article | Linghu Boguang
previously wrote several articles about Jay Chou's perfunctory attitude, which really caused quite a stir. Although there are many people who criticize Jay Chou and defend him by saying that he is Bai Yueguang and has a very deep accumulation, no one denies that he is currently acting badly, has a perfunctory attitude, and in more serious cases, they say that he has exhausted his talents.
There are a lot of debates about Jay Chou's "exhaustion of talent", probably a few.
The first one is that in addition to Jay Chou, Fang Wenshan, and Zhong Xingmin, the behind-the-scenes creators are also very important. In addition, Jay Chou's body function has declined, his voice is no longer good, and his body is no longer good. It is meaningless if he can write but can't sing. The third most important point is that Jay Chou's life is too good now, so he has no motivation.
So the question is, how did Jay Chou end up like this?
Fang Wenshan and Zhong Xingmin leave Jay Chou, is it no longer possible?
Jay Chou's original soundtrack composers during his peak period included Huang Yuxun, Michael Lin, terdsak janpan, Zhong Xingmin, etc.
Mike Lin and terdsak janpan are okay. They did not produce albums such as Jolin Tsai's "Big Artist" around 2012.
Among them, Zhong Xingmin actually has the highest achievement. If you want to say that he is not good enough, it is not wrong, because in July 2023, he just won the award for his album "Sunset in the Alps" and the single "Bitter Melon Sister-in-law in the Market" from the album "Tide". The 34th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards received the Best Album Producer Award in the Performance Category and the Best Composer Award in the Performance Category.
You must have never heard of this album. The reason is that these two albums are pure music albums, and they are completely about art. After all, for an old and successful industry master like Zhong Xingmin, if he does not pursue the market, then pursuing art is a must. The result is that his artistic standards have not been lost.
As for Jay Chou, he has never pursued artistic pursuits. Zhong Xingmin finally left Jay's team due to differences in creation with Zhou. When "The Greatest Work" was produced, only Master Huang was left as the arranger. The album that has been simplified and regressed in all aspects is "The Greatest" that meets the standards of Jay Chou's team today.
I even dare to say that "Bedside Stories" is Jay Chou's best work since he officially retired from the industry, but the gap between "Bedside Stories" and his early five albums is equally obvious to all. So if Jay is really like this and hasn't encountered any adventures in life, then I don't want him to continue to make songs. I'm afraid that a tik tok hit song every year will change my mood after listening to the first 5 albums. All ruined
Fang Wenshan is just the right partner for Jay Chou. Not to mention how artistic Fang Wenshan’s lyrics are. In his early years, few singers could sing his complicated lyrics. It wouldn’t be if he met Jay Chou. He wouldn't be able to reach the heights he is today. The two of them have always accomplished each other, so who is more powerful?
And you know that fans who have been following Jay Chou since his early years know that Fang Wenshan’s lyrics are indeed good, and what we hear are all good ones, but the premise is, which version of the lyrics is used by Jay Chou? From the beginning, he plays the same role as the director of the entire record. Whether it is the music he composes, the words he chooses, or the final decision on the arrangement, he has to do it. Do you understand?
In layman’s terms, his good arrangements and lyrics, coupled with his own keen sense of music and taste, created the classics in his early albums, which are inseparable. So why is there only one Jay Chou? Do they only arrange music and write lyrics for Jay Chou?
no, because Jay Chou himself had an advanced sense of music at that time, he became a legend after so many gods assisted him. His legend is not just a mouthful. Because the lyrics are good and the arrangement is good, that's why he is so awesome. This kind of logic fools fools. It makes sense.
Therefore, I think Jay Chou and these big guys still achieve mutual success, and there is no need for Jay Chou to deny all his previous achievements now that he is acting badly.This is just like in the past, Jay Chou's album was his strongest, while Fang Wenshan, Zhong Xingmin and others were complete waste. Do you believe that in the eyes of fans, these people are still holding back?
(although they can't explain why Jay Chou started his own company and his music took a sharp turn after abandoning these hindrances).
Compared with having a bad voice and getting worse and worse? Has "happiness" become Jay Chou's biggest enemy?
I won’t talk about the voice and body here. I have always felt that Jay Chou may not particularly love music, at least not to the core. He prefers to be successful and famous, just right. Music is the most effective or even the only channel for him to achieve success and fame. Music is as a means to him, not an end.
In other words, he no longer treats music with a pursuit attitude, but treats music like a slave or a servant. He felt that he was above music, so he no longer had a pure passion for music exploration and experimentation. Some just wanted to prove how good he was. He no longer simply appreciated music, but used music to appreciate himself.
The opposite is Tao Zhe. Even if Tao Zhe no longer creates, it can be seen that music still accounts for a large proportion in Tao Zhe's life, perhaps even greater than his wife's proportion in his heart. The other one is Leehom Wang. I think Leehom Wang is one of those people who actually doesn’t have a strong connection with the audience. He really relies on his hard power to avoid being buried.
Of course, Jay Chou is also very powerful, but Jay Chou is also very popular with the audience. Therefore, although Leehom Wang has achieved what he is today, there is still a feeling in his heart that "I have not yet reached my expectations for myself." The taste is that what he gained is still not worthy of his strength.
So he will not be complacent, he will still try, no matter how much he can gain from this attempt, he will still try. The decoupling of expectations again and again has made him accept that he does not care about the results and only does his own thing, so he takes one step You can be very steady in your career and at the same time neither humble nor arrogant.
The problem with Jay Chou's perfunctory and bad attitude is that netizens agree that his life is too happy. He has money, a wife, children, and a bunch of younger brothers to support him. Haven't you noticed? Many of the songs Jay Chou has composed in recent years are deliberately imitating the style of his youth, including some of his speeches at concerts. It can be seen that he also wants to regain the creative feeling of his youth.
But the reality is that he is also a human being. His creative peak period has passed. No one can stay at the peak forever. He probably also wants to get back to his creative state when he was young, but after all, he has already become famous and has a family. He is very happy. It is no longer possible for him to return to the creative state of his youth.
The standard of the songs he creates now has dropped too much, which is inevitable.
He needs to experience new pains in life like Cui Jian and others. I think this is unlikely for him.
People in various regions of China have very different personalities. As the old saying goes, "Yan and Zhao are many generous and tragic people." This means that people in different regions and different growth styles have their own characteristics in how they perceive life. By observing his past works and performances, we can see that Jay Chou is not so much an artist who feels pain in the traditional sense, but rather the kind of secular character from southern Fujian who loves to fight to win + is nonsensical.
Part of his success comes from Tianma Xingkong's musical creativity, and the other part comes from his extraordinary work intensity. The former comes less from the artist's extremely keen musical sense than from the humorous and unconventional character of southern Fujian. The latter It comes from the character of winning only if you love to fight.
Feeling killing, white moonlight will do? But now Jay Chou is indeed "not worthy"
From a macro perspective, people cannot completely escape the limitations of their own subjective cognition, and some opinions are not objective enough. Does it fail to resonate with you or does it fail to resonate with everyone? At least this is not the case with objective data.Just like some so-called old hero fans, "Confession Balloon" and "Waiting for You to Finish Class" do not resonate with their age group, but do they not resonate with younger groups?
I disagree with one thing. Jay Chou is not trying hard to prove that he is young, but he may have always been young at heart. It is not that Jay Chou wants to create a character, but that Jay Chou allows him to remain pure and young without having to adapt to reality.
Most of us do not have the ability or conditions to maintain this purity, and are forced to grow and mature. But Jay Chou doesn't need it. Those singers changed their lives, wasn’t it because they had to? Jay Chou can continue to develop his market among young people without having to transform, and he does not have to grow old with a fixed group.
Jay Chou has aged just like the old Jay fans, but his life and mentality have not aged like many old Jay fans. Whether it is subjective intention or objective reality, Jay Chou has always embraced young audiences, which is the key to his continued popularity. If he is really out of touch with all his fans, he should be confused by it. The fact is that his music still resonates with a large number of people, but you are not among those people anymore.
Everyone is different, especially a singer like Jay Chou who has an absolute fan base. Teresa Teng, who was criticized by the previous generation for being the most popular singer, later became the voice of the times. Jay Chou, who couldn't pronounce words clearly and didn't know what to sing, also became the King of Chinese. What's weird about Jay Chou is that he really spans several eras.
From a micro perspective, singer-songwriters have a life cycle after all. The development of the pop music scene is essentially an industrial problem. Why is Taiwan the engine of the Chinese music scene? At its peak, even the only remaining songwriters in Hong Kong (Fang Datong) had to go through it all. , because Wanwan has the most complete music industry chain: creation, distribution, visual packaging, publicity (TV media, radio), distribution (record market and concert market).
Compared with the Hong Kong music scene, its market is even bigger. Needless to say, the mainland, the music industry chain has not been established at all and has been severely impacted by new media. The essence of the loneliness of the Chinese music scene is the decline of the Taiwanese music scene, and the decline is due to the economic recession and the gradual decline in the influence of Taiwanese entertainment as a whole.
The development of the Internet has led to an intensified impact on Europe, the United States and South Korea, and the comprehensive impact of streaming media on the traditional record market. Among them, streaming media has the greatest impact, and even the American music scene has been hit to pieces.
Jay Chou is the last superstar of Taiwan's recording industry, but it may change or remain unchanged.
Times are different after all. It is understandable to dwell on the past, but we cannot deny that Jay Chou is perfunctory and arrogant now. This is also a fact.
