Talent gene + fan support + peer support
Jay Chou has 3 secrets
◎Love people
The most popular album in July is undoubtedly Jay Chou’s “The Greatest Work”. Although this album will not be officially released until July 15, it only took six and a half hours after the pre-sale on July 8. It has already exceeded one million sales and has become the most popular album in the Chinese music scene in recent years.
In addition to the five works released in the previous years, this “Greatest Works” album also has six new songs and an album guide for piano performances. After the pre-sale opened on July 8, only the official audio version of the album with the same name has been released among these new works, “Still Wandering”, “Beautiful Face”, “Missed Fireworks”, “Pink Ocean” and “Reflection” and other others Five songs are currently unreleased and will only be heard until July 15.
Jay Chou is a singer, Jay Chou is a symbol, and Jay Chou also carries a certain function of memory coordinates in the Chinese music scene. Especially in the past few years, every time Jay Chou pushes a new single, whether it is the style, melody, style, theme, or even the cover of the single, it will attract heated discussions. Some of these discussions are related to music, and some are not related to music. For Jay Chou, this kind of discussion itself is a huge recognition. When discussing these topics, we must first understand what kind of work Jay Chou’s new work is.
“The Greatest Work” is both a show and a facade
The song “The Greatest Work” is easy for Jay Chou fans to activate their respective Jay memories. Some people said that they heard “Red Imitation” from this song, and some people said that because this song thought of “In the Name of the Father”. This is mainly because the music production of this song does not break away from the framework of Jay Chou’s music system – the rhythm based on hip-hop rhythm, plus the collage and fusion of some elements, has become the standard of many of Jay Chou’s works Configuration, this time the new song “The Greatest Work” is no exception.
Therefore, “The Greatest Work” is not a work that achieves a breakthrough in music, it will not let you hear a brand new Jay Chou. In this new work, you still hear the familiar Jay Chou taste. This kind of familiarity is because Jay Chou’s style has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and it is also because the style he created back then is truly unique.
But the absence of innovation does not mean that The Greatest Works has no bright spots. In fact, as a “stacking” type of work, this song is very in line with Jay Chou’s musical identity and positioning at this stage: the quotation of a large number of artistic elements is not only a method that is easily accepted by people in the era of cross-border fusion of music, but also because The elegant artistic style keeps the work decent enough. Especially as the title song of the new album of the same name, it has also completed the task of setting a high quality for the album. It looks very dazzling, but it is indeed in the first echelon in the field of dazzling.
In the MV of “The Greatest Work”, there are a large number of elements of art works, including Dali’s “Eternal Memory”, Magritte’s “Children of Men”, “Man in a Bowler Hat”, Sanyu “Ju Ruiyingxin”, Matisse’s “The Boat in Etretat”, “Open Window”, Van Gogh’s “Starry Sky”, Munch’s “The Scream”, Monet’s “Self-Portrait”, “Sunrise” ·Impression”, “Water Lilies”, Manet’s “Lunch on the Grass” and other masterpieces. At the same time, there are also Xu Zhimo, magic show and Lang Lang’s piano performance. Although the technique is not ingenious, the integration is just right, and because of the style of these elements themselves, this piece also has a gorgeous Baroque temperament. The appearance of these elements also interprets the original meaning of the song title “The Greatest Work”. It actually refers to Jay Chou’s tribute to the “greatest works” in history, not his own creation. of boasting.
“The Greatest Works” is somewhat similar to “Turkish Ice Cream” on the previous album, both in more sophisticated ways to set a certain technical benchmark for the album. It’s just that “The Greatest Work” focuses on collage of elements, while “Turkish Ice Cream” is more like an arrangement technique. Such songs are not mainly used for singing in Jay Chou’s album system, but they are a technical facade that must be present at each stage, proving his high musical and artistic attributes.
As for the singing works, it is very likely that they will appear in the five works that have not yet appeared. Those works will not be as complicated as “The Greatest Work”, but the melody will definitely be more concise and smooth.
Jay Chou has closed the loop with his style
The reason why “The Greatest Work” sounds familiar and kind is because Jay Chou’s style is too distinct. When the style was created, it was different, and after the system was formed, it constituted another obstacle to self-transcendence.
When it comes to Jay Chou’s musical style, three of his first four albums: “Jay”, “Fantasy” and “Ye Huimei” undoubtedly define the creative system of Jay Chou’s music world. In the words of famous music critic Li Wan, Jay Chou at that stage was not running, but flying.
“Lovely Woman” and “Tornado” are obviously the foundation of Jay Chou’s rhythm and blues. To this day, many traces of these two songs can still be heard in Jay Chou’s works of similar style. The use of exotic elements and magical lyrics in “Old Indian Turtledove” and “Fort William” have also become frequent guests of each of Jay Chou’s albums.
As for “Dongfeng Break”, it not only derived the term “Chinese style”, but also influenced young musicians such as Wang Sulong, Xu Liang, Xu Song, and even singers such as Lin Junjie, Wang Leehom, Wu Kequn and other singers of the period were affected to a certain extent. The fusion of the “Chinese style” pentatonic scale and rhythm and blues, coupled with the use of classical poetry, has defined the music creation mode from “Chinese style” to “Ancient style”, and even indirectly contributed to today’s very professional and vertical music. “Ancient” circle.
“Double Knives” and “Nunchuan”, through the fusion of martial arts, rap, rock and other elements, created another combination of oriental tradition and modern trend elements. The appearance of “In the Name of the Father” is a perfect fusion of Jay Chou’s European classical baroque and modern pop music. The system and structure of this fusion also appear in many works. For example, the song “The Greatest Work” this time is a continuation of this style.
To be able to write melody can continue to become a phenomenon in the music world
In recent years, although Jay Chou has slowed down the pace of music creation, each of his new works can be called phenomenal works. Once released, they are constantly discussed, and they have also formed a unique landscape in the Chinese music scene.
There is also a more peculiar phenomenon of Jay Chou phenomenon. On the one hand, his new songs are constantly criticized for not being creative, but on the other hand, his new songs can always form a singing effect. Compared with the contemporary singer-songwriters, almost all the works at this stage are more technical than melody, such as “Confession Balloon”, “What Man”, “Love Waste Wood”, etc. can still reach the level of dissemination of divine comedy, and even more so today. Mainstream short video platforms can also achieve omni-channel coverage.
The new song “Mojito” in the last album, because of the novel Cuban music style and the extension of the cocktail theme, not only allowed this song to be applied in many offline scenes, but also derived many creative short videos. Even though Jay Chou comes from the traditional record era, he seems to have also become a mainstream darling in such an era of short video music.
The reason for this is, on the one hand, because Jay Chou’s musical style is distinct enough, whether it is the melody line or the direction of the chords, or the selection and production of the rhythm, as well as his unique articulation, segmentation, and punctuation, all of which are strongly recognizable. . On the other hand, Jay Chou’s melody is always on the line. Even if he writes a fun work like “Mojito”, his melody line is always full of magic and communication, and people will remember it soon after listening to it. In the world of pop music, the wide dissemination of musical compositions has always been the only effective way to maintain a singer’s popularity.
Just imagine, no matter how much Jay Chou can play tricks, how can his team be able to market, if no song can reach the level of singing in the past five or six years, then Jay Chou can only be an idol living in the memory of fans, and can’t. Maintain a high level of national phenomenon level. At the same time, it is precisely Jay Chou who has always kept singing songs in the past few years, so that the age of the fan group has been constantly updated, instead of being like some singers of the same age, fans are mainly concentrated in the peak years of singers. , gradually become the embodiment of feelings. Jay Chou’s more than 20 years of music career has not only allowed him to have enough emotional fans, but also has a generation after generation of fans because of the continuous circulation of new works, which ensures that his music popularity will never decrease.
In the end, there is another reason for the Jay Chou phenomenon in terms of the overall environment, that is, after Jay Chou, there has never been a national idol of this level in the Chinese music scene. It is precisely because of this that many people cherish Jay Chou even more. Even though some of his works are not as good as in their peak period, the days when Jay Chou releases new works every few years has become a gathering day for fans, and they can communicate with each other. The popularity of the song and the topic have completed a music social with the largest number of participants at the Chinese music level, which is also considered a big festival.