After two years, Chen Shanni released her 13th album "Juvenile A". This year, she was nominated for the Best Single Producer Award at the 30th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards for "Her Own Room", which she produced for Tian Fuzhen, and the chairman of the jury of the Golden Melody Awards was herself.
The busy work did not make Chen Shanni slack off on her work. According to it, it is a "musical work destined to be completed in 2019". In the classic movie Blade Runner of the last century, the animated "Akira" and The Prophecy of Asimov, 2019 has all been given profound meaning. Sunny Chen sees her "Juvenile A" as a reflection on these pasts, and uses songs to realistically record fragments of contemporary pop culture.
Technology, news, media, online violence... Even Internet celebrities and giant babies are the topics that Chen Shanni pays attention to. When thinking about whether the new album carries too deep a topic for listeners to understand, Chen Shanni said bluntly: "Only doing content that is easy to understand and quickly remembered, I think this is too underestimating human imagination and intelligence, nor is it something that I and my fans are interested in." "Sure enough, it's still the princess."
On November 2, Chen Shanni's four-city tour of the mainland will first kick off at Guangzhou Central Station, and before the arrival of "Junior A", Chen Shanni was interviewed by Nandu reporter by email, and her transparent spiritual world was launched on the album.
Written by: Nandu reporter Ma Le
Intern Song Jintong
Make the performance more like a work "I haven't seen such a brain-conscious concert in a long time."
On October 12, Shanni Chen kicked off the 2019 tour in Legacy, Taipei. During the performance, a monologue by Chen Shanni carried countless myths, as if it were pouring out, and it seemed to be a warning, which aroused strong resonance. Throughout the concert, Chen Shanni continued to output, songs or thinking, a series of heavy hammers let the audience enjoy the stage at the same time, reflect on themselves, fans feedback "for a long time have not seen such a brain-intensive concert", "vision, serial film, every slogan, always let me fall into thinking, but the next second is then pulled back to reality by the music, followed by the swing ..."
Chen Shanni called this concert a work, the visual, reading, lighting, atmosphere are all natural, showing her consistent high quality.
After the first show in Taipei, Chen Shanni has long been ready for "landing", which lasted for a year of planning and supervising production, and she will tour the top livehouses in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen. The concert was directed by Tan Zongfan, the director of the best music video, and old friends Xu Qianxiu and Xu Yanpei served as guitarists. The visual arts are created by the Dome Visual Scene Level PYD Visual Team and the Taiwan Original Class Lighting Team.
Chen Shanni's first concert in the mainland was ten years ago, in 2009. At that time, she was not afraid of the H1N1 flu and interacted with fans eagerly. When singing "Distance", Chen Shanni invited a male fan to the stage, perhaps because she was too excited, this fan actually fell on her knees on the stage to propose to Chen Shanni. In order to let him feel the "distance", Chen Shanni gave away the fan benefits of holding hands and hugging. The memory reshaped the clip in her mind, and Chen Shanni was also amazed, it had been 10 years.
Southern Metropolis Daily: What can we expect from this show?
Chen Shanni: The new album has a lot of information, so when designing the special performance, I also hope to let the audience get more visual information expansion, and I hope that many links are involved. I was very touched to see many people bring back the information they could always cherish in their lives at the first performance in Taipei. I hope to bring another possibility of live performance, so that the special performance is more like another brand new work.
Nandu: Remember the first continental concert ten years ago?
Shanni Chen: Actually, I didn't find out, it turned out to be 10 years. I'm not the one who spends time looking back on my work and performances, so a lot of even good memories, I edit them in my own memory way, and they're all mixed together.
Redefine pop
Just do what's easy to understand,
Not something that interests me and my fans
The physical album cover of Juvenile A is a city depicted in the audio waveform outline of the title song "Where Are You Going", which Chen Shanni said is a city built from music. In the era of digital music, the meaning of physical albums has been weakened, but sophisticated entities are still indispensable in Chen Shanni's heart, she believes that entities are the aesthetic expansion of the work, and music still needs visual presentation as a supplement.
The new album is as full of esoteric social symbols as ever, and the entire song "Evil Spirit Samurai" has only a child's voice recitation - Forget today will be forgotten tomorrow. This is Goethe, and perhaps Chen Shanni's advice to contemporaries.
Nandu: Physical albums are very thoughtful, why are there any obsessions with entities?
Shanni Chen: If the industrial physical record specifications are still there, it still has a certain ritual about collecting works, and I think this thing is still quite fascinating, since it is something that can be held in my hand and feel, I hope to expand the visual imagination of the work aesthetically.
Nandu: Can you interpret the phrase "Forget today will be forgotten tomorrow"?
Sunny Chen: That's a sentence from Goethe, who forgets today will be forgotten tomorrow. In 2019, which is predicted by classic works such as "Akira" and "Blade Runner", we are in 2019, what can we leave for our lives and even the world, I think this sentence is a good introduction.
Nandu: There is a song on the album called "Become a powerful ordinary person", is this your position on yourself?
Sunny Chen: That was a gift I exchanged with you in the community on New Year's Eve 2019. I don't like that people always like to make some very positive and grand wishes on New Year's Eve, and after a year, they find that they have not achieved anything at all. Because I rarely even make any plans, just to finish tonight or this week, it is very difficult. I asked everyone to give me the most melancholy and depressed memories of a whole year, and I wanted to turn them into a song, so this song is full of all kinds of traces of life, some are sympathetic, some are personal, I hope that the minority will not be knocked down by the majority, and all that are not understood can accumulate their own life value.
Nandu: The song "Jade Girl Shuttle" satirizes the current Internet celebrity boom and consumerism, how did you think of using Peking Opera singing to present it?
Chen Shanni: This song has really been very interesting in the development, the theme is originally determined, written a song has not been set the name of the song, accidentally watched an exhibition of image works, the name of the work is called "Jade Girl Shuttle", the image is an old man boxing, think it is interesting, checked on the Internet and found that there is a Tai Chi move called Jade Girl Shuttle, it is too suitable for this song, it is used as the song title. In addition, Zhong Yufeng, who has always wanted to find a pipa musician she likes very much, has talked with her about this theme, and she is also very sensitive to this subject. I always feel that Zhong Yufeng's style of playing the piano, even the name is very classical and very righteous, I think it can be applied to music, in a more serious way, the theme will be a kind of irony that violates the sense of harmony, so I thought of interpreting the passages that are more classical in the original style in the way of Peking Opera. I also specially found a Peking Opera Danjiao teacher to learn the singing voice, really seriously practiced singing, which became the absurdity of EDM fusion with classical.
Nandu: There are too many concepts, too many ideas, do you worry that the album is difficult to understand?
Sunny Chen: I think pop music has been redefined all the time, and I have always tried to use different forms, sounds and vocabulary to make pop music produce new styles and dialogues. If music is considered to be just entertainment, then the content it can carry is bound to be limited, and if we do not face the reality of the digital music era and only do content that is easy to understand and quickly remembered, I think this is too underestimating the human imagination and intelligence, nor is it something that interests me and my fans.
No fear of online violence As long as you accumulate it, you will not be knocked down so easily
Online violence has long been a common phenomenon, and Chen Shanni's new work has also touched on it. In the song "35", she chose a special partner - Ke Zhendong. To this day, Ke Zhendong still bears the cold eyes of the Internet. For such a special person, Chen Shanni released her interest and gave him a deeper meaning.
Nandu: Why did you choose to cooperate with Ke Zhendong?
Chen Shanni: When I listened to Ke Zhendong's albums, watched his films, and asked him to work with him, he said that his specialty was drama, and he did not shy away from his lack of musical shortcomings, and he did not hide anything about things that he felt that he did not have confidence or understanding. His confession of character may be consistent with his exposure to the community, which makes me interested in asking him to collaborate on the song. While thinking about the way he was watched in the online community, I gave him a good evaluation in my heart, and in what way did all this seemingly realistic life establish a relationship with them on the Internet? In the future, I also hope to cooperate with him further on this work.
Nandu: "What Hanna Says" mentions cyberbullying, have you ever had a similar experience in your life? How to face it?
Shanni Chen: There are very few artists or public figures who have not been influenced. But I am not a person who often needs to stay in the community, I don't care much about the lives of other people, even the community of relatives and friends I don't care much, some messages I read and don't necessarily reply, in short, I am not used to socializing in the online community. So most of the time I just do what I want to do, what I should do. I think the core of a person is not based on social, but what you accumulate for yourself, whether it is to build professional ability, or complete a work, or practice a way of life, as long as you have accumulated, you will not be knocked down so easily.
Calm self-knowledge I don't do anything in particular, I just build my preferences
In the stereotype, "idol music" may be discriminated against by musicians who advertise itself as pure, but for Chen Shanni, who has never hated labels, our question is obviously asked the wrong person.
Not long ago, "Children of Tomorrow" runner Tian Yi's single "Cold" was launched, and Chen Shanni was the producer of the song. 18 years ago, Nicholas Tse, who had just debuted, sang "Perfume" produced by Chen Shanni and won the Chinese Song Award in The New Town that year. Unabashedly her preference for idol artists, Chen Shanni described Nicholas Tse as a person who came out of the comics, and even wrote a song "Nicholas" based on him, and liked beautiful men like Wang Dongcheng... The princess's girlish heart was always pounding.
In the new album, Chen Shanni recorded and criticized many of the grotesques of this society. Chen Shanni's calm and self-sustaining music is like a mirror for the world.
Nandu: As a producer, do you reject idol artists when choosing collaborators?
Shanni Chen: How could I reject idol artists? I like idol artists, I like breakthrough genre music, and I also like to challenge the character of idol artists.
Nandu: Singer, producer, photographer, host, which is your favorite character?
Shanni Chen: Producer, I like to deal with complicated things, while taking into account the execution and emotion, technology and aesthetics, left brain and right brain, I think each production work is unique, interesting work related to people.
Nandu: Quoting your lyrics from "Becoming a Powerful Ordinary Person", can you describe your life now in three words?
Sunny Chen: Now all the interviews begin with three words to describe my life now, but I always feel very bored, using three hashtags to summarize and define life, a lot less chewing and listening.
Nandu: In an age of information, how do you maintain self-knowledge without getting lost and becoming a drifter?
Shanni Chen: In the era without the Internet, we have time to accumulate our own preferences and take the time to cultivate our own judgment. But in the age of the Internet, our time has not shrunk, it's just that no one wants to spend time building these solid things for themselves. So we listen to music recommended by others, watch movies that others like, and watch all kinds of lazy bags that you understand in seconds, which are very dangerous, and you are not sure which information is correct, and you don't know if it is suitable for you.
In fact, I didn't do anything in particular, I just built up my preferences, and the way I collected information, I didn't believe in other people's comments, my recommended music, movies or books, I read, liked, shared out. I don't write about things I don't understand, but I can happily and slowly build up my own things, and I suggest that everyone should do the same.
Nandu: Any advice for young music fans?
Sunny Chen: I rarely really give advice to young people, I am too self-righteous, I will share some of my own ways of learning and working, so that they can find what they need. The cultivation of various abilities depends on practice, and there is no shortcut.
Rejecting variety shows is just something that everyone does what they're good at and like
Musically accomplished, not commensurate with Chen Shanni's low exposure on the screen. In recent years, variety shows have become a big way for many singers to maintain their popularity, when it comes to the variety show boom, Chen Shanni bluntly said that she is not interested, but she will not arbitrarily evaluate other singers, but the strengths of each specialty.
Nandu: Are you considering participating in a music variety show or even becoming a contestant?
Sunny Chen: No. I'm really not interested in variety shows, and doing what I'm good at and being able to play my own value is a good thing for a musician or the rights and interests of the audience.
Nandu: Music variety shows are flooded, have you ever known about some of them? Any insights?
Shanni Chen: I almost don't watch the show, unless someone passes on clips of artist friends. I almost never look at it, and I'm really not interested, so it's not good to make any comments. I am not a musician who can balance musicality and entertainment, how to judge others.
I think every artist thinks differently about the community, and I don't like to share my own life trivia in the online community, because I don't think there is anything worth sharing about those things, but it doesn't mean that I don't think other artists can have their own ideas about the community. Singers on the show promotion is not something that only exists now, in the past, the more exposure can get more recognition and attention, so I don't think there is anything to criticize. But everyone does what they are good at and like, and if someone is good at causing a topic and likes to be noticed, I don't think there's anything wrong with it. It's just that those are not my personal styles.