Early career
Chou's mother initially aspired Chou to become a music teacher, while Chou remained relatively clueless on what to do with his life. Without his knowing, a friend of his had entered both their names in a talent show called Super New Talent King in 1998. Chou played the piano accompaniment for his friend, whose singing was described as "lousy". Although they did not win, the show's host Jacky Wu – an influential character in Taiwan's entertainment business – happened to glance at the music score and was impressed with its complexity. Wu then asked who wrote it, discovered Chou and hired him as a contract composer and paired him with the novice lyricist Vincent Fang.[6] for his then record company Alfa Music. Chou then spent most of his time in Wu's studio learning music producing, sound mixing, recording and writing songs. Although he was trained in classical music, Chou combines Chinese and Western music styles to produce songs that fuse R&B, rock and pop genres. However Wu told Chou that he will help Chou to release an album after he wrote 100 songs and he will pick ten from there. Chou already had an arsenal of songs he wrote for others but had been rejected, so among those he chose 10 for his debut CD album Jay that was released in 2000. The album established his reputation as a musically gifted singer-songwriter whose style is a fusion of R&B, rap, classical music, and yet distinctly Chinese. His fame spread quickly in Chinese-speaking regions throughout Southeast Asia.[12][13][14]Music career
2000 to 2002
Jay Chou launched his debut album Jay under Alfa Music in 2000. The album was promoted heavily by Jacky Wu in the entertainment shows he hosted. Jay also appeared in some of the shows himself. The debut album and Jay himself was marketed as a talented singer-composer album with a unique tune. With his collaboration with Vincent Fang and Vivian Hsu in the album, it also brought about a few hits.After promoting the debut album shortly, Jay went into the studio for next 12 months to record and produce the next album Fantasy. This album released in September 2001 became a big hit and sold an estimated 2 million copies in Taiwan alone. Other than being a commercial success, the album also garnered Jay 5 awards out of being nominated 10 at the much-coveted 13th Golden Melody Awards in 2002. This established Jay in the music industry. Hits such as "簡單愛" (simple love) which brings out the simplicity of love in youth with a very catchy tune, "愛在西元前" which talks about love before B.C. won Chou the Best Composer award, and "開不了口" talks about a person leaving on a space mission while he didn't get to profess his love to his loved one. All these songs are Chou's signature songs and are being sung in concerts even till today.
Chou's music became much-discussed topic because it is different from mainstream popular Chinese music at that time. It infuses themes of ancient past, futuristic space ship, and his music invokes very clear and vivid imagery to its listeners. A characteristic of his singing was also being brought up that with his rapping or singing, people often could not decipher what he is singing until they look at the lyrics. Chou says this is his signature style or infusing his singing with the music in the song to "make it blend" well together. Critics refer to his singing as "mumbling". This garnered a lot of attention and reporters often quiz Chou on his singing style. Another reason Chou came up with is that he wants the listeners to look at the lyrics because the lyrics written by Vincent Fang are very deep. All these prompted many to start listening to Chou's music in the music world. Up till this point in time, his music is mainly within the R&B genre. This album is to be looked back, the most significant part of his career which catapulted Jay into stardom.
Chou followed the formula that works for his third album, with songs that invoke imagery, collaborating with lyricist Vincent Fang, "mumbling" singing and mainly R&B tunes. His third album The Eight Dimensions is still a commercial success. The singer has sold over 750,000 copies of his latest album in 2002, throughout the region. In the same year, Chou held his debut concert tour The One. There was also more crossover activity between Malaysia and Indonesia, as well as steadily increasing activity by Japanese acts in the region.[15]
2003 to 2004
In 2003, Chou released his fourth album Ye Hui Mei named after his own mother. After the release of this album, he attended the Golden Melody Awards for his previous album's nomination. The album The Eight Dimensions was nominated for 5 categories but won none. Chou didn't take this too lightly, as he wrote on his next album the song "外婆" that he actually takes the Golden Melody Awards too seriously. Ironically, his then-current album Ye Hui Mei will win a Golden Melody "Best Album of the year" award in 2004.Ye Hui Mei was both a commercial and musical success. The album features songs on Mafia and drug lords "以父之名" which at first hearing was very unorthodox but it displays Jay's creative writing and producing ability. This album can be seen as Jay's second milestone because it gained extremely positive reaction from both critics of his music and supporters of his music. Jay also wanted to prove that he is a versatile artist and not only writes R&B songs, he ventured into more rock-flavoured tunes such as "晴天" which is one of the most played songs of the year. This song gained widespread popularity and high school students started learning guitar to play the drift of the song's intro.
In 2004, his album Common Jasmin Orange, released by Sony Music, excelled in the Greater China region. Despite overwhelming piracy in Taiwan-which has reduced the recording industry to 5 to 10 percent from its heyday-as a Taiwan singer, Jay produced an album that sold a record 300,000 copies. In Hong Kong, his album surpassed local albums with sales of 50,000 units. In China the official figure reached 2.6 million units, a stunning figure that no other Chinese artist has attained.[16]
Musical style
See also: List of songs recorded by Jay Chou
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He regularly fuses traditional Chinese instruments and styles with R&B or rock to form a new genre called "Zhongguo feng" (simplified Chinese: 中国风; traditional Chinese: 中國風; pinyin: Zhōngguó fēng), which literally means "Chinese Style Music",[a] some of which are written in the Pentatonic Scale as opposed to the more common seven-note scale (Diatonic scale) to accentuate an oriental style. Besides his own culture, he also incorporated Spanish guitar in "Red Imitation" (Chinese: 紅模仿; pinyin: hóng mófǎng), American techno/electronica in "Herbalist's Manual" (Chinese: 本草綱目; pinyin: Běncǎo Gāngmù), rap with subtle classical music undertones in "Reverse Scales" (Chinese: 逆鱗; pinyin: nìlín), Blues style in "Free Tutorial Video" (Chinese: 免費教學錄影帶; pinyin: Mian Fei Jiao Xue Lu Ying Dai) and Bossanova style in "Rosemary" (Chinese: 迷迭香; pinyin: mídiéxiāng), to name a few. Sound effects from everyday life are frequently woven into his music, such as bouncing ping pong balls, touch tone phone dialing, helicopter blades, dripping rain, and radio static noise (Musique concrète).[b]
His formal musical training is evident by the use of classical textures in his compositions. For example, counterpoint was used in "Perfection" (Chinese: 完美主義; pinyin: wánměizhǔyì) and "Sorry" (Chinese: 對不起; pinyin: duìbuqǐ), while polyphony can be found in "The Wound That Ends War" (Chinese: 止戰之殤; pinyin: zhǐ zhàn zhī shāng) and "Twilight's Chapter Seven" (Chinese: 夜的第七章; pinyin: yè de dì-qī zhāng).
Chou's albums have been noted for the lack of change compared to his earlier works, yet he firmly stated that he will not alter his style: "They say I've been standing still ... but this is the music I want, and I don't see what I want by moving ahead."[19] To demonstrate his point, he named his 2006 album Still Fantasy after his 2001 album Fantasy. His use of relaxed enunciation has been criticized as "mumbling"[20] which he also insisted will not change;[21] however, recently he has adopted clearer pronunciation for certain songs, particularly more traditional Chinese style songs, such as "Faraway" (Chinese: 千里之外; pinyin: qiānlǐ zhīwài) which features Fei Yu-ching and "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (Chinese: 菊花台; pinyin: júhuā tái).[22]
Lyrics
Chou is more often a singer-composer than a lyricist. Several "regulars" write the lyrics for most of his music,[23] but the content and style is unified with his own personality and image, covering a diverse range of topics and ideas. Vincent Fang accounts for more than half of the lyrics in his albums, helping to establish an important element in Chou's music: the use of meaningful, imagery- and emotionally rich lyrics, sometimes written in the form of ancient Chinese poetry with reference to Chinese history or folklore.[c] In addition to writing romantic hits,[d] he also touches on war, the Bible, sports, and martial arts.[e] Vivian Hsu is a singer herself and has helped with Chou's earlier hits.[f]Chou himself has written lyrics for many ballads,[g] but has also discussed societal ills such as drug addiction in "Coward" (Chinese: 懦夫; pinyin: nuòfū) and loss of the rural countryside to urbanization in "Terrace fields" (Chinese: 梯田; pinyin: tītián). Domestic violence discussed in "Dad, I am back" (Chinese: 爸,我回來了; pinyin: bà, wǒ huílai le) received a great deal of commotion since he was the first to bring up this taboo subject in Sanscript music.[24]
Chinese cultural elements
Chou leads a new trend of music which combines western musical elements and Chinese literature terms. Because of this unique combination, he makes distinction between himself and other musicians by leading a "China Wind"[25] in Asian music history. The success of his Western-Chinese musical combination is built on his marketing strategies and the musical elements involved in his works.In early 21st century, the People's Republic of China was in an economic transition model. The new generation was looking for a consumption pop culture which would reflect individual uniqueness in the social circumstance.[26]
Zhou Jielun have successfully used the tactic of singing nationalistic songs for the purpose of generating airtime on CCTV. They have achieved this by fitting in with the mainland's political and cultural agenda of celebrating traditional Chinese values and thereby promoting themselves to massive audiences.[27]
The traditional Chinese cultural elements involved in Chou's music contribute to his status in Asian popular music culture. The blowing "China Wind" in his music leads a new trend of Chinese pop music which involves a vast amount of traditional Chinese components, rather than simply following Western music format. Chou's China Wind is highlighted in his lyrics and the use of traditional musical instruments in his music. Lyricist Vincent Fang has worked with Jay Chou since 2000. Fang's work is featured by addressing Chinese traditional elements, such as poetry and Confucianism. His representative work "Chrysanthemum Terrace" (Chinese:菊花台, pinyin: juhua tai), released in 2006, shows a vast amount of cultural elements. In this work, Fang puts images which indicate certain traditional ideas to build the an ancient monarchy setting. He uses chrysanthemum as a metaphor of love. In the line "Chrysanthemums broken, scattered across the floor, your smile has faded" (Chinese: 菊花殘 滿地傷 你的笑容已泛黃）).[citation needed]
Chou also uses traditional musical instruments, combining traditional Chinese elements of music with Western pop.
Collaborations
Chou began as a songwriter for other singers and continued this area of work even after he debuted his own career in singing. He has composed frequently for Jolin Tsai, Landy Wen, and occasionally for other singers such as Coco Lee, S.H.E, Vivian Hsu, Leehom Wang, Will Liu, Valen Hsu, and Hong Kong pop stars Edmond Leung, TPE48, Jordan Chan, Edison Chen, Karen Mok, Leo Ku, Eason Chan, and Joey Yung, as well as a one-time collaboration with Howard Su. He has also written for singers outside of his generation – over one dozen songs for his mentor Jacky Wu, later also for Taiwanese singer Jody Chiang, and Hong Kong singers Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, and Kenny Bee.[28][29][30][31]He initiated the band Nan Quan Mama in 2004, selecting band members and overseeing their album production. The group has been noted for sounding too similar to their mentor;[32] as a result, Chou has reduced his involvement in the band,[33] but continues to help increase their exposure to mass audiences by inviting them as guests performers for his own concerts and music videos.[34][35][36][37]
He has performed live duets with Landy Wen,[35] Jolin Tsai,[38] and former girlfriend news anchor Patty Hou,[39] but only two studio recordings of duets have been formally placed in his own albums: "Coral Sea" (Chinese: 珊瑚海; pinyin: shānhú hǎi) in 2005 with Lara Veronin (of Nan Quan Mama)[40] and "Faraway" (Chinese: 千里之外; pinyin: qiānlǐ zhīwài) in 2006 features Fei Yu-ching, who began his career in the 1970s.[41]
Besides working with singers, Chou's longest-running collaboration is with lyricist Vincent Fang, as they both started their careers in the music field in 1998. The compilation album Partners (Chinese: 拍檔; pinyin: pāi dàng) featured 12 songs, each consisting of Chou's musical and Fang's lyrical compositions.[42] Fang has written the words to more than 40 of Chou's songs, was the chief editor of Chou's book Grandeur de D Major (Chinese: D調的華麗; pinyin: D diào de huálì), and is now Chou's business partner (together with Chou's manager JR Yang) for the record company JVR Music.[43][44]
Jay Chou was also featured in Cindy Yen's (袁詠琳) song "Sand Painting" (畫沙) released in October 2009.
Jay Chou collaborated with Kobe Bryant on "The Heaven and Earth Challenge"(天地一鬥) in order to "promote youth creativity, as well as an upcoming slam-dunk competition in China." The song was released at a press conference before the NBA All-Star Game on 20 February 2011.[45]
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