a decade has passed us by and now i must  slowly give out the "best of the decade" lists. first up, andy lau, the  best singer in the world. i will give my thoughts on his best 15 songs  of decade (i'd do 10 but he just had too many hits, 10 won't do him  justice). here's the list

15. 當我遇上你
"When I Met You" from the album "Blue Heart" and the theme song for one of Andy's best movies "A Fighter's Blue". 2000. It's an epic slow rock song. Perfect for the movie. Andy's performance was great in both the song and the movie. Very expressive. Brings out the sorrow of the story.

14. 我不夠愛你
"I Don't Love You Enough" from the album "A Man's Love". 2000. A typical Andy Lau love song, also a duet with Kelly Chen. This song has reached legendary status. A must for any karaoke occasions, no matter if you are an Andy fan or not.

13. 無間道
"Infernal Affairs" from the second best movie of the decade...you guessed it, "Infernal Affairs". 2002. A duet with Tony Leung, Andy's co-star in the movie. A great song fits a great movie with great actors.

12. 練習
"Getting Used to It" from the album "Beautiful Day". 2002. Another Andy Lau love song. Touching lyrics and great melody. "Getting used to a world without you, slowly" is probably the best line in the lyrics.

11. 只想抱抱
"Wanna Hug" from the album "Wonderful World". 2007. Also the theme song for Daodi Green Tea's commercials. Light and easy to the ears. Very soothing melody.

DUN DUN DUN...drum rolls..."Here come top 10!"

10. 未到傷心處
"Not Yet Heartbroken" from the album "Love, Hope". 2009. After a couple Cantonese albums without much love songs, Andy returns to his old formula for success, but without the cheese. This song is very well written lyrics-wise and melody-wise. Andy's aged voice also adds to it, giving the song more feelings.

9. 牧笛
"Shepherd's Flute" from the album "Wonderful World". 2007. It talks about the tragic Chinese folklore about a goddess and a shepherd separated by a milky way. A love between a mortal and an immortal. Such a great song. The animation for the music video is very cool, too!

8. 天比高
"Higher than the Sky" from the album "Best of My Love". 2005. No, this is not a love song. It's a high energy rock song that's about living strong. This song opened the 2007 Wonderful World Concert. Andy sang while playing with electric shockwave. It was quite a sight.

7. 將自己給你
"For You" from the album "Just For You". 2000. The first ever theme song for Daodi Green Tea. A simple song with very nice accoustic. I'd drink those green tea too, after hearing this.

6. 月老
"Match Maker" from the album "If There's a Day...". 2003. Another great love song here.

5. 如果我有事
"If Something Happens to Me" from the album "Coffee or Tea" and movie "Yesterday Once More". 2004. This tragic love song fits perfectly with a movie about...well, something tragic. I wouldn't spoil the movie for you. It's pretty good. Go check it out. When the credits rolled and this song played, it brought tears to my eyes.

4. 心照
"Deep in my Heart" from the album "Voice". 2006. A song about friendship. Nicely composed with piano and guitar. Andy's singing was superb for this song.

3. 鴿子情緣
"Love Doves" from the album "Summer Fiesta". 2001. This song was composed with traditional Chinese musical instruments. It's quite a treat to listen to.

2. 按摩女郎
"Massage Girl" from the album "Coffee or Tea". 2004. Ha, this is my favorite song to sing. It's about a guy's affection for a massage girl, hehe. It's not meant to be dirty but I like it for the wrong reason. :P

And now, for the greatest Andy Lau song EVER...this decade. You probably guessed it. YES, it's this one!

1. 繼續談情
"Continue to Love" from the album "Best of My Love". 2005. This is such a beautiful song! And yes, again, this song is about a tragic love story. A Romeo and Juliet kind of story from ancient China. The chorus of the song uses the lines from a famous poem about the legendary tale. So touching, so beautiful. Andy captured it perfectly.

And there you have it. Andy Lau's best 15 of the decade. I'll leave you with the music video for the NO.1 song:

See and download the full gallery on posterous

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I recently did an interview with DesignIsMyThing™, check it out.

DesignIsMyThing™: Where are you from and what do you do?

Mike Mai: I’m originally from Canton, China. Now working in Boston as a freelance graphic designer.

DIMT: From your experience with the Emcee Hao project, tell us one secret to successful self promotion?

MM: Viral marketing and social media. Put your shit online… everywhere! Make as many viral videos (Gangster channel) as possible. Blog posts (Gangster blog) and tweets (Gangster tweets) will increase search results drastically. Wouldn’t it be cool to google yourself and see the first few pages of results all point to you? Yeah, I achieved that, and that’s without doing any search engine optimization. Oh, and don’t forget to actually go outside and promote yourself. Wherever you go whoever you talk to is an opportunity to sell. Hand out business cards or tag your promotions all over the city (you could potentially get arrested for this but the pay off is street cred and free media attention).

DIMT: Is there anything you wish you did differently when launching Emcee Hao?

I wish I had professional models with big ass booties to start with.

DIMT: What’s the biggest difference you’ve found between school projects and real world projects?

For school projects, you are your own boss, your own client, you oversee everything. There’s a lot of room for creativity. As for real world projects, you are dealing with clients who usually like ugly things mainly because they don’t know the art of communication. You need to use your expertise to convince them what works and what doesn’t. Your chance to be creative depends on that. But a lot of clients are from hell, so beware! Google “clients from hell”, funny shit.

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