SINGAPORE — Fans may have loved Nathan Hartono’s rendition of Moonlight In The City and Women of Flowers — by Singaporean singer Mavis Hee and Hong Kong pop icon Anita Mui — in the Sing! China final, but the 25-year-old singer said he had originally intended to perform more Singaporean music.

“I actually really wanted to do a Stefanie Sun song. I made an arrangement of ‘Wo Huai Nian De’ (What I Miss) and For Love by The Sam Willows, and I was trying to push for it during the finals, but they wanted something more recognisable, so they rejected the arrangement, which I understand, but it would have been cool,” Hartono said in an interview with TODAY.

“Stefanie Sun is a fantastic singer and great musician. Her songs exist in a league of their own, because her voice is so unique. I noticed that very few people sing her songs live, because they are tough,” added Hartono, who performed at Sun’s concert as a guest in 2009.

“I was asking the other contestants (why they were not choosing Stefanie Sun’s songs) and they said, every time someone chooses her songs, they get eliminated. Because they always compare to the original, and you can’t really do better than that, so a lot of respect to her.”

Hartono, who was placed first runner-up on the popular Chinese reality singing competition, eventually performed a remixed version of the rap song Nunchucks in a duet with mentor Jay Chou as well as Chou’s The Longest Movie, in addition to Hee’s and Mui’s songs.

And as he contemplates his future, the Singaporean says working with Chou in the future “is going to be inevitable”. Hartono said they have discussed working together on some projects but declined to give more information, saying that there was nothing confirmed yet and it would get “people excited for no reason”.

Comparisons between him and Chou are unavoidable, but Hartono said he was more concerned about learning from Chou’s work ethic.

“I think it’s tough to expect to surpass him. It’s easy to see him as an icon — and being super famous — but if you look closer at the reason why he’s gone so far and why he continues to thrive, it’s because even though he’s at the level that he’s at, he still puts out new material every two years,” said Hartono.

“He still pushes the boundaries of his music, he still make things that challenge the perception of Chinese music, and I think that, in and of itself, is a very good working model to follow.”