The last published "Tao Zhe, Wang Lihong and Jay Chou" attracted the attention and comments of some friends, in view of the fact that this is an article I wrote in 2007, the musical literacy and cognition at that time was still relatively shallow, it is inevitable to laugh and be generous, so today I published a new article to discuss with you, from the perspective of musicality and the connotation of the work, what is special about the works of Jay Chou, Tao Zhe and Wang Lihong, why they are musical talents.
Attentive friends may have noticed, and this time I rearranged their names. Why? Because from the perspective of my musical road enlightenment and influence, Jay Chou is undoubtedly in the first place, followed by Tao Zhe, and then Wang Lihong.
Wang Lihong, Jay Chou, Tao Zhe
Let's go back in time and take you to the time when I first heard Jay Chou's song in elementary school. "Double Knuckle Stick", "Half Orc", "Ninja", "Dragon Fist", when a schoolboy hears these dynamic songs for the first time and watches the wonderful MV on TV, the shock is indescribable. When I first listened to "Love Before the Dawn" on the repeating machine, I felt like I was in a museum, and then I shuttled back to the plains of Mesopotamia, feeling the past of priesthood, conquest, and bows and arrows, I felt very tired and afraid that I would never be able to come back to you. There is a sense of alienation like a world away. This song achieves a wonderful fusion of song and lyrics. Then listen to the album, "Jay", "Fantasia", "Octave Space", "Ye Emi", "Qilixiang", "Chopin in November", "Still Fantasia", it can be said that it is a must-hear. So, why not mention the later albums? Because for me, albums after Still Fantasia don't feel that way anymore.
In the order of listening, the next step is Wang Lihong. The early company packaged him as an idol, singing the popular love songs of the time, there was nothing to talk about in this period, he was not satisfied with this stage, and in the transition period, that is, the stage of "Love is You" and "The Only", he gradually began to grasp the leading power of creation, and began to change from an idol singer to a singer-songwriter, and the album "Incredible" was great. Of course, for me, "The Sun and Moon in my Heart" is what makes me have a new understanding of him. The next "Heroes of the Age" is also excellent. The album after "Change Yourself" is also good, but it feels similar to Jay Chou's album after "Still Fantasia", excellent but not so brilliant.
Finally arrived at Tao Zhe. To put it bluntly, it was during this period that my view of music gradually formed and matured. I began to understand what is called genre, in addition to pop, there are rock, folk, jazz, etc.; to understand what is a concept album, not to put together several independent songs is an album, the original song and song are related, when they are connected together, it constitutes a complete expression of a concept of the album. "Tao Zhe", the first album mainly promoted R&B style, to "I'm OK" began to bloom, followed by the collection of "Black Liuding", and "Taiping Shengshi" maintained its consistent high quality. Works after "Too Beautiful" will not be commented on.
As we all know, what kind of themes in popular music are most popular with the public? The answer is already out of the question, and that is "love." Jay Chou has many excellent works on love, such as "Xingqing", "Black Humor", "Tornado", "Simple Love", "Quiet", "Back to the Past", "Peninsula Iron Box", "Secret Code", "Sunny Day", "Qilixiang", "Stranded", "Trajectory", "Nocturne" (I can continue to list, but it seems unnecessary). Wang Lihong also has many, such as "The Sun and Moon in the Heart", "Forever Love", "Love Mistake", "Kiss Goodbye", "First Morning". Tao Zhe's "10:30 at the airport", "Love is Very Simple", "Quicksand", "Every Day", "Melody", "Love Me or Him", "Just Love You".
But this time I don't want to talk about these songs about love.
Because we've heard too many songs about love. If you think about it, since we were young, on radio, television, movies, and the streets, 99% of the songs we hear are related to love? The remaining 1% has family, friendship, inspiration, dreams and so on.
Yes, it's very realistic and very helpless. Love is of course beautiful, and I am not against singing the praises of love. It's just that listening to one type of song all the time will inevitably feel boring. From a business point of view, the first choice is definitely the love theme, because the audience is wide, so the probability of success is large. If you say you want to write an anti-war song, the company or platform will tell you that your work is difficult to promote and cannot be fired. So in popular music, love is the absolute main theme.
But Jay Chou, Tao Zhe and Wang Lihong are musical talents, and only writing about love and love is interesting enough, then it must be involved in other themes.
I roughly combed through it:
Jay Chou's works include "Dad, I'm Back" that opposes domestic violence, "Snail" that is inspirational, "The Last Battle" and "The Death of The War" that opposes war, "Coward" that fights against drugs, "Terraces" that advocates environmental protection, and "Grandma" that accuses the deterioration of family affection.
Tao Zhe's works include "Find Yourself" and "Black Liuding", which explores himself, "Ghost", which reflects human nature, "Sun Tzu's Art of War", which is anti-war, "What Is Love", which explores the essence of love, and "Chaos∞ Bad" and "Black Tuesday", which criticize injustice.
Wang Lihong's works include "Change Yourself", which advocates environmental protection, inspirational "At this moment, who is in your heart", "You and I", which reflects the distance between people, "Falling Leaves Return to the Roots", which is homesick, and "A.I. Love", which explores artificial intelligence.
From these works, we can feel the humanistic care and criticism of the dark side of society that Jay Chou, Tao Zhe and Wang Lihong have as professional musicians. Such a work, the audience may not be as wide as the love song, but the depth of thought is beyond doubt. In fact, in the early days, Luo Dayou's works have many ideological works, such as "Lukang Town" and "The Future Master". This is in terms of the category of popular music. Nowadays, it is somewhat out of place to talk about these topics. Works of contemplation of human nature and criticism of society are now curled up in the corners of rock and folk songs. Of course, there are fewer excellent love songs.
Why? Because times have changed.
The music industry, starting from the early opera and vinyl, to tape, CD, MV developed to the peak, but with the advent of the Internet era, the concept of digital music began to take shape, MP3, computers, mobile phones. The change of the carrier bears witness to the change of the times. In the era of albums, singers must seriously create an album and write each song well, so that they can be recognized and appreciated by the public. But now, as an independent individual, music's sense of existence has become lower. Now it is more released in the form of online singles on some music platforms and vibrato, or as the theme song or soundtrack of TV series and movies. Except for some singers with appeal, or just singers with musical dreams, they will produce albums.
Simply put, you don't make money doing albums anymore. Because I don't make money anymore, I have to think of monetization. That's why there are so many music talent shows now. Moreover, those who sing back and forth are still mainly old songs. If you are my peers who are equally concerned about the Chinese music scene, then you must miss the millennial singers and music as much as I do.
I once thought that it was the beginning of the glory of Chinese music, but I didn't expect that it was already the final light of the sunset.