''To Love'' () is the tenth Mandarin studio album (nineteenth overall) by Chinese recording artist

Faye Wong Faye Wong ( zh, 王菲; pinyin: ''Wáng Fēi''; born 8 August 1969) is a Chinese singer-songwriter and actress. Early in her career, she briefly used the stage name Shirley Wong (). Born in Beijing, she moved to British Hong Kong at the age o ...

. Released on 7 November 2003, it was Wong's first album to be released under Sony Music Asia. It contains thirteen tracks, ten in

Mandarin Mandarin or The Mandarin may refer to: Language * Mandarin Chinese, branch of Chinese originally spoken in northern parts of the country ** Standard Chinese or Modern Standard Mandarin, the official language of China ** Taiwanese Mandarin, Stand ...

and three in

Cantonese Cantonese is the traditional prestige variety of Yue Chinese, a Sinitic language belonging to the Sino-Tibetan language family. It originated in the city of Guangzhou (formerly known as Canton) and its surrounding Pearl River Delta. While th ...

. Wong wrote the music and lyrics for three songs, the title track "To Love", "Leave Nothing" (不留) and "Sunshine Dearest" (陽寶), as well as the music for "April Snow" (四月雪). ''To Love'' remains the singer's last original album to date.

Background and release

"All-In" versions were issued with the music videos on

VCD Video CD (abbreviated as VCD, and also known as Compact Disc Digital Video), (not to be confused with CD Video which is a type of LaserDisc, Laserdisc) is a home video format and the first format for distributing films on standard optical di ...

and DVD. These versions had a different cover with a portrait of Faye Wong printed in black on a red background. Before the album's release, the Cantonese version of the title track "In the Name of Love" (假愛之名), with lyrics by

Lin Xi Albert Leung Wai Man (, born 7 December 1961), better known by his pen name Lin Xi (), is a Hong Kong lyricist and writer. A prominent figure in Cantopop and Mandopop, he has written lyrics for nearly all major Hong Kong singers, with notable ...

, was banned in some areas such as

mainland China "Mainland China", also referred to as "the Chinese mainland", is a Geopolitics, geopolitical term defined as the territory under direct administration of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in the aftermath of the Chinese Civil War. In addit ...

and

Malaysia Malaysia is a country in Southeast Asia. Featuring the Tanjung Piai, southernmost point of continental Eurasia, it is a federation, federal constitutional monarchy consisting of States and federal territories of Malaysia, 13 states and thre ...

because the lyrics mentioned opium. Interviewed in December 2003, Wong said that she preferred her own Mandarin version of the song, which made no reference to drugs.

Songs

Wong said that her favourite track was "MV", written by

Nicholas Tse Nicholas Tse Ting-fung (born 29 August 1980) is a Hong Kong actor, singer, songwriter, martial artist, entrepreneur and TV chef.EEGmusic.EEGmusic." ''Nicolas Tse profile.'' Retrieved on 22 April 2008. Tse debuted as a singer in 1996 before shif ...

with whom she had an on-off romance. She admitted that her song "Leave Nothing" was a reflection of her love life, but declined to identify the other persons referred to in the lyrics. The album also includes "Passenger" (乘客), a cover of Sophie Zelmani's "Going Home". Asked about the pattern of 2-character titles for the songs, Wong said that this was not important, but reflects a modern habit of abbreviating things in everyday speech.

Reception

''To Love'' was more successful than her previous self-titled album, both financially and critically. It sold more than one million copies in Asia within a week of its release, half of those within China. Afterwards, she held numerous successful concerts for over a year; ticket sales in Hong Kong set a new record. ''Taipei Times'' called it a mixture of "saccharine pop and daring avant-garde".Faye Wong is all woman
''Taipei Times'' 2004-11-24. "Her most recent album, To Love (將愛, 2003), is a mosh of her two recent artistic tendencies: saccharine pop and daring avant-garde."

Accolades

Track listing

Tracks 1–10 are in Mandarin, and the last three are Cantonese. Tracks 12 and 13 are Cantonese versions of tracks 1 and 5 respectively.

Charts

Weekly charts

Sales

Release history

References

{{Authority control 2003 albums Faye Wong albums Sony Music Taiwan albums Mandopop albums