‘OMGGGGG”¦ I LOVE JAY CHOU! HE’S SO DREAMY!! I want his babies!!!” ““ Jay Chou fangirl who doesn’t understand the concept of procreation.
‘Who the heck’s this Jay Chou?” ““ someone not “˜Asian’ enough to be in the loop
‘I don’t like Jay Chou that much, or Asian music in general, but hey at least he’s better than that Rain guy” ““ anonymous”¦ oh who am I kidding, that’s my opinion.
Wow, it took us this long”¦ but finally we arrive at something we can all agree upon ““ the fact that Asians love Jay Chou. In fact, there is a mathematical formula that dictates how Asian you are based on how much you love Jay Chou. Yours truly doesn’t rate highly on the Chou-A-Meter, but hey, that doesn’t stop me from trying to critically analyze the man in question! (Don’t worry guys, we’re all pro-Jay Chou here!)
The Brits had The Beatles, Americans had Elvis, Italians had Pavarotti, and even the Spanish had those guys who created the Macarena”¦ but what international musical talent have Asians produced? Short answer: not much. But that’s where Jay Chou comes in. Sure, musically he’s shouldn’t even be put in the same sentence as The Beatles, is barely recognizable outside Asia and just sings 90’s-styled love ballads all the time, but unknown to many, this man has produced a cult! Oh and a mop-top haircut, the likes of which we have not seen since”¦ well, yet again, The Beatles.
Jay Chou came about at that right time, and hit a chord with the Asian public ““ a sweet soothing chord that led to millions of record sales. But why? What makes him so special? It’s not because of his (supposed) great voice, his appearance, his songs or his all-round talent ““ every second Asian entertainer out there has that package. It’s what he stands for. He stands for everything that Asians hold in high regard. The man’s public image is pristine; he doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink and doesn’t frequent nightclubs. He devotes himself to noble causes, is typically modest, respects his elders, and does pretty much everything that would make a girl want to take him home to meet her parents.
One other good thing about Mr. Chou is that his presence helps banish that awful stereotype that Asians cannot sing. We touched upon this stereotype in kvietgrl’s excellent ‘Busting the Stereotype” piece recently. Sadly in Western countries, the name ‘William Hung” elicits more of a response than ‘Jay Chou” every day of the week. Of course Asians can sing, Jay Chou is only but one example, and obviously William Hung is not representative of us as a whole, but to many Westerners he may as well be. Along with Jay Chou, there’s a whole group of Asian vocal talent such as Edison Chen, Se7en, Elva Hsiao and Jackie Chan that are unknown to Western audiences. After all, how many of you knew Jackie Chan had such a nice set of pipes? Even closer to ‘home”, talent like Michelle Branch, Enrique Iglesias, Norah Jones and that chick from The Pussycat Dolls have Asian blood in them. Yes, Enrique Iglesias is apparently part Asian”¦ who would’ve thought?
Modern Asian pop, which encompasses Jay Chou’s work by default, isn’t exactly what you’d label revolutionary music. Apart from being rooted in different languages; C-Pop, J-Pop, K-Pop & Y-Pop (okay, I made that last one up) have very few differences stylistically. Furthermore, they seem to be heavily influenced by Western musical genres, so much so that Asian music is now a bastion for 90’s R”˜n’B, dance and rap, long deemed out of style in the West. Jay Chou’s light, inoffensive brand of Mandopop (a subgenre of C-pop) is not life-altering music in any sense either. Let’s face it though, the man is best known for singing ballads that sound as if they were stolen from The Backstreet Boys’ back catalog and directly translated into Chinese. But still, Asians can’t get enough of his music ““ they just love songs about”¦ well, love! Jay Chou provides an outlet in that regard. For instance, guess what some of his songs like An Jing/ Silence (安éœ), Wo Bu Pei/I’m Not Worthy (我ä¸é… ) Jian Dan Ai/Simple Love (簡單愛) are about”¦ yup, you guessed it”¦
Asian discourse in relation to ‘love” and ‘relationships” has always been muted compared to Western discourse. Look at the vast number of dating programs on Asian television for evidence! People in Asia often tend to struggle with the process of going out and finding a true soulmate. Jay Chou’s ballad-centric music targets this gap in the hearts, minds and wallets of these people. Because ‘love” isn’t exactly the most accepted open topic in Asia, listening to Jay Chou ballads is an accepted substitute for vicariously participating in the act of love. (That’s not a euphemism, I promise!)
P.S. It has come to my attention that women do not find Jay Chou at all attractive… wow, there isn’t much hope for Asian men now, is there? Yes, this may be a controversial topic, and people may thoroughly disagree with it, but please try to look at it as an opinion piece, just like the majority of the other pieces here on SAPL, nothing more.
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Last 5 posts by Shaun
- #99 MSG - November 12th, 2008
- #98 Studying Overseas - October 29th, 2008
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- #87 "Lah" - August 6th, 2008
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21 responses so far ↓
1 Ridona // Oct 6, 2008 at 10:13 pm
OMG, I can’t believe you lumped Jay Chou with Edison and Jackie. Those two should stick to acting. And Jay should stick to singing (Did you see Curse of the Golden Flower??). Yeah his songs aren’t too deep. His music is pretty boy-bandish, lots of songs about heartache (reference to Backstreet Boys was spot on!), but he does play piano and cello and composes his own music. Should’ve put that on your list of admirable Asian qualities too, playing instruments!
2 HGB // Oct 7, 2008 at 7:47 am
Sorry, I have to respectfully disagree - I think your assessment of Jay is way off the mark.
First of all, you didn’t mention the most important thing that sets apart Jay from the likes of Edison and Elva - he writes all his own music. To understand this more, you should consider his history -
Jay got his start writing music for other artists. For a time though, he never had a chance to release his own album. Why? At the time, it was widely assumed that people just wanted more of the same bland music sung by good looking pop stars, and conventional wisdom was that Jay just wasn’t good looking enough to be releasing his own music.
Fortunately though, he got his break, and his success proves that people do want good music, something different produced by a real talent. To say that his songs are just the same old love ballads is completely off - his compositions are much more complex than the average Asian pop song, he created the whole concept of ZhongGuo Feng, mixing in traditional Chinese instruments and styles that other artists are now copying, and he writes songs about a whole range of different topics that other people just don’t think of, from domestic violence (ba, wo hui lai le) to martial arts (shuang jie gun) to family and tea (ye ye pao de cha) to paparazzi (si mian chu ge) to environmentalism (ti tian).
Another thing you failed to mention is the depth of the lyrics in Jay’s songs, most of which have been written by Vincent Fang Wen Shan, who is famous in his own right. Check out the lyrics to songs like si mian chu ge or qing hua chi or dong feng po, and tell me that it’s just the same as every other song out there.
Jay’s popularity can certainly be attributed to a number of different factors, including his clean image, but to dismiss his actual music, which I think is the core reason of his success, as just being Backstreet Boys songs translated into Chinese, is really off, and misses both the rich texture with classical influence in his songs and the deepness of the lyrics.
3 All_Class_Zero // Oct 8, 2008 at 12:50 pm
that dudes a douche
4 deanne // Oct 9, 2008 at 3:00 am
I think jay chou’s music is definitely far from the backstreet boys genre. His musicality ranges from classical to hip hop to rock to… everything else.
Quite shallow review if i may say.
5 Auyreon // Oct 9, 2008 at 4:25 pm
This article does not seem to be particularly well-researched nor accurate. Although labelled as an “opinion”, this evaluation of the singer is biased and misleading as it is not even supported by the correct facts.
For instance, to label the content of Jay Chou’s music to only be about love and the typical boy-girl relationship is completely ridiculous, as he is/ was defintely more well-known for tackling more controversial themes in his music such as domestic abuse, drug addiction and urbanisation to name a few.
I wouldn’t have cared if you had presented the complete facts and began your critique from there, but it’s unacceptable that you are just picking and choosing random facts to obfuscate the uninformed reader.
6 Shaun // Oct 10, 2008 at 4:52 am
Auyreon - I think it’s ironic that you have to use the word “obfuscate” to well… obfuscate your true intention. A bit pretentious when you could’ve just used the word “conceal” or something…
As for the deal with Jay Chou’s music, you gotta realise 2 things: 1) I actually quite like it & 2) it’s supposed to be a narrow-minded view on the matter, as that creates for better satire (look at your Satire 101 guides, people)
Look at it this way: My comprehension of Mandarin isn’t perfect and often I don’t fully understand what his songs are about. Jay Chou’s music transcends often China and Chinese-speaking countries into non-Chinese speaking countries like Korea, Japan, Vietnam etc. The same deal often occurs here. Koreans may not understand his music, but they like it all the same… and my POINT is that stylistically his music sounds like what I have previously described. Yes, I know his songs do tackle serious issues sometimes, but to non-Chinese speakers, it may sound just like another love ballad. Perhaps some you fervent critics have to realise this… oh and the fact that it’s SATIRE people!!!
Or how about another example with a modern Western band… U2 is a good example. There’s layers upon layers of social commentary in their songs - and people recognise this. However, many people listen to U2 simply because they like the sound of their music, rather than the fact that Bono may be referring to a war in Bosnia or something. With Jay Chou I’m just picking on the fact that people love the slow sensual sound of his music - which tends to resemble love ballads.
But hey, that’s only responding to one criticism… as I’m loathed to say it… keep ‘em coming!
7 Auyreon // Oct 11, 2008 at 9:30 am
My true intention?
And what would that be?
I appreciate that you are writing a satrical piece and I have enjoyed many of your articles, however, the issue I had with this one was the fact that the information you had given was just completely inaccurate.
If you want to trivialise my opinion and criticise my word choice as just more rumblings from another rabid fan, that fine, but I do wish that there will be more integrity in your next work.
8 Ngan // Oct 12, 2008 at 3:17 am
You know how I feel about Jay Chou, Shaun
9 Shaun // Oct 12, 2008 at 11:16 pm
Auyreon - it’s just interesting… because in most of our pieces we often misdirect readers by giving inaccurate information, and there doesn’t seem to be much problem there. But when in relation to a sensitive topic like Jay Chou, it’s suddenly an issue. Double standard much?
Ngan - Yeah I know… and I’m sorry
10 Erick // Oct 13, 2008 at 6:59 pm
ok this is definitely not true. I’m asian and i don’t who the hell this guy is and all my asian friends never even heard of this guy before. And also i’m pretty sure Rain is a lot more well known then this Jay guy. Rain actually featured in a few American films.
11 HGB // Oct 14, 2008 at 1:19 pm
Shaun -
The problem isn’t the satire or exaggeration, it’s the fact that the central theme of your satire - that people enjoy Jay’s music because it is primarily light, inoffensive love ballads - rings false, so it’s just not that funny.
Poking fun at Jay Chou is nothing new, but it’s funny when it’s actually grounded in something that has some truth - for instance, Jay’s habit of mumbling through his lyrics, or for having lyrics so complicated that he often forgets them in concerts.
In that respect, I think you had something with Jay’s super-clean image, and it would have been more humorous if you had followed up that line of thought more. For example, you can’t beat Jay when it comes to filial piety - he’s got a song about his grandma, a song about grandpa’s tea, and a song literally titled Listen To Your Mom.
12 buttercup // Oct 20, 2008 at 3:09 am
hey there Erick! Some asians who might NOT have heard of jay chou may either be, a)not residing in asia, or b)residing in asia but in a country with a not-so-big chinese community.
I, myself, discovered jay chou only a couple of years ago (and i am very asian, in blood and geography), but since then have discovered how BIG he actually is in asia!
That Rain guy is actually ok, he may have had some hollywood exposure, but search the net for jay chou. This guy has got talent.
13 tracy // Oct 21, 2008 at 9:14 pm
You should add
“Faithfully depending your idol against all evil” as #97.
Sheesh! People!
14 Laur // Oct 27, 2008 at 1:45 pm
meh, from a white girl perspective, rain’s better looking.
15 Shaun // Oct 27, 2008 at 10:06 pm
““Faithfully depending your idol against all evil” as #97.”
Thank you Tracy… I was waiting for someone like you to show up! The Jay Chou fans can be quite rabid sometimes…
Laur - umm ok, from an Asian male’s perspective I don’t really care, but it’s been duly noted…
16 HGB // Oct 29, 2008 at 1:12 pm
Let’s see, 3 people gave you valid criticism about what you wrote, all in fairly polite terms.
In return, we get snarky sarcasm and ad hominem attacks accusing us of being overly sensitive, having double standards, and being rabid.
Nice.
17 Sarah // Oct 29, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Who thinks Asians can’t sing? Since when is that a stereotype? Chinese people are on the whole way better singers than Westerners. Tonal language and all. Doesn’t anyone here listen to Radiolab? At least I think I heard about the study there…
18 kc // Nov 1, 2008 at 3:51 pm
I love the music he writes and stuff, but I have to say his singing is kinda hard to understand and not as great as his music. To tell the truth, I’m not really that into Jay Chou, but still tho.. gotta respect him
19 kc // Nov 1, 2008 at 3:53 pm
rain’s definitely better looking but hey.. it’s true Jay Chou’s got talent
20 LT // Nov 4, 2008 at 7:17 pm
I freaking hate Jay Chou, though everyone I grew up with is in love with him.
But everyone’s entitled to their own opinion
I, on the other hand, am more partial to J-rock.
21 kris // Nov 23, 2008 at 2:46 am
Though genetically i am asian, i think i really am not asian… I don’t know who the heck Jay Chou is! Shame on me for not being aware of my culture
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