Jay Chou, the once brightest superstar of Chinese music, has undergone some subtle word-of-mouth changes in the past two years. We don't discuss all the other rumors, just from a musical point of view, it is not difficult to get a solid conclusion from the "Greatest Works" album and the single "Christmas Star": the quality of Jay Chou's works is indeed declining compared to the early ones.
So from the perspective of music professionals, what is the underlying reason for the decline in the public's perception of the quality of Jay Chou's works?
1: Jay Chou's musical aesthetic has changed from advanced to lagging behind. Listening to Jay Chou 20 years ago, there was a sense of surprise that I was listening to the future, and every song was a work of art that had never existed before. And listening to Jay Chou's new song nowadays is just a kind of work that can be seen everywhere in the market and is very similar to others. This is due to the fact that Jay Chou's music has gradually regressed due to the development of the times in terms of popular aesthetics, from very forward-looking and advanced thinking, and has not completed some pursuit changes.
2: Jay Chou's music production has changed from a long-cycle traditional music industry that has made him a long-term music industry to a small Internet workshop of "Brother Happy Songs Anything". Taking his own personal hobby as the only standard of music, rather than the industry standard of the music industry, there is a more obvious arrogance and laziness, and he gradually becomes less focused on the quality of music, but on the business amplified by the Internet: various circles, investments, advertising, game endorsements, etc., but not music itself.
These two points are the biggest feelings of our public for Jay Chou's new works, on the one hand, the music is no longer advanced, and on the other hand, there is a sense of helplessness of "brother is happy". These two underlying reasons will lead to the following substantive problems in the specific process of music production:
1: Jay Chou's music production costs have declined seriously, and the cost of music production has dropped from millions to hundreds of thousands, while the cost of commercial gimmicks, concepts, and publicity that have nothing to do with music quality can easily reach millions. In the end, the scale of investment remains the same, but the quality of music has declined severely, and perhaps the commercial profit has not changed. But the quality of our hearing is really declining. Meaning: Jay Chou's music pays more attention to the profit of music than the quality of music.
2: Jay Chou's vocal singing skills have declined seriously, and he no longer has the competitive beauty of vocal music, and at the same time, because the vocal range of his singing skills has shrunk too much and too narrowly, the melodic space of composition has dropped from surpassing the absolute advantage of other singers to a disadvantage lower than the industry performance. Vocal singing skills are a very important composition condition, because excellent composition requires excellent singing skills to support, and Jay Chou belongs to it at the moment: a bad singing skill greatly restricts composition, resulting in a serious decline in the creativity of composition.
3: Jay Chou's composition performance presents a large number of familiar crashes and rush work circles. The quality of the composition is not the key, it is the time of release, and the cycle of release is the key to driving the provision of new compositions. The commercial environment and commercial significance of song release go beyond the music itself. For example, "Christmas Star" was released at Christmas, but musically "Christmas Star" is a very boring work.
4: The quality of Jay Chou's music arrangement is indescribable, which is the biggest and biggest failure. The same arranger for a long time will inevitably be passive and lack creativity. It is really recommended to find two competitors for Huang Yuxun, three people to bid, and choose the best of the best. The upper limit of a song must be shaped by the arranger. The biggest difference between Jay Chou's early music and current music lies in Jay Chou's misjudgment of the weight of the arrangement.
The decline in the cost of Jay Chou's music production: the prelude was used sixteen years ago, and the piano was bought for 1 million euros;
Take "The Greatest Work" as an example, the intro overture part of the highest-selling album in Chinese history, but it was Jay Chou's work "Secret" composed 16 years ago that was rearranged and played. But in Jay Chou's variety show "Travels", the piano that plays this "Secret" is an antique piano from 1872 worth 1 million euros. In the end, Jay Chou still bought it.
What's wrong with that? It's a big problem: investment thinking replaces musical art thinking. The details are as follows:
1: Jay Chou buys an antique piano for 1 million euros, and the price of this antique piano will be further improved because of Jay Chou's purchase. In essence, such a large amount of piano appearance, in the end, is because Jay Chou's act of buying the piano itself can be regarded as a steady investment.
2: Can a 150-year-old piano really help with the quality of music? Maybe, but no one really cares. Because of the gimmick、Attention is all focused on the piano itself。 Rather than the compositional quality of the overture, which many will even forget - the overture to Jay Chou's "The Greatest Work" is a work that has been released for sixteen years. It's not a new piece of work that a new album should have.
If it is the former Jay Chou, the Jay Chou who can write 9 amazing melodies with an accompaniment, and it is easy to write a piano piece for the "Greatest Work" with such an arrogant name. But in fact, Jay Chou's time and investment in MVs are much higher than those in music creation. This kind of investment in the music itself is far lower than the investment in the packaging around the music, and it actually has a taste of putting the cart before the horse.
The really expensive part of music is the arrangement. Because a good arrangement is not only a long arrangement, but also a long cycle, the time cost is the biggest cost in music production. The longer the cycle is fundamental, because the longer the cycle means more details, and the short-term income of the business profit will be less. And the long cycle is also the key to Jay Chou and Zhong Xingmin no longer working together, Huang Yuxun is an arranger with a very short cycle, and a short cycle means standardization, routines, streamlines, and automation.
Eventually, an arranger with a short composing cycle will become a kind of subservient of the composing software. What features have been updated by the host software, and what features can be used by the arranger. This use of instrumental nature can lead to the loss of maximum creative power in the arrangement.
The difference between Huang Yuxun and Zhong Xingmin is the foundation of this kind of creativity. Zhong Xingmin can go to Japan to record "The Wind" for the prelude to "Qili Xiang", and record it until he is satisfied. Huang Yuxun will choose to find an optimal solution among the only resources on the Internet, but this kind of limited optimal solution of the Internet is actually still the biggest limitation of thought.
The decline in Jay Chou's singing skills has led to the loss of beauty in the melody
Jay Chou's decline in singing skills is very serious. In the early days, all of Jay Chou's amazing works had one thing in common: the key was high, the chorus was high, and the highest note was generally between A4 and D5. Especially some songs that are recognized as the best by the whole people: such as "Secret Number", "Maple", "Quiet", "Black Humor", "Hair Like Snow" and so on. There was no singing except Jay Chou himself back then.
However, whether it is "Christmas Star" or "The Greatest Works", these works also have one thing in common: low key, high and low chorus, and the highest note is generally between E4 and G4. At the moment, except for Jay Chou, who sings badly, everyone sings well.
The biggest problem for a singer-songwriter is not that he sings badly, but because of the shrinkage of his singing range, the melodic space of the composition is narrowed. And the narrowing of the melodic space means that homogenization will intensify. Here's why:
1: The vocal range of Jay Chou's early masterpieces is generally two octaves.
2: The vocal range of Jay Chou's current works is generally in an octave + fourth and fifth;
One octave is twelve tones, and two octaves are twenty-four tones. The composer's job is to find the best and most personal melodic bridge among these 24 notes, and if there is a single passage, two or three melodies with different aesthetics need to be written. Then a basic theory is born: the wider the vocal range, the higher the space and ceiling of composition. Because the more tones, the richer the voices.
In other words, when Jay Chou's current vocal range drops from the standard line of two octaves to one octave + fourth, it will lead to very serious problems:
- Jay Chou, who has an octave + fourth degree composition space, can never walk out of the shadow of two octave composition spaces. Even the 20-year-old Jay Chou, between an octave + a fourth, can't write two octaves that surpass his own composition to amaze Chengdu.
- The inverted voice of singing skills is irreversible, so Jay Chou's vocal range will only get narrower and narrower, instead of returning to the top.
The combination of these two points means that Jay Chou's composition talent is severely limited by the decline in his singing skills. As long as Jay Chou still sings his own works, it is difficult for Jay Chou's composition to have early quality song performance. The best way to do this is: Jay Chou started composing music to sing for others.
To sum up, in terms of musical quality, we can't criticize a musician for being at the top for 20 years, after all, even Michael Jackson has not produced phenomenal works after the age of 40. But I still hope that in the future, Jay Chou can create excellent works, and his pursuit of music can return to the past.