After an eight-year absence, singer Alena Wu has finally released her third album, Xing Fu.

Singer Alena Wu’s new album, Xing Fu (Blessed), consists of 10 songs, nine of them in mandarin.

Alena’s husband, Walujan “Popo” Fauza, handled writing the melodies for the new album, while Ruvan Lin and Winter Woo wrote the lyrics for the songs that center on love and family.

The first single from the album is titled “Xing Fu”, a polemic about the irony of how people spend most of their lives trying to look for as much money as possible to be happy, while in fact they have been blessed with a good life and a family.

Alena said her long absence from the Indonesian music industry was due to the problems she faced selling and protecting her material both as a mandarin singer and an artist.

“During those eight years, I only produced singles. Why? During those years, the piracy industry was still very strong and Indonesians were still unfamiliar with buying digital albums through iTunes. It was still very easy to find and download pirated albums from the internet,” Alena said at the album’s launch in Jakarta.

But recent developments, with more websites that offer pirated material being shut down and more people learning to buy official digital albums through iTunes gave her hope.

“I also saw the opportunity that came with the digitalization of the music industry. It allows me to promote my material not only in Indonesia, but to other countries with ease.”

After making a cost-benefit analysis, in October 2014 Alena finally decided to launch her third album.

“I decided to make a full mandarin album because I believe that by using digital marketing platforms, I can enter markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. There are a lot of mandarin speakers and fans of mandarin songs in those countries,” she said.

Alena said the decision to utilize digital platforms to introduce and market her music had been proven to be effective.

“I joined various digital music platforms that make my music available to listeners all over the world. I had never thought that someone from Germany or Japan would buy my album, but they did. So, I now have a fanbase in those countries simply because of the power of digital platforms,” she said.

Alena’s decision to embrace digital technology not only boosted her career but also helped promote her as an artist, showcasing her maturity both as an artist and an entrepreneur.

Born Caroline Gunawan in Malang, East Java, on Nov. 9, 1981, Alena began her career by winning the Asia Bagus Grand Championship singing competition in Malaysia in 2000. Her victory earned her a spot in the legendary Elfa’s Singer vocal group in 2001.

In 2003, Alena released her self-titled debut album produced under major label Universal Music Indonesia. In this release, most of the songs were in Indonesian and one of them was in English.

It took five years for Alena to release her second album, Seindah Diriku (As Marvelous As I Am), under the Nagaswara record label. In her second album, she introduced several mandarin songs and collaborated with several artists, such as rapper Saykoji.

After the second album, Alena dreamed of producing a full-Mandarin album. As a child, she fell in love with Chinese language and culture after hearing her grandmother singing Mandarin songs and reading books about China and its traditions.

However, her dream had to contend with the reluctance of record labels to produce Mandarin records, doubting their marketability in the Indonesian music market.

Blessed: Singer Alena Wu performs when releasing her third album, Xing Fu (Blessed), in Jakarta.(JP/DMR)

After an eight-year absence, singer Alena Wu has finally released her third album, Xing Fu.

Singer Alena Wu'€™s new album, Xing Fu (Blessed), consists of 10 songs, nine of them in mandarin.

Alena'€™s husband, Walujan '€œPopo'€ Fauza, handled writing the melodies for the new album, while Ruvan Lin and Winter Woo wrote the lyrics for the songs that center on love and family.

The first single from the album is titled '€œXing Fu'€, a polemic about the irony of how people spend most of their lives trying to look for as much money as possible to be happy, while in fact they have been blessed with a good life and a family.

Alena said her long absence from the Indonesian music industry was due to the problems she faced selling and protecting her material both as a mandarin singer and an artist.

'€œDuring those eight years, I only produced singles. Why? During those years, the piracy industry was still very strong and Indonesians were still unfamiliar with buying digital albums through iTunes. It was still very easy to find and download pirated albums from the internet,'€ Alena said at the album'€™s launch in Jakarta.

But recent developments, with more websites that offer pirated material being shut down and more people learning to buy official digital albums through iTunes gave her hope.

'€œI also saw the opportunity that came with the digitalization of the music industry. It allows me to promote my material not only in Indonesia, but to other countries with ease.'€

After making a cost-benefit analysis, in October 2014 Alena finally decided to launch her third album.

'€œI decided to make a full mandarin album because I believe that by using digital marketing platforms, I can enter markets in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Malaysia. There are a lot of mandarin speakers and fans of mandarin songs in those countries,'€ she said.