What's the value of Jolin Tsai's pop music, anyway?
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Here's an excerpt:
Straightforward analysis section: the value of Jolin Tsai's music
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The contributions of Jolin Tsai to Chinese music are, for one, the development of dance music (especially continental electronica) to the point of outrageousness (would really like to hear other female singers sing in this style), and for another, the production of Chinese music videos to a new level, before Jolin Tsai, a music video was not as influential as it was (by virtue of technological development)
Dance music-wise, with Jolin Tsai's credentials, making it to the level of a pop diva like Kylie Minogue is already the ultimate, and it just so happens that our Ms. Tsai isn't the Kylie Minogue Wannabe of the Chinese-speaking world, but rather, the Madonna Wannabe - and that's just horrible.
There is only one queen, and that's Madonna .
What's even scarier is that Jolin Tsai is already well on her way.
There is only one queen, and that's Madonna . The later Zhang Shaohan bad news entangled in the momentum by the side, Wang Xinling transition failure difficult to break through, Yang Chenlin to niche literature. Not to mention that her mainland contemporaries have long since missed out on the golden age of recording, and the impact of the Internet on physical records has made it difficult for most musicians to survive, while expenditure without return is futile, especially for dance music, which requires technical arrangements and commercial packaging --- Jolin Tsai has monopolized the best dance music resources at the top of the Chinese pyramid.
While most electronic music originated in the United States, Eurodance has always had a significant presence in Europe, encompassing almost all of the most popular dance music styles in the music scene, whether it's disco, which was popularized in the 1970s, or house, which began to take Chicago by storm in the 1980s. - Hi-NRG, techno, trance, and dance-pop.
How did Jolin Tsai's path to continental electronica unfold? Back in her teenage years at Universal, Jolin had a delightful continental ditty like "Baby Face," and I'm afraid no one thought at the time that the style of this unintentionally sexy little piece of work would be a big part of her albums after that.
The Sony-era "Prague Square" was supposed to be standard continental electronica, but Zhou's musical nerves kicked in, and one can almost imagine the confident giggle he had when he wrote the opening RAP, which, along with two ghostwriters, Chung Hsing-min (arranger) and Fong Wen-shan (lyricist), rather discolored Tsai's aura as the lead vocalist. The other cover, "The Flavor of Popcorn", is still stuck in the old disco era, but has the beginnings of a new age house sound. Good Cat, on the other hand, is an American dance track with a completely European core, but unfortunately not from a Chinese source.
"LOVELOVELOVE" is a masterpiece of Jolin Tsai's early continental electronica, and though it's a cover, and though the roughness is still there, its success proves that continental electronica has been well received in the Chinese-speaking world. Yes, it's "earthy" in some ways, but the pleasure of being earthy is no less fun. It's a totally localized version of Kylie Minogue's "Cant get you out of my mind", although Kylie herself is already sweet. The Greek Maiden at the Wishing Fountain, Madrid Uncharted, and Sunset are all based on a continental structure, and although the locations change from Greece to Madrid and England, and the guitars, accordions, and bells have different textures, the tunes can't get away with the same ideas. Among them, "The Greek Maiden at the Wishing Fountain" creates the most wonderful illusion, and "Madrid Unbelievable" is also quite touching in its literary sentiment.
EMI's release of "Dancing Girl" made it clear that Jolin's ambitions in continental electronics were already in the air. While the real continental musicians tend to go for pure electronic music (Donna Summer, Madonna, Kylie Minogue), Jolin is leaning towards the American dance music package (Janet Jackson, Beyoncé), which emphasizes dance, without jumping off the continental bandwagon, and the excellent melodies of "Dancing Girl" and the stacking of Exotic elements are all impeccable. The excellent melody of "Dancing Lady" and the stacking of Exotic elements are all impeccable, becoming one of the most successful representatives of continental electronic dance music in the history of Chinese music. Together with the promotion of gymnastic topics, the light wave dance combining Middle Eastern Wave and reggae was all the rage. With this, Jolin Tsai's Jay Chou era was officially over, and Dancing Diva became her only indicator.
The success of Sunset was really a pandemic for continental electronica in the Chinese music scene. The decadent alternative British rock flavor of the original song was completely erased and replaced with a sweetness that makes you want to fall in love. Mention must be made of Lin Maike, whose arrangements are often wonderfully crafted. Despite the fact that most people are bored with the song's overwhelming popularity, a track that can be sung by tens of thousands of people at a concert still has its strengths in eliciting a ****ing chorus - although again, the song's strength is the cheesy topic of falling in love. Hot Winter" is one of the few qualified covers of Jolin Tsai's later renditions, downplaying the original's saltiness and being more continental than F(X). The opening section of "I Dare You to Go to the Tomb Shop" is a marvelous piece of music that will leave you scratching your head, and the fact that it's a Japanese folk song with a continental arrangement shows that Jolin Tsai's team has a love for continental dance music.
By the time of Warner, Jolin Tsai's continental was played to a new level. If before it was just pop work that added a few continental elements, the disorienting and ambiguous abstract tone of the entirety of "Playing the Apprentice of Love" is continental endorsement at its finest. The imperfect ending makes it feel like a tiger's tail and the lyrics are written without any content, but once again, the work from the European team pulls away from the ordinary Chinese dance music. Dr Jolin" is the most Jolinized style, a style that no one else can learn, and which will only backfire if it's copied, as in the case of Aaron Hsiao's recent age-inappropriate vocals.
"Psychedelic" is Jolin Tsai and even the entire Chinese music world so far turned out the highest-end continental electronic dance music works, directly discarded before in order to popularity of the usual traditional Nu-disco, Aggresive-House elements of a step forward, intermingled with smooth electro, fine Bass, fairy Hook, she finally in this kind of continental dance music on the She finally caught up with Kylie Minogue in this kind of continental dance music. Since then, the Chinese dance music audience has been completely divided. Bill Jia not only delivered Kathy Sit's "Weekend Pictorial" and Joey Yung's "Step It Up" but also "Psychedelic", becoming the best music video director of 2012. Let this world illusion as a splash of color, dense under the smile of the original color, so that the real sexy wandering in the mist between the illusion of disorientation. The rainbow flashes, the world is the same.
Today, in addition to Zhang Huimei, the line can no longer find a female singer with the value of Jolin Tsai equivalent. Surprisingly, Jolin Tsai has been recognized by the Golden Melody Awards for several times, which has always had a harsh taste --- and look at Jolin Tsai's commercial value, the Forbes Celebrity List has been in the top ten several times, and she is the only female singer except for Faye Wong's comeback in the past few years --- and Faye Wong hasn't had any albums for a whole ten years! What a decline in the Chinese music scene!
And the 2003-2013 period, every Jolin Tsai album will take the female singer year crown, (this buy list a buy is ten years is also quite powerful) Hito 100 annual singles is also Jay Chou and Jolin Tsai two world, for this phenomenon I can only say that Jilin Tsai business monkey can only be in the Chinese language in the decline of the mountain called the king.
It has always been felt that Jolin Tsai is at best a dance version of Ayumi Hamasaki, filling in the gaps in her original dance music: even with top DJs like Armin Van Buuren, the remixes of "Ayu-mi-x" lacked appeal to listeners with a big taste for dance music. Ayumi Hamasaki is not a singer for dance music, especially electronic dance music, without the hot dance moves of Koda Raiki or the high-end arrangements of Namie Amuro, but yet she plunged headlong into the pit of dance music after "Next Level", and fell headlong, too -- from millions of original sales to no more than 10,000 weekly singles, which is saddening to see.
To the "Guilty" period, Hamasaki Ayumi is still sitting on the best pop album team in the whole of Asia, but when "You& Me" such a single, "Party Queen" such an album in front of the public, it seems that the year "Duty" in the endorsement of the determination of the youth of today, "Rainbow" in the elfin vocals, are all smoke and mirrors! --- When will Ayumi still be able to produce a single that drives the entire Asian trend like "SURREAL"?
"I did witness the end of an era, but how could I have known that my turn would come next?"
Explaining the driving force behind the success: the outstanding contribution of Jolin Tsai's video team
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The definition of music video in the Chinese music industry is very unprofessional, and MV-Music Video, music video is the most intuitive translation, and will be confused with MTV - Music Television is very ridiculous, MV is the singer in order to promote music and with the launch of the music clip, the history can be traced back to the United States of America in the 1930s Disney music cartoon, and MTV - Music Television is the United States of America in the eighties of the last century began to be used to play music videos MTV-Music Television is a channel used to broadcast music videos in the United States since the 1980s. (The above for the knowledge of science time no feeling please skip)
In this regard, because Tsai Jilin regardless of Sony, EMI, Warner, are sitting on the Chinese music industry's best dance music resources and huge sponsorship investment (Pepsi 04 years of cooperation so far involved in a large number of hit singles video), and therefore, from the early Kwong Sheng (see my 72 changes), Lai Weikang (Dancehall) to the late Bill Jar (psychedelic), Eugene Chen (The Great Artist) a handful of video directors throughout the Chinese music industry have given her their best ideas.
Before Jolin Tsai, most Chinese-language videos were merely narrative or lyrical, with dance music usually just bouncing around and a few cut-and-pasted images. Those who had the money added a green screen for post-production effects. Coco Lee pioneered big production, and "Sea of Love" was relatively avant-garde for its time. By the time of Jolin Tsai's era, in addition to ordinary filming work, each look is carefully designed along with the scene, and the construction of each Stage is carefully considered. The use of various montage editing has also taken a qualitative leap. With an internationalized team running the show, it seemed that youth pop culture had never been launched on Chinese soil in such an advanced way. Those years were a springtime for the development of the Internet, and video production techniques also advanced dramatically in those years, with many movie techniques being applied to music videos. Jolin Tsai used exaggerated promotional music and so-called trendy styling for every album, paired with gorgeously produced videos.
For an era when hip-hop culture was just getting started, Jolin's full pop-culture armament was too much of a showstopper. Lin Xi wrote about what kind of wind blows in what kind of era, and when Jolin (Ayumi Hamasaki-styling+Britney-songwriting+Hyory Lee-dancing), the super-idol created by Sony's billion-dollar J program, appeared at the point where a new generation had just met a new generation from the previous one (Jay Chou's debut period), she was a big star in the music industry. Jay Chou's debut period), it is impossible not to be popular. Now, some of the universities in China's radio and television textbooks about music television (essentially music videos) will also be Special Agent J's trilogy of music movies will be taken out as an example to analyze.
Every album since "Watch Me 72" has featured elaborate choreography, and usually dance teachers from Beyonce to Jennifer Lopez have been used to publicize the show. The effect was palpable, and while the people who actually danced Hip-hop or New Jazz would basically never hear Mandarin pop in the dance studio, the good movers who imitated Jolin Tsai were still happy to show up at the New Year's Eve parties at the major colleges and universities. By the time "Dancing Lady" came around, guys who twerked more like twists than girls were sprouting up, making people smack their lips to see if Fa Hai's golden mantle had broken a hole in it.
After 2012's "MUSE" and 2014's "I Shucks," do we need to reconsider the value of Jolin Tsai's music?