Tanya Chua: The Singaporean Who Made Taiwan Her Home Base, Four-Time Golden Melody Queen

30-Second Summary: Tanya Chua is from Singapore, born in 1975. She entered the Mandopop scene with her first Mandarin album Breath in 1999, marking 26 years of activity. She is a four-time winner of the Golden Melody Award for Female Singer (Mandarin/Cantonese) (2006/2008/2012/2022), and the only female artist to win four awards in one night—the 33rd ceremony, where her album DEPART swept the Album of the Year, Best Mandopop Album, Best Vocal Recording, and Best Female Singer categories. She is not just a singer but also a producer, having won both Best Mandarin Female Singer + Best Album Producer in 2008. She has written songs for, and produced albums for, Faye Wong, Stefanie Sun, Ai-Mei, Jing Ru, Na Ying, and Candy Chang. In 2024, she worked cross-media on the soundtrack for the drama We Are Not Enough to Be Good. She has never held a Taiwan passport, but this island is her de facto home base.

On the evening of July 2, 2022, at the Kaohsiung Arena, the 33rd Golden Melody Awards concluded. The envelope for Album of the Year was opened, and the host announced: "DEPART—Tanya Chua."

That was her fourth award that night. The previous three were Best Mandopop Female Singer, Best Mandopop Album, and Best Vocal Recording Award. Four awards from one album, in one night. No one had achieved this in the 33-year history of the Golden Melody Awards.

She walked onto the stage, her eyes moist, but the first thing she said was: "I don't want to cry because my makeup and hair took a long time."¹

Laughter. Then she said: "I didn't expect to have this chance; I imagined it, but I didn't think it was possible."¹

Next came the award speech that has been repeatedly quoted: "All musicians are storytellers. Everything that happens to us, all the details, the air we breathe, every story we see—we musicians write them down. When aliens come in the future and listen to our music, they will know what happened."¹

She was 47 years old that year. It had been 16 years since her first Golden Melody Award. It had been 26 years since she was told off by a keyboard player on a bar stage.

Singapore in 1996: The Keyboard Player Told Her to Shut Up

Time goes back to Singapore in 1996. A young woman who had just graduated from the Singapore Polytechnic, majoring in business administration, performed at a bar. The band was rehearsing cover songs, and she offered a suggestion: "This song could be rearranged to be more interesting."

The keyboard player told her to shut up. "He thought I didn't understand music."²

She was 21 at the time and had been performing in bars for several years. "I never thought I would end this cover performance life; I was young then, my ideas were simple. I loved singing, and I felt that singing in a bar was an interesting way to earn pocket money."³

But the phrase "shut up" made her start thinking: if she truly didn't understand music, then she had to learn. In 1998, she received a scholarship to study at the Musicians Institute (MI) in Hollywood, California, majoring in electric guitar.

After returning to Singapore, she released her first English album Bored (distributed by Yellow Music in Singapore in 1997). Then came 1999: a year that changed everything—she signed with Polydor (later absorbed by Universal Records) and prepared to release her first Mandarin album.

That album was titled Breath. Released in December 1999, it targeted the Taiwanese market primarily. In 2000, she was nominated for Best Newcomer at the 11th Golden Melody Awards with this album⁴.

📝 Curator's Note: The Mandopop scene in 1999 belonged to artists like Stefanie Sun, A-Ling, Na Ying, Faye Wong, and Gin Ling. Tanya Chua was not yet the main figure. Her first Mandarin album was not a massive hit; she rarely mentioned it even in later interviews. However, this album defined her trajectory for the next 25 years—a female singer who came from Singapore, wrote her own songs, and followed the singer-songwriter path, carving out a new niche in the mainstream Mandopop industry.

India in 2006, Then Taipei

In 2005, she won her first Golden Melody Award: Best Mandarin Female Singer at the 17th ceremony for Two Species⁵. For any singer, the first Golden Melody Award is a career high point. But for Tanya Chua, she was actually more confused that year.

Her contract was still with Warner Music and the agency Music & Movement (Singapore). The commercial pressure was increasing; the record company wanted her to move toward mainstream love songs, requiring more music videos and endorsements. She began to question if this path was what she wanted.

At the end of 2005, she traveled to India. She studied yoga and engaged in self-exploration. Then she made a decision: "If I want to continue on the musical path, I must rediscover my original intention for music and become an artist who creates everything herself."⁶

In October 2006, she terminated her contract with Warner and Music & Movement. She moved to Taipei alone. She established "Tianya Music Studio." She signed the distribution rights of her Mandarin albums to Yashen Music: a much smaller company, but one that gave her creative freedom.

This was the real turning point in her career. Not her debut in 1999, not her first Golden Melody Award in 2005, but the decision in 2006—to "end the major record company contract, move to Taipei, and establish a studio."

From that year onward, the Golden Melody Awards she won were as a singer-songwriter, not just as a pure singer. From that year, she had a de facto "home" in Taiwan—not legally, but creatively.

📝 Curator's Note: The decision in 2006 included an option that outsiders might not see: she could have returned to Singapore. Although the Mandopop scene in Singapore was small, it offered an export route, and she already held the title of Golden Melody Queen; returning would have been easy for a senior artist. But she chose Taipei—a city where she had no passport, no family, and no childhood memories. Why? She never gave a direct answer to this question. Yet all her decisions over the next 18 years (collaborators, residence, permanent residency, tour base) were extensions of this choice.

2007: Writing Blank Space in Five Minutes

In October 2007, one year after moving to Taipei, she released her first album with Yashen Music, Goodbye & Hello. One song on the album was called Blank Space.

She later mentioned in interviews that this song was written in five minutes one night. She wrote it while crying in her room; the content related to a failed online romance. During recording, she paused several times due to excessive emotion and sobbing.

"Is it because we haven't grown up yet that we treat wandering as carefree?"—this is the beginning of the song. Later, Angela Chang covered this song, and many people didn't even know Tanya Chua was the original singer. But this misunderstanding proved the power of the song in some way: it transcended its original creator to become a widely sung version like a "love letter to oneself."

Goodbye & Hello also featured representative works like Darwin I and When You Leave. At the 19th Golden Melody Awards in 2008, Tanya Chua won two awards simultaneously: Best Mandarin Female Singer + Best Album Producer⁷.

This was a rare dual achievement in the Mandopop industry. In Mandopop, a singer is just a singer, and a producer is just a producer; few people are both. Tanya Chua not only sang but also produced; she began writing songs for other singers in the early 2000s: Faye Wong's Mistake (2001), Stefanie Sun's Sixth Sense (2003), Ai-Mei's Don't Disturb His Heart (2002), Jing Ru's Premonition of Happiness (2002), and Turn Left, Turn Right (2003), among others⁸. Later, she also collaborated on songs for Na Ying, Candy Chang, Hsu Ru-ying, Jay Chou, Joe Shi, Bi Shu-jin, and Tseng Pei-tsu.

📝 Curator's Note: Tanya Chua's role as a producer was deeper within the industry than her role as a singer. A singer who only sings their own songs has influence limited to their own audience; but a producer who writes for mainstream A-list artists influences an entire generation of Mandopop. When you hear Jing Ru's Premonition of Happiness, Stefanie Sun's Sixth Sense, or Faye Wong's Mistake—Tanya Chua's fingerprint is behind them. This is another layer of her record beyond being a "four-time Golden Melody Queen."

2018: The Night She Wrote Testament

From 2007 to 2017, Tanya Chua released five Mandarin albums with Yashen Music: Goodbye & Hello, If You Meet Him (2009), Talking About Love (2011), Dialogue Between Angel and Devil (2013), and The Mute (2015). Talking About Love earned her a third Golden Melody Award at the 23rd ceremony in 2012⁹.

In 2017, she returned to Universal Music. In December 2018, she released the album A Long Kiss for the World. This album was matured over three years, and it contained a song called Testament.

She said in an interview that the inspiration for this song came from the passing of a friend. Depression, which had visited her many years ago, returned. She began writing lyrics and music one night, feeling anxious.

"On the night I wrote Testament, I was nervous, but as I kept writing, my heart calmed down. Seeing every word I wrote, I realized that those things were in the past—they were loved, lived, given to, struggled with, and overcome. The songs I needed to write were written with all my heart. What is there to regret?"¹⁰

"I never thought I would write a song called Testament. But life is reality; these two words that are 'most afraid to be mentioned' keep appearing in my life these past few years."¹⁰

The music video for Testament was shot in one take by director Yu Jing-ping. "Shooting it in one take was actually difficult; all the emotional angles relied on mutual understanding. I have collaborated with Xiao Yu many times, and she is the only director I consider in my heart."¹⁰

She later said in an interview: "Is the uncertainty of the future that scary? What is meant to come will come, and what is meant to go will go; who can control it?"¹⁰

"I hope this song allows you to look back at your life and find the preciousness of life."¹⁰

Testament was nominated for Best Composer at the 30th Golden Melody Awards but did not win. However, this song made many people re-understand Tanya Chua: a singer-songwriter confronting themes of death in her 40s is completely different from when she wrote love songs in her 20s.

📝 Curator's Note: In Tanya Chua’s 25-year creative trajectory—from the youthful confusion of Breath, to the breakup anxiety of Blank Space, to the middle-aged confrontation with death in Testament—she never stopped at a single emotional slice. The things she wrote each decade were different. This is the difference between a pop singer and a singer-songwriter: a pop singer lives in hits, while a singer-songwriter lives in their own life.

2021 DEPART: Writing an Album with Scent

In August 2021, Tanya Chua released the album DEPART. This work, matured over three years, contained 14 songs. She later described this album using a very peculiar method: scent.

"This album is to prove myself and record what has happened in these past few years."¹

The album structure was tripartite:

• Herbaceous Earth Section: Bluebirds, Into The Wild, etc., with the scent of grass after a rainstorm.
• Daily Life Section: Escape, Let Romance Rule, etc., with the scent of freshly baked bread and cooked rice.
• Woody Finale Section: Om Tara, with the scent of sandalwood and cedar.

Structuring an entire album by scent is very rare in Mandopop. Most Mandopop albums use a "theme" or "storyline" structure; Tanya Chua used "scent"—which is more like conceptual art than commercial pop.

But she said it was not just about scent. "I want to write songs for the Earth, for humanity."¹ Bluebirds depicts herbaceous earth, Escape depicts leaving one's comfort zone, and Om Tara is an English version of a Tibetan Buddhist mantra: seemingly abstract, but fundamentally dual-axis environmental + spiritual.

At the 33rd Golden Melody Awards in 2022, this album swept four awards: Album of the Year, Best Mandopop Album, Best Vocal Recording, and Best Female Singer¹¹. That night she said: "I wanted the Album of the Year the most, perhaps because of its significance."¹

Four-time winner. Record holder.

2023 Taipei Little Elephant: A Full Live Show for 55 Million

On May 6 and 7, 2023, Tanya Chua held the tour Let's Depart! A Long Kiss for the World at the Taipei Arena. Both shows sold out 22,000 tickets each, with a total box office revenue of approximately 55 million TWD. The concert had a production cost of 50 million and spent 3 million on building the "Cosmic Bluebird" stage set¹².

What was most special: It was entirely live, without programmed tracks. This is extremely rare in contemporary Mandopop concerts. Most singers use programs to back up (background music or harmonies played by a program while the singer only sings the main melody); Tanya Chua chose all-live, meaning the band and backing vocalists had to truly play and sing throughout the entire show.

This choice continued her philosophy as an "all-creating artist." If the songs are written by herself and produced by herself, then the performance should also be real.

Afterward, the Let's Depart tour expanded to Hong Kong, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Wuhan, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Xiamen, and Chongqing. On September 14, 2024, she added a show at the Kaohsiung Arena. A Singaporean artist touring across the Mandopop region as her home base.

📝 Curator's Note: The decision of "All Live without Program" is rooted in economics—it was more expensive, harder, and more tiring. But for Tanya Chua, it was the dividing line between a singer-songwriter and a commercial artist. She could have chosen the cheaper, easier, faster version, but she didn't. This choice is a microcosm of her 26-year career: the difficult path, just like the songs she writes.

2024 Cross-Media: We Are Not Enough to Be Good

On April 12, 2024, Tanya Chua released We Are Not Enough to Be Good: Theatrical Music Design Album. This was the original soundtrack for the CCTV/myVideo drama We Are Not Enough to Be Good; but her role was not just "OST singer," but the music design of the entire play. It included 6 original songs + 8 theatrical scores.

The origin story is fascinating: Director Xu Yu-ting, during the scriptwriting process, "accidentally heard" Tanya Chua's DEPART album and was moved, proactively inviting her to do the scoring; at the same time, Tanya Chua also expressed her interest in doing theatrical music to her manager. Both parties conceived of the collaboration independently¹³.

The theme song We Are Good was written by Ge Da-wei with lyrics and composed by Tanya Chua. This is another work from her decade-long collaboration with Ge Da-wei: Ge Da-wei is one of Taiwan's most famous lyricists, who has long collaborated with Tanya Chua on songs like Beautiful Love, Blank Space, and many songs for Ai-Mei, up to We Are Good in 2024.

Cross-media theatrical music is another dimension of testing for a singer-songwriter. Writing a single serves one song; writing a theatrical score serves an entire narrative. Tanya Chua achieved this—this album was nominated for Best Cross-Media Music Album at the 36th Golden Melody Awards (though it did not win), but the cross-media aspect itself is an extension of her 25-year career.

She did not win at the 35th Golden Melody Awards in 2024. In 2025, she wrote Chain Reaction for Tseng Pei-tsu. Regarding the progress of a new album, she said in an interview: "Absolutely none."

But "absolutely no new album" means something different to a 25-year singer-songwriter. She no longer needs a new album to prove anything.

From Bar to Alien

Returning to the scene at the 2022 Golden Melody Awards. The phrase, "When aliens come in the future and listen to our music, they will know what happened"—is actually a huge proposition.

It states that music is not just entertainment; it is a record of civilization. And musicians are not just performers; they are chroniclers of this era.

For Tanya Chua, these 26 years recorded: the disbelief in the bar in 1996, the test of a Singaporean entering the Mandopop scene in 1999, the gamble of leaving the major company and moving to Taipei alone in 2006, writing a song that became widely sung in five minutes in 2007, the dual achievement of winning both singer and producer awards in 2008, the middle-aged awakening confronting death while writing Testament in 2018, the creative ambition of writing an environmental album with scent in 2021, the record-holding moment of winning four Golden Melody Awards in one night in 2022, the dedication to a fully live show without programs at the Taipei Arena in 2023, and the next dimension of cross-media theatrical music in 2024.

These events are not a pop singer's resume; they are a singer-songwriter's life notes. The things she wrote each decade were different, but she used the same method—her own melodies, her own lyrics, her own production, her own choices.

She has never held a Taiwan passport. But her Golden Melody Awards, her studio, her collaborators, her concert venues, and her most famous songs—are all rooted in this island.

"A musician's local belonging is not in their passport; it is where their music is rooted"—Tanya Chua herself did not say this, but her 26-year career proves this thesis.

And the Album of the Year award from 2022 was the official certification of this thesis.

Further Reading

• Stefanie Sun — A contemporary female singer in the Singaporean Mandopop scene, a dual star of the 2000s
• Ai-Mei — Tanya Chua wrote Don't Disturb His Heart and Unravel for her
• Lin Yu-jia — A contemporary mainstream male singer in Mandopop, a counterpart on the singer-songwriter path
• Candy Chang — Tanya Chua wrote Loneliness is a Sense of Security for her
• Hello Nico — A band bridging independent and mainstream positions concurrently
• Chen Jianqi — The Taiwanese producer axis, a contemporary singer-songwriter producer to Tanya Chua

References