Life Listens: New music from Stefanie Sun, Bad Bunny, Franz Ferdinand, OK Go and Ronin

In this monthly column, The Straits Times curates the most buzz-worthy music you need to know about that was released in the past month.

Stream This Song: Stefanie Sun – Afterwards

Home-grown Mandopop diva Stefanie Sun is kicking off 2025 – also her 25th year in show business – with a new song.

Ahead of her four-night comeback concert at the Singapore Indoor Stadium in April, the first stops of her Aut Nihilo world tour, she has released Afterwards.

The song’s Chinese title is Sunset – a reference to the Chinese title of her tour, which translates to “after the sunset”. The 46-year-old had planned a world tour titled Before The Sunset for 2020 to coincide with her 20th anniversary, but it was shelved due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The contemplative track begins in a placid manner, but eventually builds up to a rousing conclusion with multiple high notes and emotionally powerful choruses.

The number marks Sun’s first collaboration with famed Taiwanese music composer Alex Chang Jien, who co-wrote the music. The lyrics are penned by acclaimed Singaporean lyricist Xiaohan.

Afterwards, an optimistic number about embracing the sunset and believing in the power of love, touched Sun when she first heard it, the singer said in a press statement.

“There was a sense of freedom in the melody, it felt so bold and warm,” she said.

But she struggled to find fitting lyrics for the song. She went through more than 30 versions of various lyrics suggested for the track, but felt that none brought out its essence. Eventually, she collaborated with Xiaohan once more. The wordsmith had previously penned lyrics to several of her songs, such as My Love (2004) and Rainy Day (2006).

The accompanying music video was filmed on a beach in Yilan County, Taiwan, with Sun dressed in a simple white T-shirt. Though her team had prepared a more stylish outfit for her to wear during the shoot, the mother-of-two felt it was more important to be comfortably herself.

Of Afterwards’ message, she said: “When I was young, I felt the need to accomplish certain things at a certain time or stage of life. But now, looking at the sun setting, I somehow feel the courage to be brave once more, and to experience life without any restraints.” – Jan Lee

Singapore Scene: Ronin – The Lost Years

Home-grown rock band Ronin were working on a new album when their members decided to go their separate ways in 2008.

Two decades after releasing their debut album Do Or Die (2005), a couple of these formerly abandoned songs are finally seeing the light of day in a six-song EP, The Lost Years.

Recorded between 2004 and 2007, it includes One More Moment and Love Will Shine On Through. Both were recorded for Cancer Warriors, a project to raise awareness and support for cancer patients in Singapore.

Love Will Shine On Through, notably, sees Ronin’s former singer Levan Wee duet with Singaporean actress Fiona Xie.

Meanwhile, opening track Memories was recorded for the soundtrack of local drama film Singapore Dreaming (2006).

While the band were known for their raucous brand of 1980s-style hard rock, the majority of the songs on the EP hint that they were heading towards a more pop, ballad-heavy sound before their split.

Nobody’s Perfect, recorded after Wee left in 2007, features bassist Derryn Wong taking over lead vocals. The song, together with Just Another MF, were originally planned for a sophomore album.

Ronin, whose 2005 songs such as Black Maria were hits on local radio, are unlikely to reunite, according to guitarist Sean Cheng.

He tells The Straits Times: “We considered a one-off reunion for a live show several years ago, but unfortunately, there was still baggage between some members, so that never materialised. This will likely be the last bit of music that we release as a group.” – Eddino Abdul Hadi

Chart Champ: Bad Bunny – Debi Tirar Mas Fotos

Bad Bunny’s 2025 is off to a great start. The Puerto Rican superstar’s sixth solo album, Debi Tirar Mas Fotos (Spanish for ‘I Should Have Taken More Photos’) climbed to No.1 on the US Billboard album charts after making its debut on the second spot a week earlier, behind American rapper Lil Baby’s Wham.

All 17 songs from Bad Bunny’s new album charted on Billboard’s Hot 100 chart. That takes his total career tally to 113 songs on the Billboard Hot 100, making him the first Latin artiste to have 100 or more hits on that chart.

DTMF, a song from the album and named after its acronym, went straight to No. 1 on the TikTok Billboard Top 50, a chart that tracks the most popular songs used on TikTok in the US.

A melancholic number with Spanish lyrics about longing and reflections of the past, it is easy to see why many TikTok users have been using it to soundtrack posts that pay tribute to loved ones whom they have lost.

Debi Tirar Mas Fotos features songs that feel both personal and political.

While many touch on relationships that did not work out, the album is also a work that delves deeply into the singer-rapper’s Puerto Rican identity.

Besides his trademark reggaeton sound, he also weaves in the folk genres that shaped his childhood, mixing salsa, plena and jibaro with modern electronic music production. – Eddino Abdul Hadi

Ace Album: Franz Ferdinand – The Human Fear

Despite the title, Scottish band Franz Ferdinand’s sixth album is one that is chock-full of exuberance and a defiant stand against existential dread.

“Don’t stop feeling audacious,” frontman Alex Kapranos sings on album opener Audacious. “There’s no one to save us, so just carry on.”

It has been seven years since they last released an album – 2018’s Always Ascending – and The Human Fear is their first featuring musicianship from their new drummer Audrey Tait and guitarist Dino Bardot.

It has also been two decades since Franz Ferdinand first made their name as one of the leading lights of the post-punk revival of the early 2000s in the United Kingdom.

Yet, their jaunty hybrid of dance and rock still sounds fresh as ever. With its disco rhythms, Everydaydreamer is a dance-floor-filler, while The Doctor is a sprightly, synth-driven banger.

The most intriguing track is Black Eyelashes, the group’s take on rebetiko, a style of music from Greece that originated in the late 19th century. It is a tune where Kapranos fully embraces heritage and identity, singing several of the lines in Greek.

Brimming with angular riffs and slinky bass lines, The Human Fear is also a reassurance that guitar-driven rock is alive and well. – Eddino Abdul Hadi

Must-See MV: OK Go – A Stone Only Rolls Downhill

Any new music video from American band OK Go is always a cause for celebration.

Best known for mind-boggling creations that rely on practical effects instead of CGI (computer-generated imagery) or post-production trickery, their latest work for new single A Stone Only Rolls Downhill is cleverly made, like its predecessors.

It features the indie-rock quartet singing and performing on the screens of 64 iPhones laid side by side. Each screen features an individually shot performance, but put together, they form one big continuous scene.

Colourful and joyful, it is the type of work that makes one wonder how they managed to pull it off.

Co-directed by singer Damian Kulash and film-maker Chris Buongiorno, the MV runs a little under four minutes and is the result of more than a thousand takes and hours of individual clips.

The song, a lush and gentle rumination on keeping your head up while times are tough, is the lead single off their upcoming album And The Adjacent Possible. – Eddino Abdul Hadi

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