I must have heard this song at least a million times when I was in Beijing.

I remember way back in the day when Bluehsu first sent me a link to a video by S.H.E. I quickly dismissed them as the Taiwanese poor man’s version of S.E.S. Their video for Beauty Up was fucking horrible. In addition to looking like an act put together by a group of teenage girls at the local Chinese baptist church, S.H.E. debuted on the same day the World Trade Center went down. These girls couldn’t catch a break.

Fast forward a few years later. I’m hanging out in Beijing, trying to delay the real world for a few more years when I hear this song; Super Star. And I didn’t hear it just once, it was fucking everywhere and everyone was singing it. I have never seen a song become this big anywhere. Serious. It transcended all classes, ages, etc. Hell even I started to like it and karaoked it a couple of times when my China buddies. (Of course the only part I could sing was “you are my super star,” but still…) The closest thing I could compare it to in popularity is the Macarena; and Super Star was way cooler because there wasn’t a dumb dance that went alont with it.

I did manage to see a few clips of the video but never the full thing. However I seem to be on an Asian pop music video review kick this weekend so I thought I’d search for it on youtube.

Super Star is kind of unique because it has more of a rock feel to it than most songs by S.H.E. If you watch the video, you’ll notice that every one of the girls is playing a guitar. All of them. In addition to all of the girls playing a guitar, there’s a room full of dudes playing guitars. I don’t mean to question S.H.E.’s talents, but I think the only kind of guitar these girls could play are of the hero variety.

Also S.H.E.’s label is HIM. I don’t know what the acronym stands for, but that’s funny isn’t it?

The video itself is standard fare. The girls are rocking out on stage to a big audience. They’ll cut to a scene where one of the girls get struck by lightning and a standing in the rain and being sad. Then one of the girls starts making out with a random dude in the crowd. Serious. Don’t ask me who, I don’t know which one is getting some action because all Asian people look alike.

But yeah, the video is nothing special, but I really like the song. If you follow my posts at all, you know that I watch most of these things with the volume on mute and a porn movie playing in the background for the “music.” It’s a real earworm and you won’t be able to stop thinking about it for days.

I totally misjudged S.H.E. when they first came out. I could not imagine how popular they’ve become over the years and it just goes to show that I am usually wrong about everything. S.H.E. really took off and have had a platinum album (which is really rare in the Asian music world) and put on some of the biggest concerts in Asia. They even became spokespeople for Coke and World of Warcraft. (The commercials for these are pretty entertaining.) So yeah, I’d recommend giving this video a watch. And if you can tell which girl is S, H, and E I would much appreciate it.

Score: 7.5