Filipino folk-pop collective Ben&Ben collaborated with acclaimed and best-selling singer-songwriter WeiBird for their new track titled “Cheap Love.”
The dreamlike track, released this week, is about the journey of finding a long, lasting love after having experienced so much pain in the past.
The Taiwanse Mandopop star, William Wei, also popularly known as WeiBird, said the title of the single is a play on and nothing more than just faint bliss and ecstasy.
“It’s a temporary band-aid for a big gushing wound, but it never fills the hole inside. Moreover, it increases the feeling of emptiness. What I’m trying to say is, you can’t bargain your way into love. Love is truly hard to find,” he said.
“Cheap Love” was complemented by the vocal harmonies of Ben&Ben’s Paolo and Miguel Benjamin with the earnest delivery of WeiBird.
“We’re grateful that by just being our authentic selves musically, we were able to add to the song both in production, vocals, and instrumentation something that WeiBird seemed to be happy with,” the nine-piece group shares in a statement.
“We took an active role in building on the magic that the song already had, and we’re happy with how it turned out,” the band added.
WeiBird wrote and produced the track with co-production and mixing duties by frequent collaborators Aven Tsai and Sean Sinclair.
The Taiwanese folk-pop star said that Ben&Ben also suggested ideas for the arrangement and music.
“I wrote, played and produced the whole song on the album version. However, for this collab I haven’t had to do much because Ben&Ben was amazing. I remember listening to a demo of them playing along to my original track, and I could already imagine how it would come to be later. And the final results were not far from my imagination. It was awesome,” WeiBird said.
“Cheap Love” is the first single off WeiBird’s first official English album. It follows the success of his fifth studio album, Sounds Of My Life, which peaked at the top spot on Taiwanese album charts in 2020. His album earned four nominations at the 32nd Golden Melody Awards, including Album of the Year and Best Mandarin Album.
The new collab single is Ben&Ben’s second international collaboration after “Leaves,” featuring K-pop star Young K.
READ: Ben&Ben teams up with Day6’s Young K for new version of ‘Leaves’
“Cheap Love” can now be streamed on all digital music platforms via Sony Music Taiwan. Its official music video will premiere on Friday evening. —Rosette Adel
