Heroes of Earth


Heroes of Earth is American-Taiwanese R&B Mandopop singer-songwriter Leehom Wang's eleventh Mandarin studio album. It was released on December 30, 2005, by Sony Music Taiwan.
Since Wang's debut, this album is the most successful, shipping more than 1,000,000 copies within ten days of release. The album peaked at number one on Taiwan's G-Music Top 20 Charts for 6 weeks. and charted for 23 weeks.

About the album

In this album, Wang continued to experiment with "chinked-out", the musical genre he had invented for his previous album, Shangri-La. This time he incorporated ancient Chinese Peking Opera and kunqu instead of the Chinese ethnic minority music he had used in Shangri-La.　
In this album, Wang also collaborated with numerous other artists such as Chinese-American rapper Jin, Mayday vocalist Ashin, opera singer Li Yan, as well with Korean artists Rain and Lim Jeong Hee. He named the album Heroes of Earth in reference to his admiration for those he has collaborated with in this album.

Reception

The track "花田錯" was nominated for Top 10 Gold Songs at the Hong Kong TVB8 Awards, presented by television station TVB8, in 2006.
The track, "Kiss Goodbye" won one of the Top 10 Songs of the Year and the album won Longest Number 1 Album at the 2007 HITO Radio Music Awards presented by Taiwanese radio station Hit FM.
The album was awarded one of the Top 10 Selling Mandarin Albums of the Year at the 2006 IFPI Hong Kong Album Sales Awards, presented by the Hong Kong branch of IFPI. It is the third best selling album in Taiwan with 140,000 copies sold in 2006.

Track listing

  1. 在梅邊 Beside the Plum Blossoms
  2. 花田錯 Flower Field Mistake
  3. 蓋世英雄 Heroes of Earth
  4. Kiss Goodbye
  5. 完美的互動 The Perfect Interaction
  6. 大城小愛 Big City, Small Love
  7. 第一個清晨 The First Morning
  8. 哥兒們 Homies
  9. 讓開 Move Over
  10. 愛 因為在心中 ''Because Love is in the Heart''

About the music

1. Beside the Plum Blossoms
The background of this song is based on the story behind The Peony Pavilion, an old Chinese play written by Tang Xianzu in the Ming Dynasty Wang gave tapes of this play to Ashin of Mayday, who later wrote the lyrics. Wang also wrote the rap lyrics which can be heard at the end of the song. He rapped 295 words in 50 seconds. The song is performed with ancient kunqu music.
2. Flower Field Mistake
The song integrates Peking Opera and modern R&B music. It features an er-hu solo and a singing style that imitates Peking Opera, and the title is a reference to a well-known story in Peking Opera.
3. Heroes of Earth
Not only did Wang invite the popular Chinese American rapper Jin to rap in the song, he also invited the famous Chinese opera singer Li Yan. Heavy Peking Opera and kunqu tactics are used in the song, as well as an electric guitar solo by Wang. Jin raps in both English and Cantonese in the song. This song also used in American comedy film Free Guy in 15 years later.
5. The Perfect Interaction
Wang invited popular Korean singers Rain and Lim Jeong Hee to be featured in the song. The song begins with a Spanish guitar solo and contains lyrics in Mandarin, Korean, and English. This was also Rain's first Chinese song. Although Rain's voice is featured in this song, he did not record it at the same time as Wang and Lim—Rain recorded first, Wang and Lim later. Sony BMG and Wang invited Rain to be featured in the music video as well, but he was unable to participate, and therefore only Wang and Lim were featured in the video.
10. Because Love is in the Heart
This was written, composed, and produced by a Leehom Wang's fanclub in China as a gift for his 29th birthday. Wang was reportedly touched by his fans' composition and therefore added a little of his own voice in the song and included it in his album.

World tour

After releasing Heroes of the Earth, Wang performed an international tour, called the Heroes of Earth World Tour. The tour included the following concerts:
DateLocationVenueSpecial Guests
March 11–12, 2006Taipei, TaiwanTaipei ArenaWestlife, Mayday
April 18, 2006Aichi, JapanAichi Kousei-Nenkin Hall
April 19, 2006Osaka, JapanOsaka Kousei-Nenkin Hall
April 21, 2006Tokyo, JapanNHK Hall
August 12, 2006Shanghai, PRCShanghai StadiumAlan Ke
August 25–26, 2006Kowloon, Hong Kong SARHong Kong ColiseumJacky Cheung, Vanness Wu
October 21, 2006SingaporeSingapore Indoor StadiumAlan Ke
February 24–25, 2007Uncasville, Connecticut, USMohegan Sun Arena
March 4, 2007Kuala Lumpur, MalaysiaBukit Jalil National StadiumJJ Lin
October 6, 2007Nanjing, ChinaWutaishan Sports CenterElva Hsiao
December 22, 2007Las Vegas, NevadaMGM Grand Garden Arena
December 23, 2007San Francisco, CaliforniaBill Graham Civic Auditorium
January 11, 2008Jakarta, IndonesiaSands Mangga Dua SquareIdol Divo