American Metro Vocal Group makes splash with Canto-pop covers
Metro Vocal Group makes a splash by doing songs in Cantonese - even though not all members can speak it
When four Americans came to Hong Kong in 2005 to sing at the opening of Disneyland they had little idea what they would be doing four years later - singing unaccompanied in two Chinese dialects, releasing a Cantonese album and staging concerts in Hong Kong.
Hailing from the Midwest, the Metro Vocal Group performs a cappella versions of Cantonese and Mandarin pop songs, besides singing in their native English.
They will sing in a concert next month featuring Canto-pop songs such as Joey Yung's , from their latest Chinese-language album .
Two years ago, the group did an a cappella cover version of Hong Kong band Beyond's signature song (Under a Vast Sky) and filmed a music video of it. It went viral on video-sharing sites such as youtube and tudou, getting almost 2 million views in a week and more than 13 million hits altogether so far.
"They're very excited about gweilos singing Chinese songs and how good it sounds," said Sean Oliver, the group's lead singer, who is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio.
But Cantonese is difficult and takes time to learn. The group hired a coach to teach them the pronunciation and translate the lyrics for them.
