If you imagine a collaboration between a high-profile composer-producer like Hanjin Tan and American-born freestyle rapper MC Jin, Buy 1 Get 1 Free is likely not what you would expect. Tan is better known in Hong Kong for the powerful sounds of his arrangements, while MC Jin is better known for his sharp freestyle rap in English, but the album is a completely different animal than what the two have produced before. Completely performed with unplugged instruments (namely the acoustic guitar, a kabasa, and sometimes a piano), the ten-track album was produced on an improvisational basis. The result is a surprisingly poignant and personal album that is far beyond something built on an amusing gimmick of an unlikely team.

Produced at the rate of one song a day, each track on Buy 1 Get 1 Free is based on the moods of Hanjin and MC Jin at the beginning of each recording day. With such an introspective collaborative process, the topics the pair chooses are naturally things they hold close to their hearts. This even applies to something as seemingly trivial as a song like Doing Nothing (Track 3), which was reportedly produced on the first day of recording when MC Jin told Hanjin he didn't want to do anything. Like its lyrics, the composition and arrangement by Hanjin are relaxing and breezy, while MC Jin's rap performance is similarly laid-back. Never has lazy fatigue produced so much.

The two also covers the other end of the mood spectrum, exploring serious topics that the two musicians have rarely touched on in their previous works. Take Care. Goodbye, Old Friend (Track 6) recreates a bittersweet reunion between two long-lost friends with Hanjin's somber piano arrangement, while Looking Down on You (Track 5) is a pessimistic look at a self-deprecating man who can't get anywhere in life. The best introspective song on the album is Mama (Track 7), in which the two reflect on their respective relationships with their mothers. MC Jin truly comes into his own as a lyricist in the song, writing from the perspectives of both his mother and himself to give a truly honest look at the love-hate relationship.

Buy 1 Get 1 Free also offers a whole lot of topics about the middle of the spectrum, too. Sleeping Pills (Track 2) is a quiet call of desperation from someone trying to get some sleep, while Compromise (Track 8) is a similarly low-key confession by someone lost without any direction for his life, and the moods of these songs are well balanced by Hanjin's music. The real crowd-pleaser of the album, Girlfriend (Track 4), also falls in this section. A bitter rant by a man who's treated like a girlfriend by the object of his affection, Jin's sad-sack lyrics are strongly contrasted by Hanjin's light, catchy composition, making this bittersweet song likely to be part of many sing-alongs at the local karaoke box.

With Jin offering the rap and Hanjin providing everything else, the two make a good team by complementing each other's musical strengths. As expected, Hanjin's improvised compositions are simple, but they also aim at just the right emotional tone for the song's respective topics. The musical skills Hanjin show on the album far overshadow the rap performance of MC Jin, who has the disadvantage of having to write and rap in Cantonese. Even though Jin shows great improvement by staying away from the irreverent topics that plagued his first Cantonese album, he still often falls back on the cliched Cantonese phrases used by American-born Chinese who watched too much Hong Kong television growing up. Nevertheless, it would be unfair to credit Hanjin for all the musical accomplishments of the album, since the nature of the album's production depends on how the two elevate each other's unique abilities. In other words, there is no false advertising for Buy 1 Get 1 Free in that you really do get the best of both artists here for the price of one. As MC Jin raps in the opening track, what a bargain this is indeed.