Wong Hong Mok
Wong Hong Mok is a Singaporean xinyao singer-songwriter, music producer and professional photographer. He, along with Liang Wern Fook and others are seen as pioneers of the genre.
Career
Musical career
His singing style has been described as bold and unrestrained but, unlike other xinyao singer-songwriters, writes about nature, and self. He has said that this comes from the time in his life when he spent a lot of time near the sea.Crediting his father for his love of music, Wong is a self-taught musician; his family was too poor for him to be able to take music lessons. As well as playing the guitar, he taught himself how to play the harmonica and the piano.
As he grew up, he found most of the music that was around in the Chinese music scene, meaningless; however, inspired by the music of Lo Ta-Yu from Taiwan, whose writings he found more meaningful, he started to write his own songs and, in 1982, wrote his first song, "Discard". His songs were first heard on the radio in 1984 on the Chinese radio programme New Voices, New Songs, which was seen as a gateway for young musicians.
In 1990, Wong won the Best Lyrics Award for the song "Childhood Homeland". He later released his first album Wild Man's Dream. By 1992, his album sold 30,000 copies which was considered impressive as the Singapore market for local singers are usually around 20,000 copies.
In 1991, following the success of his first album, Wong released his second album The Soliloquy of a Stupid Bird.
In 1996, Wong released his third album, Cherish, a compilation of all his works. The album took more than a year to produce as it was self funded and Wong did not have enough funds to produce the album at one go.
He won the “Best Lyrics Award” at the 1999 New Ballad Festival. In June 2004, Wong Hong Mok was the first to represent Singapore in the 2nd Asia Music Concert.
In 2012, Wong performed his first solo concert.
Other
Wong was a photographer for commercials in the 1990s.Discography
- "Sunset Lake Colours"
- "Mountain Affair"
- "Final Reminiscence"
- "If You Haven't Been Here Before"
- "No Return"
- "Silence"
| Title | Album details | Ref |
| The Wild Man's Dreams |
| |
| The Soliloquy of a Stupid Bird | ||
| Cherish |
| Title | Year | Album | Ref |
| "Endless Enchantment" | 1989 | Non-album single | |
| "Childhood Homeland" | 1990 | Non-album single |
Songwriting credits
| Year | Credit | Title | Artist | Album | Ref |
| 1991 | Lyricist | "现在还算好" | Paula Tsui | 文明泪 |