After a break of 2 years, Taiwanese boy band 5566 is 1 piece of work shy of a dozen with ?? Bravo, showing off a new musical style to their fans. Despite their hectic schedules, they chatted with UrbanWire during their promotional tour for the album.

Bravo for Breakthrough

Very business-like, 5566 plunged right to the topic of their album, which is in sync with the 2008 Beijing Olympics Games. Collaborating with China’s King of Pop, Sun Nan, Bravo features a series of songs related to the themes of love and peace.

The themes also mean that 5566’s new album of light tunes is accompanied by slower dances, instead of their previous sleek and fast choreography. The focus is on the messages and the stories behind the tunes. They’ve also participated more in the production of this new album, especially taking pains to idealise the concepts behind it.

“The songs revolve around the concept of friendship, separation, children and our fans”, said member, Zax Wang in Mandarin. “Basically the whole album generates the feeling of peace and warmth in the context of everyday life,” he added.

Strictly speaking, Zax and Tony Sun are the lead singers in the group. But in Bravo, 5566 challenge themselves with duets, something they’ve never tried before. Zax and Tony sing a duet about love and third parties, while Sam Wang and Jason Xu pair up to present a hip hop number which sounds like a conversation between 2 guys.

Their efforts in producing their album is a breakthrough from the past 3 complete studio albums. “It is an achievement for us that we’ve added a lot of our ideas and concepts. We hope to include more ideas of our own in our future albums,” Tony explained.

Not Bravo Anymore?

It was rumoured that 5566 is invading into China’s market and seems to be focussing more on it. Zac and Tony explained that they aren’t giving up on the Taiwan market, only setting aside some work to make time for more promotional tours to other parts of Asia, not just mainland China. As faithful 5566 fans know, they’re an all-rounded group who go beyond singing to perform in dramas and variety shows like Mr. Fighting and Showbiz. Having been in the industry for 5 years, 5566 is recently focusing more on their individual dramas and less on their albums.

Recently, there have been a lot of young rising stars like One Million Stars and Fahrenheit but 5566 said that they’re not feeling threatened. Sam said that it’s actually positive competition for the group and could in turn urge them to grow and improve.

The year 2006 had been a lull for 5566’s works except for Showbiz and their individual dramas. Hence there were rumours suggesting a drop in the group’s popularity. Tony explained that in this entertainment circle, it’s the reality for a group to be slightly forgotten when they haven’t been appearing. “We don’t want to appear for the sake of appearing. We want to be fair to our fans, giving them a brand new 5566”, Tony said.