"Happy Weekend" was first tested on the whole network: Why did Li Yuchun say that this is her "saddest album"?

Li Yuchun's new album "Happy Weekend" has finally met everyone.

Before the release of the full-time track, I saw Li Yuchun's own words in the album copywriting: "I think it seems to be the saddest album I have ever created so far." ”

What, hasn't Li Yuchun always been a priceless sister who rides the wind and waves? How can it be like us, engaged in EMO? After listening to the entire album, I understood what Li Yuchun meant by "sadness". In a word: "Happy Weekend" is Li Yuchun's "saddest" album, which can also be said to be Li Yuchun's closest album to life, the most real album.

Our inherent impression of Li Yuchun is a well-deserved Queen, and her albums always have the power of thunder to split the iceberg. Whether it is the free and wanton "Savage Growth", or the "Pop" that shows the "pop-breaking" attitude, or "Wow", which seeks an artistic breakthrough in pop music, Li Yuchun's past albums always sound so radiant, like in the clouds.

But in the past few years, we have successively found that Li Yuchun has changed a little. "Read My Favorite Text to You", with a sense of intimate communication; "Stars in the Galaxy" almost sketches the warmth of Li Yuchun's heart. She suddenly walked down from that golden stage and came into the crowd, listening and responding to our stories.

By "Happy Weekend", the change was even stronger in the three most recently released singles. "Five Organs and Six Organs" is sung with his own experience and feelings, and most people choose to keep secret about Jun Youyi, but Li Yuchun chose a frank and vivid expression. This is the most "myself" song I have heard Li Yuchun so far. "Happy Weekend" tells the mood of migrant workers, and the four words "Happy Weekend" are like the Prompts (mantra) that we particularly like to mention recently, and when we type "Happy Weekend" into ChatGPT, it opens up a kind of restriction and introduces us to another world that is very different from Shangman Clockwork, and Li Yuchun's tone in it is full of black humor and comfort. Another song, "Summer Movie," is like a montage of our adolescent silhouettes, with the smell of grass on college campuses. When I first listened, I was immersed in the romantic atmosphere of Dream Pop, but after being placed under such a "spell" by Li Yuchun's "saddest album", I suddenly woke up and immediately heard Li Yuchun's loneliness hidden under the swaying light and shadow.

Yes, for many young friends, four years of college may be the most carefree and happy time, especially in the summer to fall in love and splurge. But for many young friends, the past 3/4 of their college career may have been spent in helplessness, and they have to fall in love in the future, and they have not traveled with friends, let alone the island rides that many of us had to challenge. You look back at what Li Yuchun said: "This album is more like my private diary for the past three years." There are my own stories, my life, the poems I re-read, the news I follow, the feelings I felt lonely at a certain moment, the songs I wrote because of my illness, and some expressions of the more childish comparison. It is full of fragmented complex tiny emotions, and it is intertwined by real sadness and joy. A lot of music sounds bright, very bright. ”

At this time, the listener should understand where Li Yuchun's sadness comes from. "Nothing is more valuable than the truth." Over the past three years, each of us has experienced so many authentic experiences. Many of the things we took for granted had to be obtained with great effort. In the past, we used to fall into the talk of dreams, often earning millions a year per capita, but these days, maybe the whole family can sit together and eat a normal dinner, which is precious.

This is associated with another singer-songwriter I love, Hikaru Utada, who is currently one of Asia's most important female singer-songwriters. In 2010, she announced her absence, returning to "ordinary life", and in a later comeback interview, reporters asked her how she felt when she lived in the UK for 10 years, and Hikaru Utada said that this was the first time she actually felt what it means to live well on your own. Hikaru Utada said: "From the age of 15, the life state of an artist began in London, and I started an 'ordinary life', and I did everything by myself. I think 'living' is an experience that is absolutely necessary for self-confidence. If I don't have a 'life', I don't know what other people's lives are like every day, or what form the world works in. I don't know what exactly I don't understand, and it makes me feel uneasy. I was afraid that the lyrics I created would be abstract and feel like I couldn't see the people around me. ”

Similarly, the "life" that Li Yuchun has experienced in the past three years, including what she has seen and experienced, she walked from the stage to the crowd, making the world clear in front of her, and she wrote all this down, which is this "Happy Weekend". The "sadness" mentioned by Li Yuchun is actually the background color in life. Let me recite the famous scene from "Gintama" again: "The so-called tears are a convenient product that can wash away pain and sorrow when they flow out; But one day, when you grow up, you will know that there is a great sadness in life that cannot be washed away even by tears. ”

What other lives did Li Yuchun write about in "Happy Weekend"? One of my favorites is "The Ostrich Ran Away". An ostrich escaped from the zoo and died of exhaustion after running 20 kilometers. Li Yuchun asked: What exactly is "escape"? For the ostrich, it is just "running", and "escape" is a definition imposed by humans, like a traffic light, something under the shackles of modern civilization. Well, on the other hand, how is each of us different from the "ostrich"? Are we chasing things every day that don't exist? Who defines our rules of life? Li Yuchun sang this speculative remark from the perspective of an ostrich, which is one that I admire quite a lot.

"Impermanence" is the title of "Happy Weekend". It's strange, isn't it, the album is called "Happy Weekend", but in reality maybe we had unpleasantness. But for life, it is itself a combination of joy and sorrow. So Li Yuchun entered the song with Shelley's famous "Impermanence":

A flower that still smiles today

Tomorrow it will wither;

Everything we want to keep

Tempt and fly.

What is the joy of this world?

It is the lightning that mocks the night,

Bright, but short-lived.

Under the arranger of his old partner Chen Weilun, Li Yuchun steps lightly and tells about the impermanence of the world. Lightness is another important keyword for this album. Do you think Li Yuchun shows pessimism or optimism in "Impermanence"? She may be pessimistic, after all, life is so unpredictable. But why isn't she optimistic? We should cherish the beauty and joy of the moment, just as we should seize every happy weekend. Or, the impermanent world is not worthy of our joy or sorrow, this is the nature of the world. Li Yuchun's attitude here is ambiguous, and she is light in her steps and sings these to you.

Therefore, the customization of "sadness" is never crying. Like "Apricot" in her mouth, no matter how sweet it is, you can taste the sourness, of course, this is an equally light dance song with a retro Disco style. The most emotional aspect of the album, which goes hand in hand with "Five Organs", should be "Because We Breathe the Same Air", where the long piano, wind music, and synthesizers are blended with Li Yuchun's long line singing, buttoning the theme of the song. In this lighthearted album, this is a song that explicitly lets sadness flow. Loneliness or pain is not a mountain that must be crossed in reality, but a landscape that exists in one's own heart.

Among Li Yuchun's many identity labels, "idol" is her most important one. As China's "first idol" and the most influential idol in the past ten years, Li Yuchun has witnessed the change in the definition of "idol". With the influence of overseas entertainment culture, the word idol or idols is no longer a positive word in the absolute sense of the public eye, and idols seem to have become cheap and assembly line. Idols should be "what people want to be", but with the industrialization of idols, traders can target young people to feed, since "be yourself" and "be real" are the mainstream values of young people, then let's produce "real idols"! In this way, we will find that the "idols" basically do not speak "human language", or even dare not speak, hide behind the brokerage company, and communicate with fans through pollution-free and beautiful photos, which seems to be a safer choice. This has also led to the idols becoming more and more unreal, and the audience of idols, young people, are becoming less and less confident in their true selves, willing to live in a world full of filters, so that all the actions that should be put into practice remain at the level of imagination.

Li Yuchun's preciousness, especially in this album, lies in her elevation of "truth" to a sense of mission. She shows a world that doesn't have to be beautified, and tells you through her own practice: don't be afraid, don't be afraid, life is like that. There is no need to put Li Yuchun in the dimension of "idol", in the dimension of current mainstream singers and singer-songwriters, Li Yuchun is also brave enough.

At the same time, this album is also Li Yuchun's most "rock" album in the past. At the beginning of this year, I had an interview with teacher Chen Weilun, in which we talked about "Happy Weekend", and Wei Lun said this:

"If I categorize the musical style of 'Happy Weekend', I classify it as a rock 'n' roll expression. We used a lot of the arrangement techniques and forms of the old school rock bands of the 80s and 90s, just to make "Happy Weekend" and Li Yuchun's new album more live, more human and real. Li Yuchun and I have been working together for many years and have witnessed her evolution on albums. So far, this song "Happy Weekend", including this new album that is ready to be released, I think the more convergence between me and Li Yuchun lies in the expression of attitude. In this album, whether it is the songs that have been heard now and those that are about to be released, we do not pay too much attention to singing skills, but focus on the expression of more personal attitudes. As in "Happy Weekend", the arrangement of this song is very streamlined, very straightforward, only guitar bass drums and Li Yuchun's vocal expression, we can imagine the presentation of a rock band on stage, which is also a very important logo of Li Yuchun's new album this year. Li Yuchun expressed the attitude and deeper content in a very relaxed and pleasant way, singing about his self-knowledge of the real world. ”

When we hear the word "rock", the first thing that comes to mind is guitar, bass, drums, and those bands we are familiar with may even think that this is an "outdated" thing. In Europe and the United States, there is also the so-called Dad Rock, literally translated as "daddy rock", turning the classic rock bands of the boomer generation after World War II in Europe and the United States, such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, into "dad can listen to rock music". So, when Li Yuchun says the word "rock", you may think: Eh, hasn't spring always been at the forefront of pop music exploration? In her past albums, the exploration of electronic music, dance music, and avant-garde music has always been so forward, how can she retreat in "Happy Weekend"?

Not and not either. Even if we call those classic rock music in the way of Dad Rock, its or the era seems to be far away, but the coexistence of passion and confusion represented by the baby boomer generation, those pure vocal expressions that belong to rock music, and the simple and crude instrumental expression that is different from electronic music, have been passed down from generation to generation and are constantly evolving in today's nascent bands. Contrary to what you think, Li Yuchun is doing quite trendy music in "Happy Weekend". If you listen to "The Tide is Ferocious", at first glance, it is a dance song, or even a category of iQue Dance (Trio Hop). But the musculoskeletal construction in it is not electronic, the guitars, basses, drums in it are all real playing, with a strong human will, through the musician's playing method, and by Li Yuchun through the expression of rich low chant together, and finally seasoned with electronic music matching, so that the whole song has both rock rhythm and sharpness, and has the fashion style presented by contemporary urban/dance pop. This texture of both retro and trendy music is also rarely heard in Chinese records in recent years, but it runs through the logic of Li Yuchun's entire music production, including "Happy Weekend" and "The Ostrich Ran Away", you will even doubt your ears a little, is this really the music made by the band?

In addition, the possibilities of Band Sound music are also shown in "Happy Weekend". "Rock and roll" is just a general classification, under which we can do different expressions of emotions. When Li Yuchun needed to tell a story slowly, such as "Five Organs", she chose Soft Rock to show her inner turbulence through a way that overcame rigidity with softness. As a Carpenter fan, it's great to hear a "yesterday reenacted" style like "Viscera". When Li Yuchun wants to express romantic emotions, she will choose a more urban way such as Dream Pop or City Pop, and use the guitar to play a more psychedelic tone, as is the case with "Summer Movie" and "AirDrop". In short, rock/bandization does not represent old-fashioned rigidity, it is still a musical tone full of young generational expressions.

As mentioned above, Li Yuchun's "Happy Weekend", in the name of "sadness", faces this imperfect world with realistic care. In the album, we feel that Li Yuchun is experiencing the same tempering of life as we do, and she does not hide her joys, angers and sorrows, whether doubts or expectations. This is an album that showcases huge realities and adapts to the most appropriate bandization of musical expressions. "Happy Weekend" will not have those secret concepts, and every sentence that Li Yuchun sings in it is related to her and to the life of each of us. When in 2023, when our lives seem to return to order, Li Yuchun tells us through this album that change is eternity and impermanence is what the world should be. That's why I wish you: a happy weekend.