by the Hong Kong Government, to celebrate the tenth anniversary of the establishment of the HKSAR organization. At climax of the concert he sang the song "Legend Of The Dragon" and "Red Sun" with 20 professional drummers and over 10,000 primary students from Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. This performance was included in the Guinness World Records. In between, his environmental-themed song was named "Whispering Whose"（花落誰家), which won the "Song of The Year" on Jade Solid Gold award. He also announced that his wife had given birth to his first son, Ryan Lee at Hong Kong Sanatorium and Hospital.
Lee hosted a 2008 Chinese New Year concert series, which sold out 11 shows in Hong Kong from 8 to 18 February 2008; because it overlapped Valentine's Day, he featured the new song "Every Day is a Valentine's Day" and followed with a world tour. After, he was begun to prepare his new canton album by inviting some singer-songwriters to participate in the creation, such as Mavis Fan, Eason Chan, Khalil Fong, Hins Cheung, Louis Cheung, Justin Lo, Vincent Chow and Jan Lamb. In order to maximize the quality, the album took 9 months to produce. He sent only two new songs to radio that year, "She merciful and I'm Sad" and "What Year Is Now". Those songs received radio's favor. He was also lyricist for himself of the theme song of "Alan Tam & Hacken Lee Concert 2009", and the song "Needless To Be Scared", and lyricist of the song composed by Eason Chan, named "Season Changed". In late 2009, Lee released the album "Threesome" with the hit songs "Lonely Henchman" and "Twenty-Four Cities".
Lee was a host for the Beijing Olympics broadcast in 2008, as well as the ambassador of Standard Chartered Marathon and ambassador of the East Asian Games 2009.