Ceremonies of the 19th Golden Melody Awards (Chinese: 第19屆金曲獎; pinyin: Dì shíjiǔ jīn qū jiǎng) were held in Taipei, Taiwan in 2008. Nominees were announced on May 22, 2008, and the award winners in 12 traditional music categories (of 47 nominees) and 23 popular music categories (of 124 nominees) were selected by a panel of 33 judges after four rounds of jury meetings. Initially, there were 10,632 submissions from 185 companies in the music industry, making it the largest submission pool in the Awards' history.
Winners for artistic and traditional music categories were announced on June 21, 2008 at Taipei County Hall in a ceremony separate from that for popular music categories. It was the second consecutive year that the ceremony for this category group was held separately, and it did not attract as much media attention as the ceremony for the popular music categories. By contrast, artists from Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia, Japan, and Canada attended the awards ceremony for popular music categories, which was held at the Taipei Arena on July 5, 2008. Actress sisters Barbie and Dee Hsu, former news anchor Patty Hou, and actress Matilda Tao hosted this event, whose list of award presenters included Canadian recording artist Daniel Powter and Japanese drama stars Akito Kiriyama, Junta Nakama, and Yuya Takaki. Both events were broadcast on the satellite cable Azio Television channel on June 28 and July 5, respectively.
Malaysian singer Gary Chaw and Singaporean singer-songwriter Tanya Chua were named Best Mandarin Male and Female Singers in the popular music category, respectively. Chua won the Best Mandarin Female Singer award for the second time; she last won the award in the 17th Golden Melody Awards. Chua's record seven nominations for her album Goodbye & Hello are the most received by a female artist. Taiwanese musician and singer Jay Chou, who received a record-breaking eight nominations for his album On the Run and film Secret, was not able to attend the event due to his tour in China. Chou's primary lyricist Vincent Fang was present to receive the award of Best Lyricist for the song "Blue and White Porcelain" (Chinese: 青花瓷; pinyin: qīng huā cí). Pop rock band Sodagreen received its second consecutive award as Best Band for its album Incomparable Beauty.
Famous quotes containing the words golden and/or melody:
“Firm in our beliefs without dismay,
In any game the nations want to play.
A golden age of poetry and power
Of which this noonday’s the beginning hour.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The song is ended, but the melody lingers on.”
—Irving Berlin (1888–1989)