On August 2, 2021, Cui Jian turned 60 years old, and also in this month, he officially released his first new album in six years. He once said that "going to bed before 3 a.m. is a waste of life, and getting up before 12 noon is an overdraft of life." Now, Cui Jian admits that he sleeps later, which is to make full use of his life, "Every night late at night, I empty myself and reassemble it, it feels good." "Time is not an issue for him, he is not bothered by production, there are many things that are more important than "production". The new album "Flying Dog" is 6 years apart from the previous album "Light Frozen", and "Light Frozen" is exactly ten years after the previous album "Give You a Little Color". The truth is that for Chinese rock music, Cui Jian is like a banner, and like the red star that is always on his tennis hat, which is defaulted to as the first chapter of Chinese rock history, for everyone to look up to, and then judge. Everyone will sing "Nothing", but they don't necessarily care that Cui Jian hasn't released a new song for several years, nor do they necessarily care about how much he wants to express his feelings about the new era, and how much he struggles to pursue perfect expression. No matter where he sings, there is always a large group of middle-aged men who like to wear red scarves and throw red flags, and at least three generations of young people who have just liked rock and roll, and some of them are now the children and even grandchildren of middle-aged men. It is impossible to distinguish Cui Jian's music from the innocent yearning of generations for rock and roll and freedom, even if the wave after wave of the times blows the face of freedom sometimes vicious and sometimes fearful.
For this new album, Cui Jian has extremely metaphysical entanglements and troubles. In the preface to the album, he wrote: "Is 2021 a good time to make a record? He didn't ask for answers, and the question became "the last straw that crushed his balance." The clearest thought in his mind was that he wanted to pursue perfection, to pursue the "superego" that was as close to him as possible. Making a complete record, this seemingly obsolete medium, Cui Jian said, "it's so important, I like the thrill of grasping every detail." He said he made a record that "distorted the present", and at the end, after eight songs, he was "completely empty after the beautiful" (a sentence from "Blue Bones"). I am afraid that it also satisfies his spiritual needs to compete with himself. The album release date has been delayed again and again, because he always feels that it is not perfect. He sees each new album as a new child, refusing to replicate the successes he already has, but creating a whole new life. "With the boss, but also to give birth to the second eldest, must not be able to be a copy of the boss, he will be different." I also don't want to say that the boss's fans are old, and the people who like the boss are outdated, on the contrary, the boss and the second are life. ”
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The songs on the new album were completed two or three years ago. Unlike in the past, all the songs on this album were written in one sitting in one or two months, "kind of like a script, like a big work, not a scattered little work". That's when he came up with this album. However, once in production, Cui Jian's "craftsman-like needs" as always can easily let time flow quickly. Every time a big work is completed, there is always a long process for Cui Jian. For example, the filming of the movie "Blue Bones", from the birth of the song "Blue Bones" in 2005, the script has a prototype, to the release of the "Blue Bones" movie, it took a full 9 years, most of which he was struggling with technical problems. Whether to continue to write new songs and keep coming out, or to make the songs in an album 100% flawless, Cui Jian chose the latter.
"Keep writing songs, and I find that I can't solve the problem. It is better to make the present very good, especially classic. The so-called classics do not mean to show others the classics, but do not leave themselves a way out, do not give any opportunities for flaws, and must complete a work completely in accordance with their own ideals. ”
The problem is their own problem, and the competition is also a competition with themselves, and the original intention is to seek their own progress. "If I write a flowing water song and produce one piece a year that can complete the ideal work, I will do the same."
He wanted to hire america's best ace mixer, who didn't have time and was already in line a year later. In the end, I couldn't wait, I had to do it myself. "Do it yourself, there's not much trick you can only find out by making mistakes. When doing mixing, turn over and over, change a variety of environments to find problems. "The production team abroad is very professional, as long as it spends money, and the market allows, it can be planned, but in China, there are too few professional music craftsmen, the quotation is too high, and the more money you spend, the more wrong things you may do." Faced with the current music market, for a while he felt disappointed and a little irritable.
There is a song on the new album called "The B Side of Time", and the lyrics are written like this - "Rocking forward is A / Changing with the times / Swinging backwards is B / We both fall together." ”
He repeatedly mentions the word "bottom line" in his lyrics. "Hanging yourself on the bottom line" in "The B-Side of Time" and "The Bottom Line of Condescending To See/Freedom" in "The Flying Dog". People who listen to Cui Jian's song, it is difficult not to think of the 1998 song "Night of the Times" - "The situation is too complicated / The reality is too cruel / Who knows what the limit of endurance will be." For Cui Jian, it is impossible to leave society with a big swing. He wants to exist in parallel with the times, so it is inevitable to fly above the bottom line.
Times are changing, but time is moving forward in a straight line, and Cui Jian understands that there is no way back.
In March 2021, Cui Jian sang the new song of the same name of the new album "Flying Dog" for the first time on a variety show. As usual, the variety show gives the audience a reaction shot that has long been accustomed to from the draft carnival, accompanied by a sentence of "so flying, stumbling", the audience sees the new generation of stars who were not yet born in 1986 shake their bodies to the rhythm, sometimes screaming, sometimes pretending to play drums in the air. The alienation in this picture is probably an inevitable collision between the A side and the B side of the era. Some old fans feel a little bit uncomfortable, as if the new era has hollowed out the last bit of idealism, really as written in the first lyrics, "sitting in front of the computer like a dog." In the barrage, some young people judge this as "earthy rock" based on their own experience, and they cannot really resonate with young people.
For this part of the criticism of young people, Cui Jian only has one sentence to say: "I can only say sorry, I can become friends with your grandchildren and granddaughters." You see, that's awesome. In fact, he likes young people, and even thinks that it is much better to communicate with young people than to communicate with his peers. During the filming, he was huddled in the elevator with a group of young people, and he felt very comfortable and grounded.
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"Flying Dog", if people can't help but think of the "Flying" song in "Eggs Under the Red Flag", which ends with "I can't fly", then Cui Jian wants to say that he also flew into the black hole of information like a young man, into the centrifugal vortex, but the real direction is always to fly back to the ground. "Flying up is always about coming back, back on the ground."
Cui Jian is not afraid of criticism from others and has become accustomed to it. He even confessed: "I haven't had a highly market-rated album since Solved (the second album released in 1991). Even "Eggs under the Red Flag" was not highly evaluated that year. ”
"In the eyes of some people, art is a money-making machine, all value is given by the market, in my eyes these people are very painful, they have money, no freedom. Money is a tool that should help people be free, not a tool to give you stress. They have no free expression, and even cooperate with their enemies, with the people they hate the most, in exchange for the so-called advantage of comparison. True criticism is good for the person being criticized, not malicious, purposeful denigration.
"Now is a node," Cui Jian said, "or the eve of a great disaster, or the eve of the arrival of the big era, everyone should stand up, the so-called stand out, which means that they should express themselves normally, and be able to express themselves freely on the ground." ”
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Free expression, in this information black hole era, is fraught with difficulties and the biggest interference, Cui Jian believes, is all forms of fraud, so that it is difficult for people to reach trust. In a conversation with Zhou Guoping in 2001, he said: "The feelings between Chinese, trust is replaced by righteousness, this person is real, honest, buddy, and righteous." This and trust are two different things. ”
Cui Jian believed in painting, film, poetry and, of course, music. He thought that he could not grasp the words too well, felt that the obstacles and strangeness, the world of words seemed to be a siege, a behemoth, and the fight with it, the odds of victory were inorganic. In the end, honesty turned into a competition. He always mentions the triad of everything that supports his life and music—that man, nature, and society are triads, and society, wisdom, and emotion are triads. Any combination of two things weakens the other. If the original self, the self and the superego are the most basic triads, then Cui Jian always regards music as a combination of physical hunger and technological perfectionism, and what is weakened must be the "self"—the self that is used to comparing itself with the outside world. This theory made Cui Jian very at ease. He found his bottom line – "Independence is a very important tool for self-balancing, and it must be considered independently and not listened to by anyone." ”
"Only when the music starts," Cui said, "time can loop." I feel that the time in the music is sincere, and I am a friend of honest people. ”
Cui Jian has never "nothing". On the contrary, he grew up in the army compound, his parents were professionals in the literary and artistic industry, and he never had dogmatism. In a sense, he had a childhood that was close to happiness, "no one ever forced me to do this or that." He naturally followed his parents' steps to learn music, and freedom was probably the bottom line given to him by childhood, and he had no doubt about it. And he is not a "false monk", he does not want to hide behind any image, not to show people this and that. Cui Jian's creative explosion in his twenties is probably because in the initial anxiety, sentimentality and uneasiness of Chinese rock music, his expression path is the most direct. Cui Jian was too honest, and in the next 35 years of his music career, he had to be hypocritical about his occasional market demand, and he would also admit it generously. From the beginning, he was not the deified rebel idol, but more like the traditionally grounded people's artist, with a great talent for establishing spiritual connections with his audience. The symbolic meaning of the word "Cui Jian" and "Cui Jian" is not the same, and the symbolic meaning of the word "Cui Jian" is confused with the tide of the times, and Cui Jian has not changed at all, so he always has to defend himself a few words, because he has not reflected on this problem less.
He questioned whether he could justify himself, "Is it the one in your heart that you are still alive?" ”
He knew his intentions wouldn't be understood quickly, "What I'm expressing is what I see and think, not necessarily what I experience." Hope is expressed in a very honest way, but there are always people who don't want to see success in an honest way anyway, people you can't convince and can't count on. ”
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Liu Yuan, who can play any instrument, is a general figure in the Chinese jazz music circle, and he and Cui Jian are colleagues and friends who have known each other since they were seventeen or eighteen years old, and they are so familiar that they really can't evaluate each other. Liu Yuan has been working as a musician in Cui Jian's band, and the two 60-year-olds are together and often quarrel. How to deal with a piece of music, or discuss any social issue, can be hard bard. "We may still have a little bit of youthful emotions," Liu Yuan said, "that is to say, like a child." Liu Yuan believes that he loves an idle life, likes to play chess and drink tea, and in his eyes, Cui Jian, who has always been very positive and uplifting, always wants to educate him in life, saying: "You can't go down like this, you can't be so relaxed, you should always insist on working, live until you learn." ”
"Cui Jian is more rational than me, and he doesn't want to be so rational, but he may be more truth-seeking." If I want to evaluate him, it is two words of truth-seeking. ”
Once enlightenment is fresh, Cui Jian said: "But after the freshness has passed, its stamina is insufficient? Is that continuity in everyone? This needs to be questioned. Because we had too many opportunities, we can change our living conditions by engaging in art, and then we can get out of control and enter the level of comparison. The original intention of innovation was completely forgotten. I think that a person with enlightenment fantasies should have an all-round awakening, and awakening consciousness should be presented in every work. My creation has always been like this, the market may not be very successful at once, but the market can be awakened repeatedly. ”
In Liu Yuan's eyes, "Old Cui's seriousness about music is not generally serious," for so many years, in Liu Yuan's eyes, everything has never changed. They are still like two children who loved music who grew up in the courtyard of the literary and artistic unit, and now their favorite is the craftsman spirit accumulated with their lives in the expression of freestyle on stage. In each improvisational performance, Cui Jian said, "You can melt yourself into it and find his originality in the process." ”
Cui Jian likes to perform, and has been performing non-stop in recent years, from music festivals to coliseums to jazz clubs, he has his own way of performing. The performance is not a consumption for him at all, but a great relaxation, and sometimes he is afraid to return to Beijing, afraid of being disturbed by trivialities, afraid of being swept up in disappointment by the dead bumps in the creation. What he enjoys most is still eating and drinking with a group of people after the show. He used to perform on an empty stomach, "the more hungry the more energetic, there is a feeling of light loading, and it is good to play on the throat." Finished, eat anything happy, you can talk about anything, up to astronomical geography, down to social culture, chatting and chatting, and you have to argue with Liu Yuan, the two people mentioned quarrels, can't help but laugh.
Cui Jian, 60, and Cui Jian, 25, who stood on the beijing workers' sports stage in 1986, are all the same person.
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