It's about time someone made an official Jay Chou discussion thread!! I'm lazy so I will copy pasta some info about him from his last.fm page:
Last.fm wiki info
周杰倫 (Jay Chou), born January 18, 1979 in Taipei, Taiwan, and raised in Linkou, Taiwan, is a popular Taiwanese musician whose music focuses primarily on R&B, rap, and balladry. He is known for his innovative usage of combining both Western and Chinese music styles to produce a fresh sound that is quite unlike what is produced in mainstream Taiwanese pop, and also unique lyrics which touch on various issues. His unique sound has gained enormous recognition throughout Asia, most notably Taiwan, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore and Japan, as well as amongst the Chinese diaspora in the West.
Some basics
-He's been playing piano since the age of 4.
-He began his career by writing songs for popular artists like Jolin Tsai and Vivian Hsu.
-He's done collaborations with singers like Jacky Wu and Coco Lee (ex: He sang Dow Man Dan with Coco Lee; thanks CREA.tive!)
-He's more of a composer/arranger than a lyricist; he occasionally writes his own lyrics but almost all of the time he writes the musical instrumental scores to his songs. He often works with lyricist Vincent Fang.
-His style is usually R&B/hip-hop/pop.
-He released his first album, "Jay" in 2000. Since then, he has been consistent with his releases; he completes one album per year.
-He is one of the few artists whose songs go beyond the theme of love; he's sung about everything from family to pressing social issues like urbanization of the countryside, drug addictions to personal topics like coming of age, the paparazzi and school failures. He also sings about sports and martial arts and other varied subjects.
-He starred in movies such as "Initial D" and "Curse of the Golden Flower".
I personally think he's great; his compositions are always top-notch and his lyrics, heartfelt. He has a very soothing voice; some people think he mumbles too much but I find it ethereal, hehe. I think he's really similar to Ayu in that he's one of the most popular/powerful musicians in his country and goes beyond love in his music. He's definitely worth a listen!
My favorite songs are "Qing Tian", "Qi Li Xiang", "Fa Rue Xue", "Ye Qu", "An Hao", and "Yi Fu Zhi Ming".
