So here comes another version of Answers, vocal by Chinese singer Laure Shang

Youtube Link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3HCFSjnErw

Laure Shang at FFXIV's Chinese release conference on Aug 20.
Too much vibrato but still decent imo.

Laure Shang's profile:
Laure Shang (Wenjie Shang) is the champion of the third season of the Chinese singing contest Super Girl. In 2011, she also won the award for Best Female Singer at the annual MusicRadio China TOP Charts Awards.

Born: December 22, 1982 (age 31), Shanghai, China

Education: Fudan University

Albums: Ode To The Doom, Fashion Icon, Time Lady, Ma Puce, Beneath Van Gogh's Starry Sky, w in win, in, Nightmare, About Us

http://i1.2pcdn.com/node14/image/art...q8k6sd9wpt.jpg

Source: 2P

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Edit:
Torn from the Heavens Orchestra

A New Hope Orchestra (I love this one ^_^)

And You! – A Realm Reborn Medley



Source

your link isnt working


fixed > https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3HCFSjnErw

Letting an amateur sing your songs because they won a "contest" opposed to getting a professional everyone knows and loves...

Doesnt SE know this is largely why FFXIII was such rubbish? Great song horribly executed :/ I didnt even bother remembering the name of that one...

I dont like Answers being butchered... i like this song... :/

I'm sorry but how was My Hands butchered?? Leona Lewis did a very good job. I'm sure Justin Bieber would have been better right?

Edit: My Hands was made by Leona and was selected as the XIII theme.

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Originally Posted by Surian

Doesnt SE know this is largely why FFXIII was such rubbish? Great song horribly executed :/ I didnt even bother remembering the name of that one...

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"My Hands" wasn't even made specifically for FF13. It was recorded by Leona Lewis for her second album, "Echo" before September 2009, with no intention of using it for FF13. SE heard the song and felt it suited the theme of FF13 and asked for permission to use it for FF13 in November 2009.

And the Japanese version of main theme of FF13 is totally different from "My Hands".

ugh... she lacks the powerful voice and projection of it...

Honestly, I'm not sure why I expected it to be in Chinese.

That said, I like it. Sounds different, very different. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Good job Shang.

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Originally Posted by TheUltimate3

Sounds different, very different. But that's not necessarily a bad thing.

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It's a more - soothing? pretty? - approach to our strong, projected version (I'm terrible at describing things, sorry T.T).
The only thing I dislike is the amount of vibrato, way too much of it for what could be an otherwise beautiful take on the song.

I found it really good. Better than the original? No, but to say it was "butchered" is an overstatement.

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Originally Posted by Surian

Letting an amateur sing your songs because they won a "contest" opposed to getting a professional everyone knows and loves.../

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Ummm what? She is a professional singer in the same way that Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and other American Idol winners are professional singers (i.e. they pursued a career in singing and now that serves as their primary occupation).

I was hoping it would be in Chinese but it's far from butchered and way better than you could have sung it.

It's alright,a 5/10 I'd say.

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Originally Posted by axemtitanium

Ummm what? She is a professional singer in the same way that Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood, and other American Idol winners are professional singers (i.e. they pursued a career in singing and now that serves as their primary occupation).

I was hoping it would be in Chinese but it's far from butchered and way better than you could have sung it.

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Thats what im saying, pro or amateur this lady still did a great job

It's not good at all. Nothing can be the original from Susan Calloway. Her voice was too powerful and gave a lot power to the song. The chinese version is really bad though this Chinese singer put effort to that.

seems pointless to have a Chinese singer if they didn't rewrite the lyrics in Chinese, should've left it alone if the song is still in English.

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Originally Posted by Lyrinn

I dislike is the amount of vibrato, way too much of it for what could be an otherwise beautiful take on the song.

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This right here.

She did a half decent job with this song. Her voice is absoutely beautiful though. I can imagine her singing other songs wonderfully.

Saw similar criticisms on the reddit thread, people that have little to no experience singing let alone performing infront of a camera judging someone that did a great job on a cover.

It's just the way this singer use is more toward the opera side. However, feels like all her voice was muffing inside her mouth and didn't come it out. Susan Calloway is more loose. I <3 her pronunciation and the way to execute the emotion inside this song. but I did see Susan failed to sing the high pitch notes in couple FF concerts...
Asking a Chinese singer to sing, it's just a marketing thing to Chinese market. so, it's not totally pointless. Chinese games <3 to find a celebrity to "recommend" a game, and lots gamers will play the game just because this celebrity is pretty or hot. :O there got to be a photo this singer wear some silly cosplay outfit somewhere right next to Final Fantasy XIV :O

Ferne translate/wrote the lyrics tho :D

I was expecting it to be much worse, with the way the comments in this thread go on. But that was damn good. D: Heavy on the vibrato sure, but it didn't ruin the song. She had power behind her voice, not as passionate as Calloway towards the end but she nailed it at the 5:51 marker.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

seems pointless to have a Chinese singer if they didn't rewrite the lyrics in Chinese, should've left it alone if the song is still in English.

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Translating music into another language is difficult, to say the least. Generally it's assumed you'll keep the same tune along with the same meaning of the lyrics. You could easily translate the lyrics to mean the same thing, but it likely won't fit the music anymore. The lyrics would certainly have to be altered, the degree of by how much of the original meaning is retained really depends on the song and the languages of both parties.

We tend to have a bias to music in our respective languages when sung by someone who natively speaks the language vs someone who may not natively speak it. I do not know if she speaks English or not, but it's not hard to hear the accent. We hear the imperfections and deem it to be worse than the original.

That said, her version isn't bad. I still much prefer the original song, but Laure Shang does have a good voice.

I was hoping it would be in Mandarin, slightly disappointed due to that- way better than I can sing though. Lets have a metal version.. maybe I can be helpful then XD

Bad song? No...bad you.

I rather enjoyed this version. And, yes, having a Chinese singer perform this is most likely a marketing ploy to target Chinese audiences, or the Chinese government insisted (which I wouldn't put it past them).

As someone earlier had mentioned, her version does seem more operatic and singing opera is much different than singing rock, metal, pop, rap, etc. Madonna had to learn how to sing like an opera singer when she did the movie Evita. Though not opera, Queen Latifah enjoyed learning to sing how they do for Broadway musicals when she did the movie Chicago.

Ehhh... it's ok, but way too much vibrato and the engrish got distracting at parts. Really can't beat Susan Calloway's powerful voice and enunciation. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR6Zaefwo94

I agree on the vibrato, but overall I still like it. At least I enjoyed it more than Calloway's second performing on that song, which for some reason felt too rushed. It's the one from Distant World the Celebration, I think. The chinese singer did capture the essence of the song, and brought it into great performance.

This is Calloway's 2nd performing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wUpjXvc0XD4

What @Gaddes posted, which I think came from Calloway's first orchestra performing, still the best from all.

Vibrato city, minus that and she would of nailed it.
Did good otherwise, sure as hell better than what I could sing...which
is nothing!

O_O; People are overrating.
Shang Wenjie's version of the song isn't bad at all. I mean she's no Faye Wong but she has a good voice.
I've also taken the liberty of looking some other songs that Shang Wenjie performed and what I've found out was the following.
Firstly, she seems fairly comfortable performing in English. Secondly, her voice is usually deeper than what we hear when she performs Answers.
I've also noticed that when she sang in Chinese there was far less vibrato.

Speaking of vibrato, Shang Wenjie's cover of Answers has quite a bit of vibrato and you can hear her accent but that doesn't mean that she "butchered" the song.

That being said, Answers was performed live by both singers. Both singers had some "problems" that would otherwise be edited or fixed during a recording session.
While there are differences between the two performances, I think both singers did the song justice.

Personally, I prefer Susan Calloway's version. It is the one I happened to hear first and I really like her vocal strength.
Also, I would have liked to hear a Mandarin version of Answers~ but I do realize that translating the song would be incredibly difficult.

The vibrato just killed it for me. I had to listen to the original to get this bad attempt out of my brain.

Susan Calloway nailed it and sorry, but there's not many who could top it.

The reason they rerecorded it with a Chinese singer is to probably better connect it to the target audience. Call it 'publicity' if you will. Square wants XIV to succeed over there, especially after all the time they spent gutting it to make it past Chinese censors. Let them do what they need to, I want XIV to succeed every bit as much as Yoshida and Square.

Append: As for the vibrato... blame traditional Chinese singing. They do alot of it in their songs.

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Originally Posted by Massterchef

Saw similar criticisms on the reddit thread, people that have little to no experience singing let alone performing infront of a camera judging someone that did a great job on a cover.

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I don't think someone's opinion/criticism should be discredited just because they're not a pro in that field. I doubt there are many movie critics that are also movie producers, for example, or game critics that are also game devs. Does that mean we should ignore all of them?

That said, I don't like this version as much as Susan Calloway's version, but I rarely like live versions of any song.

Thats not Chinese she singing in english.

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Originally Posted by Dawning-Blue

Thats not Chinese she singing in english.

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She may be singing in English but she's not an English singer. She's Chinese. To ask her to not sing like a Chinese singer is to ask Kenny Rogers to not sound like a Country singer. The tones, inflections and mannerisms are going to show.

They should've let the one singer from Celtic Woman, Hayley Westenra, sing Answers. No, not my character whom she's named after, but the real singer. Look her up. She has a really great voice.

Oops sorry, fixed it, thank you.

I can't blame her for it, but her accent is getting in the way for me.

If you guys really wanna complaint about vibrato, what about FF6's Mario & Draco Opera? I like that one very much, but from all concert done using that piece, I still never found a single one that's even good. And worse of all, they're all vibrato, especially the Maria (Celes) part. I really want to see Mario & Draco with no vibrato at all... :( (the male part of that Opera on most concert actually better than the female ones, which is sad really)

Compared to that, the Laure's vibrato wasn't all that bad, especially since the she carried her serious performance on that song.

OH! I know what's weird in her singing... even though I'm not native English speaker, but I do know I shouldn't put my tongue flat all the time. Especially later when she tried to increase her voice, all these Die~~ Cries~~ she all end up with ahhh not eeee. all the suffer~~ borrow~~ reason~~ follow~~ stumble~~ wonder~~ Listen~~ whisper~~ shoulder~~ ponder~~ weather~~ Answer~~ answer~~ answer together~~ allllll of these she sang end with ahhh not even little curl tongue.

While susan calloway I learned lots pronunciation thing in her song. you can clear hear that she made every s, t or these little detail clearly.


There are places to use vibrato, there are places you shouldn't. she use it too much that she didn't even care about any words anymore. toOo ahah of mahAHah children in Pum life flows abundahAHah flow~~~ to whom dea-ah ha-ah passed his judgemenahAHahAHahAH~~

I googled a little, she seems to sing lots english songs before...

OP Edited for adding the orchestra version of the 3 other songs by Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra.

Torn from the Heavens Orchestra

A New Hope Orchestra (I love this one ^_^)

And You! – A Realm Reborn Medley



Source

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Originally Posted by File2ish

Translating music into another language is difficult, to say the least. Generally it's assumed you'll keep the same tune along with the same meaning of the lyrics.

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i didn't say translation. write new lyrics with the same general theme, it doesn't have to be a translation of the English lyrics.

I thought it was OK. Still prefer Susan Calloway though.

My biggest gripe is the apparent lack of practice or discipline in the choir. The first 20 seconds sounds like a high school practice session.

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Originally Posted by SendohJin

i didn't say translation. write new lyrics with the same general theme, it doesn't have to be a translation of the English lyrics.

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That doesn't work. It would have to be a translation if anything. Changing the lyrics but using the same music is kind of weird when it's still the same game. Also very few songs sounds just as good or even better than the original singer's rendition.