Play is the eighth studio album by Taiwanese girl group S.H.E. It was released on May 11, 2007, by HIM International Music. During the week of its release, Play accounted for over half of all Taiwanese album sales, beating out its runner up by over 40% of the market share. Over 100,000 copies of the album were pre-ordered; by mid-July, the sales total reached 500,000.
Despite being tainted by cross-straits controversy, "Chinese Language", the album's lead single, earned six awards, including one for its music video. Due to the overall popularity of the album, Play became the first S.H.E album to warrant its own concert, which was held at the Tamshui Fisherman's Wharf in July.
The track "May Day" (五月天) won one of the Top 10 Songs of the Year at the 2008 Hito Radio Music Awards presented by Taiwanese radio station Hit FM.
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Background and release
Following Forever album release in July, rumours had circulated around the Internet regarding S.H.E's tenth album. On March 30, 2007, The Beijing News reported that S.H.E had begun filming a music video for "Chinese Language", the lead single for their newest album. Mere hours later, Tom.com revealed that the new album would be called Play, quashing contradictory rumours about the album's name. On April 12, 2007, HIM announced that album's second single would be "May Day"; however, the song itself had nothing to do with the band. Mayday was so ecstatic that a song had been named after them that they promised to write songs for S.H.E in the future.
