What was the world of Chinese music like 25 years ago?
The four heavenly kings are like the sun in the sky, Qi Qin, Wang Jie, Tong Ange and other singers shine, and behind the scenes, Li Zongsheng, Xiao Worm, and Zhou Zhiping are the hottest gold medal producers.
It was in 1996 that Zhou Zhiping, who had transformed from a big man behind the scenes to a singer, released the album "Wind And Snow Moon Works Collection (II)", and bid farewell to his singer status after holding the "That Spring Romantic Party" concert in the same year, choosing to return to the background.
As a producer, he produced songs for Qi Qin, Zhang Guorong, Jacky Cheung, Wang Jie, Tong Ange and other superstars, and also composed lyrics for them, and was the music giant who created that brilliant era.
As a singer, Zhou Zhiping has a clear and beautiful tone, a unique charm in his singing style, and a high degree of recognition. At that time, he was pushed by his record company Poly Gold, and the market reaction of the first album "Green Plum Bamboo Horse" was extremely strong, which was a classic voice imprinted in the hearts of many old music fans.
More than twenty years of time passed in a hurry, when Zhou Zhiping's name appeared in the production list again and again, old music fans thought that singer Zhou Zhiping had become the tears of the times, but they did not expect that in 2021, twenty-five years later, he actually brought a "middle-aged man" as a singer again.
Music poet Zhou Zhiping
Like many well-known musicians, Zhou Zhiping's musical enlightenment came from his student days. At that time, the brothers and sisters in the family were very fond of music, and each had its own good, which allowed Zhou Zhiping to dabble in a wide range of different types of music.
In the era when campus folk songs were popular, Zhou Zhiping also picked up the guitar and tried to learn music composition, and his debut work "Midusa" was sold to the famous singer Gao Lingfeng, which made him extremely excited as a teenager.
After participating in school club performances and some programs, Zhou Zhiping's singing talent began to be recognized by more people, and he had the opportunity to sing campus folk songs in various folk song restaurants until he graduated from college.
In 1985, Zhou Zhiping entered a record company and began a career as a professional musician. Less than a month after joining the company, he received a huge challenge - to produce Qi Qin's album "Haunting".
During this time, he learned and did as he went, accumulating a lot of experience. Among them, "Let Me Still Think of You When I Am Lonely" composed by him has become a major classic work of Qi Qin.
Later, Zhou Zhiping came to PolyGram Records, and under the cultivation of the company and his own efforts, Zhou Zhiping gradually became one of the top producers and songwriters.
With strong creative ability, he has engraved many works on the monument of music history through the singing voices of different singers - Zhou Huajian's "Lonely Eyes", Andy Lau's "The Dream I Chased with Me", Jacky Cheung's "Goodnight My Love", Liang Chaowei's "A Little Love a Day"... His works are poetic and romantic, delicate and affectionate, both ethereal and resonate with the public.
In 1990, valued by Zhou Zhiping's all-round musical prowess, PolyGon decided to push him to the front of the curtain. The debut album "Green Plum Bamboo Horse" was not only selected as Taiwan's top ten annual golden songs, more than half of the songs on the album reached the charts, and was covered into Cantonese by Jacky Cheung, Li Keqin, Li Ming and others, which was greatly acclaimed.
The next albums "Song of the Years", "Wind and Snow Moon Works Series (1)" and "Flowers Blossom And Thanks" are of high quality and deeply popular. Even so, Zhou Zhiping still felt that he was more suitable for behind-the-scenes work, and after "Wind and Snow Moon Works Series (II)", he did not release an album as a singer.
In the twenty-five years before the launch of "Middle-Aged Man", Zhou Zhiping has always been shining behind the scenes, establishing the "Caotai Echo" label in Beijing, and has also produced high-quality works such as Zhang Jie's "The Most Beautiful Sun".
《Middle-aged Boy》
Because of the epidemic, this "Middle-Aged Man", which was supposed to be released in June this year, was finally officially launched in September. After ten years of polishing, "Middle-Aged Man" has awakened the voices in the depths of many people's memories.
The album's self-titled song "Middle-Aged Man" was created 20 years ago, and Zhou Zhiping joked about it: "When I wrote this song, the song was called "Man 40", and after rearranging the lyrics this time, I also changed the song name to "Middle-Aged Man", if it is not released, the word "middle-aged" is almost useless! ”
Looking at the title of the song alone, you will think that "Middle-Aged Man" is a bitter pop song, but Zhou Zhiping interprets a free middle-aged man with a flexible, lively, and a bit of campus folk temperament.
The MV of this song is a highlight, Zhou Zhiping's old friends, major heavyweight musicians appeared to help: Xue Zhongming, Wang Zhiping, Chen Meiwei, Hou Zhijian... In addition, there are also Taiwanese veteran artist Fang Jiwei and the new generation group Mr. Miss appearing, and the lineup can be described as unprecedentedly strong.
The album's title song "Accidentally remembering the incense on your body that day", called the well-deserved "open mouth kneeling", Zhou Zhiping's voice came out, still so clear and bright, pleasant to the ear, without too much arrangement to create a quiet world, let people feel calm and comfortable.
No matter what era you were born in, the picture sense of this song can make you fall into memories - maybe it's the youthful campus time, maybe it's the distant old lover, maybe it's the sweet moment that once hit your heart, maybe it's the rush of love that keeps you awake at night.
Even aside from the lyrics, we can build the image of that era in Zhou Zhiping's singing: there are not too many music festivals and concerts, there are no developed streaming media, communication tools, and getting together to listen to discs and play guitar is a great pleasure of that era.
As a top producer and creator, "Middle-Aged Man" naturally has no shortage of works with strong musicality such as "Streamer". "Streamers" uses a lot of strings to lay out emotions, and in Zhou Zhiping's high-pitched chanting, it perfectly fits the theme of "love and hate entanglement".
Listening to "Middle-Aged Man" in its entirety, you will find that this is not only an album full of feelings, but also carries Zhou Zhiping's life feelings for more than 20 years, and it is the kind of music that has universal emotional resonance and is worth collecting in the song list and listening to repeatedly.
Under the online music platform, there is a very real and interesting comment: "Wait for this album to become a middle-aged woman." How dramatic the world has changed in the past 25 years, the sound of 25 years of silence can still be warm.
Perhaps "Middle-Aged Man" is more like a time capsule, it belongs to the present, it belongs to the past, and it belongs to the future.
* Editor: Kikko
*Some image sources are online
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