向前走 (1990)

Marching Forward (Chinese: 向前走) was the first Taiwanese Hokkien pop album released by Taiwanese singer Lim Giong and sold more than 400,000 copies. The album brought up rock music style, breaking the traditional melancholy style of Taiwanese pop music, and was regarded as one of the representative works of the new Taiwanese song movement. In addition to winning the Best Vocal Album Producer Award at the 3rd Golden Melody Awards, the album's eponymous title track, "Marching Forward," also won the Best Song of the Year Award.

Recording

The album was recorded in 1989 and was co-produced by Bobby Chen and Jonathan Lee, with Lim Giong, Lee Cheng-Fan (Chinese: 李正帆), Kay Huang (Chinese: 黃韻玲), and Lo Hung Wu (Chinese: 羅紘武) as the main arrangers, and most of the lyric writing was done by Lim Giong. There are also Bobby Chen, Xu Xin-Yi (Chinese: 許心怡), Kuo Shu-Ling (Chinese: 郭婌齡), Lin Wei (Chinese: 林暐) and others who co-wrote some songs with Lim Giong. The album "Marching Forward" was officially released in vinyl and cassette versions on December 7, 1990, and compact disc version was released on January 17, 1991.

Critical reception

According to music critic Weng Jiaming (Chinese: 翁嘉銘), "Marching Forward shows the conflicts, thoughts and emotional transformations of Taiwanese provincial children growing up in the countryside and adjusting to the city life. Although the criticism is not deep enough, at least it is a sincere expression of the young Taiwanese generation's experience of the reality of society."