64-year-old Taiwanese “music prankster” Harlem Yu, after a 9-year hiatus, has released a brand new original single “Lover” and is set to launch a new tour in October to mark his 40th debut anniversary. Previously, he made his debut appearance on the Chinese music competition show “Singer 2026”, performing a slow R&B version of the classic song “Let Me Love You More”. Unexpectedly, he ranked last in votes and was eliminated in the very first episode. At a press conference on the 23rd, when asked about this, he said he was totally fine with it and had no issues. He even turned to comfort his wife and friends, joking humorously: “I hope this won’t cast a shadow over my later years.”
There were rumors that Harlem’s initial song choice for the first episode was not “Let Me Love You More”. He clarified that the program team only wished for him to choose a well-known song, and that turning it into a slow R&B style was his own idea. So, about his surprising first-round elimination, he said: “I take on board all the opinions—since I chose the song and did it my way, I’ll accept the outcome myself.” He also admitted that when it came to choosing songs, he had ideas prepared for episodes two and three and hadn’t expected to be stopped at the very first episode.
He talked about his reasons for participating: firstly, because he was releasing a new song and holding a concert, he needed the publicity and exposure; secondly, because the show gave him space to freely play and have fun with music. As for online comments, he takes them lightly and said: “There are always two sides to things online—you can’t just look at the positive or the negative. When this kind of situation arises, I just don’t look at it at all—I’m not affected. Internet trolls always have a lot of opinions, but if they don’t know you, why let yourself be affected by them?”
Harlem said he won’t let these things affect him: “If you like it, keep watching! If you don’t like it, it won’t affect me.” Some people say the right things publicly but, behind the scenes, can’t eat well or sleep well—that’s no good at all. But his attitude towards life’s disappointments is that “eight or nine out of ten things in life are unsatisfactory.” Luckily, it hasn’t affected him at all—in his words, “Keep playing, keep experimenting—do whatever you want, however you want. My life’s fine, and my musical ideas are fine too.” This shows his open-minded, playful attitude as a musical maverick.
News Source: 壹苹新闻网