Introduction:
Jay Chou (born 18 January 1979) is a Taiwanese musician, singer-songwriter, music and film producer, actor and director who has won the World Music Award four times. He is well-known for composing all his own songs and songs for other singers. In 1998 he was discovered in a talent contest where he displayed his piano and song-writing skills. Over the next two years, he was hired to compose for popular Mandarin singers. 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, covering issues such as domestic violence, war, and urbanization.
In 2000, Chou released his first album, titled Jay, under the record company Alfa Music. Since then he has released one album per year except in 2009, selling several million copies each. His music has gained recognition throughout Asia, most notably in regions such as Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Indonesia, India, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and in overseas Asian communities, winning more than 20 awards each year. He has sold more than 28 million albums worldwide up to 2010. He debuted his acting career in Initial D (2005), for which he won Best Newcomer Actor in both the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Golden Horse Awards, and was nominated for Best Supporting Actor by Hong Kong Film Awards for his role in Curse of the Golden Flower (2006). He produced the theme song for the film Ocean Heaven starring Jet Li. His career now extends into directing and running his own record company JVR Music.
Musical style
Chou's compositions are loosely categorized as pop music. While many of his works fall into contemporary R&B, rap, and rock genres, the term "Chou Style" has been popularized to describe his trademark cross-cultural music and his insistence on singing with slurred enunciation. Taipei Times once described the meaning of "Chou Style": "In what has become the archetypal Chou style, Taiwan's favorite son blends pop, rap, blues and a smorgasbord of esthetic elements of world music to create his dream-like never-never land ..."
He regularly fuses traditional Chinese instruments and styles with R&B or rock to form a new genre called "Zhongguo feng" , which literally means "Chinese Style Music", 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" , American techno/electronica in "Herbalist's Manual" , rap with subtle classical music undertones in "Reverse Scales" , and Bossanova style in "Rosemary", 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 (concrete music).
His formal musical training is evident by the use of classical textures in his compositions. For example, counterpoint was used in "Perfection" and "Sorry" , while polyphony can be found in "The Wound That Ends War" and "Twilight's Chapter Seven" .
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." 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" which he also insisted will not change; however, recently he has adopted clearer pronunciation for certain songs, particularly more traditional Chinese style songs, such as "Faraway" which features Fei Yu-ching and "Chrysanthemum Terrace" .
Directing
Chou's acquired his first directing experience in 2004 through music videos. He initially experimented with a song by the group Nan Quan Mama titled "Home" where he was involved throughout the entire process from resear
ch to editing. After learning the difficulties of being a director, he refused to direct again even at the request of his record company. However, his interest resurfaced again as he directed music videos for 4 of the 12 songs in own album November's Chopin in 2005, and later television advertisements. By 2006, he had taken responsibility for the storyboard, directing, and editing of music videos for all his songs. It is unclear how the public appraises his work, since music videos are rarely the subject of critical review; however, director Zhang Yimou said that Chou's directing abilities may surpass his own in the future, after viewing several of Chou's music videos.
In February 2007, Chou finally directed his first movie Secret. The story he wrote is based loosely on his relationship with a high school girlfriend, with a plot focused on music, love, and family. He stars as the lead actor of the film with Kwai Lun-Mei as the female lead, and Hong Kong veteran actor Anthony Wong as Chou’s father. Despite previous experience in filming music videos, Chou admits that movies are more challenging due to storyline and time constraints. This movie was released in July 2007.In 2005, Jay Chou played the male lead in Initial D, but according to reports, he will be back to direct the sequel, while Andrew Lau, who was a co-director of the first Initial D, will take on the role of the producer.
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