Tuesday July 29, 2006 Taiwan Jay Chou’s new album to be released in September – sending other artists into a scramble (over their various release dates) The summer period is coming to an end soon, which means that it’ll soon be time for Jay Chou to release yet another album. Every fall, the media and the fans are heavily waiting in anticipation to see what kind of work Jay will present. Jay Chou’s new album will be released on the 1st of September across Asia. Other artists such as S.H.E and Fish Leong (Liang Jing Ru) will also be releasing their various albums around that period, adding to the heat of anticipation. Speculation: Style of music – American Street style or Oriental Chinese Style? His previous album “November’s Chopin” was heavily criticized as a lack of creativity and a repetitive of his previous works. But it can’t be denied that, ever since Jay hit into the music industry, he has already created certain genre of music, and each style of music has its own distinctive style. The success of his earlier songs such as “Nunchucks” (Shuang Jie Gun) and “Dragon Fist” (Long Quan) has seen him retaining that style in all of his subsequent albums. Jay Chou has been ever frustrated with the Dog teams (Paparazzi) through out the course of production of his new album, and at one point even thought of writing yet another song (similar to “Besieged from all sides” Si Mian Chu Ge) to criticize them. However, he has since revealed that there will be no songs of such a nature in his new album. Instead, he has incorporated the American Street style into the new album as his main theme. Jay was at Lin Kou Ah Rong’s filming studio filming for his new Music Video yesterday, in order to create the authenticable feel of the American streets, he spent a huge NT$1.5 million in decorations and creating a giant stage and hired graffiti artists to spray onto the walls the paintings often seen on the American streets, hoping that the fans will be able to get a feel of the new style. With his incorporation of the American street style into his music, it cannot be helped that comparisons are being made with Wang Leehom’s “Chink out” themes, combining the Chinese elements with the American counterparts. Wang Leehom aside, David Tao (Tao Zhe) will also be releasing his new album shortly before Jay’s. The closeness of both albums will no doubt cause comparisons to arise. As compared to his last album release, with no major artistes releasing their albums, the pressure on Jay this time around is definitely on. Even though his new album will have the new American street style, he has said in a recent interview, “Every time I release a new album, I will worry about what many people (would think); I’ll worry about whether an album of such a nature will be well received. Will there be a market for it? Will it be badly criticized?” His latest album is no different. Other than songs with his signature “Jay style”, his loves to write the popular ballads and songs with the Oriental Chinese Style. Songs like “Cloudless Day” (Qing Tian) and “Starry Mood” (Xing Qing) are popular amongst the fans, while Oriental songs such as “East Wind Breaks” (Dong Fong Po) and “Hair Like Snow” (Fa Ru Xue) proved to be an instant hit. His new album will see a continuation of the styles he used in his previous albums, and in recent years, Jay has even started composing movie theme songs such as “Fearless” (Huo Yuan Jia). He even starred in the movie “Initial D”, to which he also composed the movie theme songs. His latest movie role in Zhang Yimou’s “The City of Golden Armour” is no different as he’ll be composing the movie theme song as well. It’ll be no surprise that Jay will also include his signature oriental Chinese style music to coincide with the huge movie release (tentatively Christmas 2006). (Note: The rest on the article does not focus on Jay, but explains how Jay's 1st September release affects many other music artists with their album release dates) Mad scramble: The pressure is on other artists in the music industry With Jay’s new album set of a September 1st release, many other singer has no where to hide from the pressure. Penny Tai (Dai Pei Ni) who previously announced that she’ll be releasing her new album on 1st September has now postponed her album release to 20th September or later (to prevent a same day release), her manager Zheng Xue Fen explained, “This is to stay away from Jay Chou!” And Penny Tai’s good friend Jiang Mei Qi will still go ahead with her album release on August 18th, but due to insufficient sales in China, she could not release her album on a Asia wide basis. If there happen to be any delays, she might just bump into the September 1st release elsewhere in Asia. When she was told about Pres Chou’s September 1st release, she was shocked, but told her staff after collective her thoughts, “Its okay, our songs are nice, the production team is strong, there’s nothing to be afraid of.” And Jay’s onced rumoured girlfriend Xu Ruo Xuan has also changed her album release date from 1st September till two weeks later. Penny Tai’s new album’s release date was changed to avoid a clash with Pres Chou’s was explained further by her manager Zheng Xue Fen, “Even though there is a very contrasting style between Penny and Jay Chou, the moment Jay releases his album, all the talk and focus will be fixed on him, this will not be very good on all the hard work the entire team has put in.” Penny Tai’s new album release has been delayed since December last year, and has been decided to finally make its release on 1st September, will now have to settle for 20th September, “Its been delayed for so long, it doesn’t make much of a difference in that few days.” Even though Jiang Mei Qi’s new album release has met up with a super rival Jay Chou, she remains confident. She even engaged in her senior Wu Ke Qun for help in producing the album’s first single “The crying baby”. Her album also has the help of another senior, Guang Liang. Once rumoured girlfriend of Pres Chou, Xu Ruo Xuan was supposed to release her new album on the same day as Jay, but circumstances has forced back her release date by two more weeks. Xu Ruo Xuan recently recovered from a minor surgery on her thumb, and as a result had stray away from her work while recovering. She has since devoted all her time in writing new material for her new album and will now make her album release a special edition release. credits: jaycn, jay-chou.net, asianfanatics.
