SINGAPORE — Just about a month ago, popular Chinese pop singer Derrick Hoh became the first Singaporean artiste to hit the No 1 spot on the iTunes in Singapore.

That Hoh tops music charts isn’t a big deal. He didn’t take home the Most Popular Male Artiste award at the 2011 Singapore Hit Awards for nothing. But what was interesting was that he did it without any of the Chinese pop songs that’s usually his bag.

Instead, his chart-topping hit was a new English language song, Forever. Co-written with lyrics written by Marc Lian (of Quick Quick Danger), the song also samples the chorus from the familiar ’90s PJ & Duncan hit, Eternal Love.

“I may have had a slight advantage of (the) fan base from my Chinese pop career,” he quipped.

Forever is just the first of several English singles that Hoh plans to release this year. But he said that he’s not forgetting his Chinese pop fans.

“(The English tracks were) just a side project to begin with. And the initial aim was just to expand my reach. The Mandarin album is still on schedule — I still have one coming up.

“(Forever) is an experiment, basically, but I’m pretty happy at how it turned out.”

So why make a switch to English music?

Derrick Hoh: I do write my demos in English, just random words that don’t make sense, and my company suggested making an English language EP. I thought, “Okay, but maybe I should sit down and do something new”. So I locked myself up in the studio and started to write. Then I really got into it. I was writing for about a month, and came up with 30 or 40 songs. And Forever was one of them. We didn’t have a schedule in mind. It was just, “Let’s just do this” ... and we just whack.

And you’re just going to release English EPs or singles? Why?

I’ve been wanting to do this for years, when iTunes was first available in the United States, back when I was recording my first album. But it was not feasible then, because iTunes was not available in the region yet. But when it finally was available, I immediately jumped at the chance.

You wrote online that the reason why Forever took so long was because you were being ‘a pain in the butt’.

Yeah. Then I had a heart-to-heart talk with management. They said it was time to let go and release the song, and I was like, “But ...” and they were like, “No buts!” I’m actually pretty proud of what’s coming out in the next few months, including the new singles. But there was really a lot of pain — in the butt — involved to get things out.

How different is doing English pop compared to Chinese pop?

For this English one, we threw away some of the restrictions we used to have. I don’t know if you know this, but sometimes, people will say, “you can’t do R&B because R&B is out”, or “you need to do ballads for the Mandarin market”. But since this is in English there aren’t any restrictions.

And for once, I do not have to worry about how I look and I don’t have to put on any fancy costumes — which is not a bad thing; it’s just a different aspect. Chinese pop is more visual. For this I can just concentrate on the sound and making music. That’s why it’s an exciting time for me. I can do something that I’ve always wanted to do — for my fans and any other listeners out there.

So you’re really making a crossover?

I kind of want it all, so I’ll do every single thing that I can. I still have great plans for Mandarin songs, there are still so many things that I still want to explore for that. For the English songs, it’s to show people that, ‘Hey, I can do this too’.

Derrick Hoh’s Forever is available on iTunes.