It’s been Jay Chou for 20 years | Jay Chou_sina news

Original title: 20 years old, still Jay Chou

How the times change

Good works are still real

Recently, Apple Music announced the year-end list of music in major markets around the world in 2021. Among the music TOP100 charts in mainland China, Jay Chou dominated the list with more than half of the 54 works.

People can’t help but wonder, is this the 2021 list or the 2001 list? When this list was announced last year, Jay Chou made it into the TOP100 list with 47 songs. After a year, there were 7 more songs.

Many of the 54 songs were created by Jay Chou 15 or even 20 years ago. So what has the Chinese pop music scene experienced in the past 20 years?

After idols have cooled down, the draft has retired, and the copyright war has subsided, the Chinese pop music scene is still in a rather weak state.

　　The list can’t tell you everything

Purely through AppleMusic’s list analysis, most people will point out that there is no successor in the Chinese music world, but this is not the case.

Although AppleMusic, which serves the Apple ecology, has a fresh interface, neat layout, practical recommendations, and full album cover display when playing music, it has problems such as offline caching bugs, platform barriers, and does not have the powerful social functions of domestic digital music software.

In the case that the number of local users is not superior to similar players, Apple Music’s list cannot explain all the problems, after all, there are still a large number of audiences who have not used it at all.

Looking at the list updated by QQ Music on December 2, Jay Chou’s songs also occupy 7 seats in the top 20 of the hot song list. As for NetEase Cloud Music, they do not have the copyright of Jay Chou’s songs.

From this point of view, although Jay Chou’s last single “Mojito” is one and a half years ago, he is still the “king of Chinese music” in the hearts of the audience.

Take a closer look at the list where Jay Chou dominates the charts. In addition to his 54 songs, the names that appear the most are Lin Junjie and Eason Chan. Karen Mok, Tian Fuzhen, Wu Qingfeng, Cai Jianya, Lin Youjia, Stefanie Sun and others also occupy the list.

Among the young singers, Huang Xiaoyun, who was born in 1998, was on the list with “The Sea of ​​Stars”. The remaining mainland singers, such as Guo Ding and Li Ronghao, are the youngest singers born in the 1980s.

It is confusing to see here. Why are the works of the new generation of singers who have long occupied social media, hot searches, various APP homepage advertisements, and various fast-moving product endorsements, why not one of them? So many music variety shows, each of which uses “popular styles” as a promotional point, why is there not a single work among them?

Two years ago, a battle between Jay Chou and a certain traffic singer showed the power of Jay Chou again. The Douban group asked the soul of “Jay Chou’s Weibo data is so bad, why is it difficult to buy concert tickets?” and was angered. Jay Chou’s fans subsequently established the Sunset Red Fan Group, which steadily placed Jay Chou’s Super Talk rankings at the top of the list. In the end, Jay Chou surpassed the traffic singer with an influence of “110 million” and set a new record in the Super Talks list.

The 42-year-old Jay Chou’s dominance on the list is certainly something to be proud of. But for the Chinese music scene, the new generation is in a better communication environment, but lacks loud and highly disseminated art works. This is also indisputable. fact.

During the epidemic, live concerts of Mayday, Eason Chan, and Stefanie Sun also received a large amount of traffic and support from fans. People listened to their youth in tears, while not forgetting to sip to the current pop music scene.

“Anyone comes out to sing, he doesn’t have this ability!”

Calm down and think about another question. If Jay Chou makes his debut in this era, will he be able to get the honor of the moment with his talent?

Although there is no if in history, this assumption is indeed hesitant.

　　The changing and unchanging of times

Judging from the appearance, whether it was 20 years ago or today, Jay Chou was definitely not the most dazzling one in the crowd. Fortunately, people did not promote “the appearance is justice” like today.

From the perspective of music talent and talent, whether it was 20 years ago or today, Jay Chou is definitely the most eye-catching one in the crowd. Fortunately, we still need to look at talent when we listen to music this year.

Jay Chou’s debut and popularity have a special era background and historical reasons. The music industry is highly developed. Western advanced arrange-making techniques and equipment are quoted and used. The old batch of Hong Kong and Taiwan pop singers are gradually retreating, and a group of high-level pop singers are gradually retiring. Musicians and musical works exploded in that era.

Jay Chou’s creation is advanced, whether it is the use of R&B and Hip-Hop, the combination of classic and popular, the addition of Chinese style, and the lyrics with contemporary and humanistic care, all these make Jay Chou appear when he debuted. Out of the ordinary. It is this advanced consciousness in creation that made him much criticized when he debuted, but his unique voice and distinctive style made him look special in a “separated from the crowd”.

Last year, in the variety show “Travel Notes” created by Jay Chou and a TV, Jay Chou listened to a foreign guy in Singapore and asked him if he thought the song had been written for several years. The other party replied: 5 years, but this is a song written by Jay Chou 19 years ago, which can partly explain his advancement in creation.

Unlike many outstanding singers in the Hong Kong music scene, Jay Chou sings exclusively in Mandarin. Because his ancestral home is Fujian, he is also proficient in Hokkien. This made the mainland audience who was hungry for pop music like a treasure at that time. It is also important for the market development of the mainland recording industry. .

Commercial cooperation after the popularity has come in abundance. The commercial landscape of communication service providers, online games, clothing and food, and Jay Chou are still expanding. The rising market value has brought extremely high exposure and influence, and the communication channels are limited and the methods are relatively high. In a single time, Jay Chou’s works quickly swept across the country.

At the beginning of the 21st century, Jay Chou began to come into contact with film and television, from playing himself in “Looking for Jay Chou” to “Initial D” as Fujiwara Takumi, “Full of Golden Armor in the City” as Yuanjie, and then to self-directing Self-acting “Secrets That Cannot Be Said” and “Rooftop Love”, including “The Green Hornet” and “Now You See Me 2” in collaboration with Hollywood, Jay Chou’s multi-periodic development is much faster than the singing of the same period As a singer.

All of the above, for the flow artists of the current era, as long as the capital is sufficient, it is nothing. There are artists who claim to be singers. The songs have not been released yet, the film and television works are already on, and the invitations for variety shows are overwhelming. It is reported that in order to obtain the endorsement of a young singer, the business and the agent will have to line up for appointments and negotiations until half a year later.

What really makes Jay Chou strong is not just the commercial success and the industrial integration sought by the multi-sectoral cross-border, but the continuous production of works. Since 2000, Jay Chou has released 14 official albums and multiple singles, spanning two decades, including the creation of other singers and film and television songs, and Jay Chou has about 400 works appearing in the Chinese music scene. Although its output has decreased in the past two years, it is more about responding to the current music dissemination and industry model, rather than the “exhaustion of talents” as some netizens said.

“I’m a musician”, this makes Jay Chou very pure. It can be said that he did not perform well in movies and endorsed some secondary two, but no one would say that his music is not good. This is the persistence and persistence of a musician. Bottom line.

Persisting in creating and continuously producing excellent music works is something capital cannot make up. No matter how the times change, the works will still be realistic.

After the “super girls” and “fast men” became popular, many people believed that variety shows were the last straw of Chinese music, but in fact, few real singers were variety show artists, and singers who turned into variety shows, except for black material. In addition to the linear increase in the frequency of scandals, the level of works has not improved much. The real music is being marginalized, and “show” and “selection” are becoming prominent.

Many people don’t know that the real music audience will not listen to and sing his songs every day because a certain singer is handsome, or good at marketing, well established, or has a lot of traffic.

However, Renhong songs are not popular, which is the goal that many people are pursuing at the moment. Because Songhong cannot bring RMB, Renhong is a huge profit.

When faced with doubts, many fans often say this sentence for their idols: “Do you know how hard XXX works?”

In fact, no one has ever said something like this for Jay Chou, because everyone has seen how hard he worked. This may be the biggest difference between the two generations of musicians. The environment is only a footnote of the times, and personal choices and judgments have never changed.

　　Next Jay Chou

Every time such a list comes out to cause discussion, someone will ask this question: When will the next Jay Chou appear in the Chinese music world?

This question is difficult to answer. Before becoming famous, many singers dream of becoming the next Jay Chou. For a period of time, the commercial value of certain singers has surpassed Jay Chou, but in terms of their musical talents, there is still a gap between them and Jay Chou.

From a purely musical talent perspective, with a certain proportion of the population base, the next young man with musical talent like Jay Chou will inevitably appear, but whether it can reach the height of Jay Chou is no longer absolute in this era. Determined by talent.

Whether talent and the market can be integrated is the result of many efforts. The singers themselves are talented, have a relatively tolerant environment to provide creative conditions, have a relatively fair way of communication to spread, and have a relatively healthy exposure mode to make them grow. There must be a rational and purchasing power market as support. These lacks may cause the musicians and the music itself to deviate. Therefore, such a combination of forces does not exist at present, and it is difficult to say whether it will exist in the future.

A large number of record companies that used to be high-gloss have become vassal products of Internet music platforms. There is no longer a record sales volume of more than one million in the past on the market. Record companies were acquired, record stores closed down, and the once giants managed to survive by selling their copyrights.

Even KTV, which was once an important part of the pop music industry ecology, has been abandoned by young people and has become a venue for the elderly singers’ club. Just open the door of a KTV, and what came from inside was no longer “Sunny Day” or “Ten Years” but “Hongyan” and “Obao Meeting”.

Although NetEase Cloud Music is about to go public, it is still at a loss. The share price of Tencent Music has fallen below the issue price, and the diversification of entertainment has greatly challenged the original status of music. Long and short videos, mobile games, online novels and other literary works have developed and grown, leaving less and less time for the public to listen to a piece of music.

If the market fails to revive, it will be faced with no soil to nourish creators. Creators can only support themselves. In such an environment, young singers cannot be criticized for their attitude and ability, because they also want to survive.

In the variety show “The Longing for Life”, actor Chen He asked singer Zhang Yixing a question, “Why are there no good songs now? Are we old?”

Zhang Yixing’s answer is: “Music has only a few notes from beginning to end, and the nice melodies are all sung. As a result, it is very difficult for current musicians to start the melody. If they don’t pay attention, they will be similar to their predecessors.”

Of course, Zhang Yixing’s words are somewhat absolute, but one thing is inevitable, just a few notes, it is not easy to arrange a few notes to make people feel comfortable. It is not an easy task if you want to sing for 20 years and still dominate the charts.

In 2018, Jay Chou released the single “Waiting for your get out of class”, which contains two lyrics:

“Can you tell me what you listen to with headphones?”

Many fans want to ask: “When will you release a new album, can you tell me?”

　　

Editor in charge: Zhu Xuesen SN240