You don’t need me to tell you what’s happening in your circle these two days, because there is only one keyword.
Jay Chou
More than a dozen hot searches dominate the screen, and the circle of friends is engulfed by shared links to new songs. From online to offline, you know exactly what song is playing in everyone’s headphones.
Everyone’s reaction to this song is exclamation point .
All signs clearly point to one thing:
The top player in the music industry is back.
This is the cold palace-like Chinese music scene , a carnival after a long absence?
But when the new song cycled to the 10th time, my head seemed to gradually cool down. Occupational diseases were causing trouble, and a question stood out from the notes swirling in my head and jumped to my eyes.
What on earth are we partying about?
Yes.
Is this party for the gorgeous return of childhood idols, for the resurgence of the Chinese music scene, for the reawakening of auditory memory, or is it just to enjoy the collective emotions?
More specifically, I'm curious.
Is our carnival really for Jay Chou?
Before this wave of climax arrived, this cyber party had actually been secretly building momentum for several days.
On July 1, Jay Chou social media, which had been silent for some days, suddenly updated collectively, announcing that the new work was ready.
Although the word "Brother" in the copywriting gives people a bad memory... it does not prevent him from receiving nearly 200,000 likes, which was a shock.
Who made this album so loud that it was called "The Greatest Work"?
Next, every number related to this album showed a geometric surge.
Yesterday at nine o'clock in the morning, a music APP posted a blog to celebrate that the pre-sales of Jay Chou's new album on the platform reached 1.6 million.
Then, it only attracted ruthless ridicule.
How come you only have 1.6 million
Yes...
On other software, the pre-sales of the electronic version of this album are already of this magnitude.
The millions of people who are determined to place orders have not even heard a single note of this album.
can be called a new peak in the blind box economy.
Finally, at 12 noon yesterday, the release of the album's prelude song "The Greatest Work" completely ignited public enthusiasm.
’s first MV is a small website that always has more than 100,000 online viewers throughout the day and at all times.
As of the completion of this article, the number of views on various platforms has exceeded 10 million.
Of course, no matter how many digits there are, it is not as intuitive as watching the barrage.
The scalp of a cryptophobe is numb.
However, the confidence of Jay Chou’s old fans who are used to seeing big events does not come from these empty numbers.
At this moment, when a new song is released on any top stream, it will be buried with the #bad-listening entry at every turn:
Zhou Jiajun’s trending #yyds# is already in the category of a spectacle in the music world, and can be called a dimensionality-reducing blow.
Their confidence lies in the fact that the person singing this song is Jay Chou.
The way to participate in this cyber party is simple: post something.
First of all, most of the stupid people who can't praise anything except "good" after listening to the song can only dismantle each part of the song, from the lyrics, piano, rap to the magic in the mv, and praise them one by one.
Then there are various extreme words stacked up, which are even crazier than steaming:
In the summer of 17 years old, who else deserves to be represented besides Jay Chou?
At the top of the Chinese music scene, who else deserves to stand besides him?
"The madman of the generation, the king of music", who else can sing such lyrics besides him?
pursues the value of "being awesome is enough", which is also the main force in the circle of friends.
Fans who are more advanced will have to give cultural lessons to netizens.
Which artist is that with the mustache? Who is Sanyu? What kind of flowers do you want?
I will break down the details of the lyrics and MV for you, and praise them word by word.
is as grand as the entire Internet in interpreting college entrance examination essay questions.
I feel like I learned more from hot searches in one day than I did from taking literature and art classes for so many years.
Lang Lang , who participated in the MV, was also made into a wicked joke by netizens and became a big meme today.
He himself came out and explained, "It's not fat, it's baby fat." Netizens laughed even louder and directly sent him to the top of the trending search.
Yes, I can’t get over the body shape issue.
Do dozens of popular entries really prove that this song is the "greatest work"? Not necessarily
.
lyrics quote art, exotic genres, hasn’t he played before?
Talent show style MV, haven’t we seen it?
What most people praise is not how "outstanding" Jay Chou has done, but his "never miss a beat" for twenty years.
Jay Chou seems to have become a rare and stable happiness in this era.
In the public discussion of the prelude, these two words are the keywords that appear most frequently.
"internal taste".
It sounds like Jay Chou has a mysterious and exclusive formula.
As long as he concocts it, he can accurately transport us to the summer when "sparrows shake their legs" and the childhood when "cucumbers fall".
This is also the fundamental reason why I started looping this song.
What made me temporarily press the pause button was another problem. What is the "internal smell" of
?
Jay Chou's new song "The Greatest Work" is not the only hotly searched song today.
html's classic works " Night Chapter 7 ", " In the Name of the Father " and " Nocturne " more than 0 years ago have been collectively resurrected today.
As long as you recall these songs for a moment, you will get the reason.
’s new songs have a strong flavor of old songs.
revisits the old tune, which is the first taste of the "inner flavor".
Personally, I saw a callback to the 2009 album " Capricorn ".
Do you still remember that in that album, there was a song " Mr. Magic " that was also performed as a magician?
At the beginning of this old song, there is a dialogue between Jay Chou and his apprentice Ju Pao:
"Hey Jay Chou
Your music makes me want to do magic."
This sentence is an abstract description of the taste of his music. The new song "The Greatest Work" is embodied and visualized, and various magic performances that break through time and space run through the entire MV.
opens with Jay Chou sneaking into the famous Samaritan department store in Paris and secretly playing an antique piano.
Well, Europe, ancient architecture, classical music , magic...
A series of classic Zhou-style elements that have already existed in large numbers in early works such as "William's Castle" and "Night Chapter 7", within 10 seconds Everyone has arrived.
"William's Castle"
And what was he talking about on the piano?
《Secret》.
In his movie "The Untold Secret of ", this is a mysterious piece of music that can return to the past as long as it is played on an old piano.
The time-travel theme of this 15-year-old work, back to 2022, has become the inspiration for the new song story.
Jay Chou traveled back to 1920 and began a "Midnight in Paris"-style meeting with art masters.
Right. The piano duel with Lang Lang arranged by
in order to look thin (just kidding) can be called a one-to-one replica of the movie.
Here, another keyword comes out.
traversal.
From the earliest, " The Bell in the Reverse Direction " sang "back to the time and space when I loved you".
is a tribute to Doraemon's "Time Machine".
and then to "Traveling through time and space is both enjoyable and arrogant".
Of course, there is also the "Secret that cannot be told" that has already been mentioned.
Time travel has long been his most popular and outstanding theme.
Overall, "The Greatest Work" is very much like the integration of a series of his previous iconic elements. The meaning conveyed by
actually does not exceed the previous music.
combines a scene of Dali performing a fork-bending magic trick with one of the painter's representative images, the melting clock.
is Zhou’s humor that we are all too familiar with.
and led Impressionist master Monet to understand Chinese meticulous painting.
has the meaning of the Chinese style song that emphasized the promotion of oriental aesthetics.
Is "The Greatest Work" good to hear?
is good, and it’s bushi.
But we must admit that this is a very "typical Jay Chou" and "retro" piece.
The "inner smell" is this reassuring classic smell from the old days.
I had already smelled this "flavor" in "mojito" two years ago. The song
caused some criticism when it first came out, but the rap section in the middle was generally well received.
Looking back, it seems that it is also because this rap has a special "inner flavor".
is almost identical to the rap at the beginning of " Uncle Jock ", a clown-themed song in "Capricorn", from the melody, to the movements in the MV, to the rhyme of the lyrics.
If you don’t believe me, you can listen to it.
The classic atmosphere not only reassures fans, but also reassures creators.
To put it bluntly, it feels like staying in a comfort zone.
Don’t get me wrong, Piao is not trying to accuse anyone.
After all, we can all see the dense thorns surrounding this safe area:
Before "Mojito", Jay Chou had several singles that were not paid for.
html's " is waiting for you to finish class " in 2018, which received a miserable 6 points on Douban.
's follow-up " If You Don't Love Me, I'll Knock Down ", the phenomenal lyrics of "If you still want to rely on the chest muscles that I have built" triggered ridicule from the crowd, and die-hard fans wanted to pull him down after hearing it.
html In 2019, " said yes, don't cry ", although it regained a little reputation, it was still complained about selling sentiments with Mayday.
No matter how crazy the king is, he will still be pricked by the thorns of reality.
Perhaps it was the rap test of "retro" in "Mojito" that received a relatively satisfactory response, which led to this comprehensive "time travel"?
I dare not make a conclusion.
But indeed, what we can see with our naked eyes is that after several attempts to get close to new audiences born in the 90s and 00s have hit a wall, Jay Chou has returned to the comfort zone shared by himself and us.
This is the essence of "inner flavor".
A taste of time, an awakening of collective memories of the past.
In recent years, every time Jay Chou releases a new song, it always triggers such a cyber carnival. In addition to the hype,
also has a lot of fierce controversies.
Guizhou donkey has no skills.
is exhausted.
No guarantee for late holidays.
This accusation is actually difficult to establish.
After all, if this is considered "exhausted", what about the noise pollution caused by those domestic entertainment idols?
However, I think their appearance is understandable.
For a phenomenal musician, it is inevitable to be criticized.
You can think about it, what was our definition of Jay Chou?
He is the idol of rebellious teenagers, an alternative existence in the music world, and a geek who constantly transforms aesthetics with the most incredible music.
What we love most is actually the cutting-edge and in him.
But as we enter middle age, our thoughts gradually settle down, our bodies gradually become mellower, and our sense of avant-garde surrenders to milk tea.
How can he become a cutting-edge person understood by the new generation?
Netizen comments: One is rounder than the other, Fat Brothers, Hefei...
This has nothing to do with denial, but objective recognition of individual limitations.
After 90, you and I still cannot understand the times.
It would be too much to ask the 43-year-old Jay Chou to still be ahead of the times, still young and rebellious, and still say things for us that we ourselves have never thought of.
But our requirements for Jay Chou have already been engraved at this level.
Any progress or regression he makes is destined to be repeatedly reviewed under a magnifying glass.
This is the dilemma that middle-aged Jay Chou has to face.
Including this rare network-wide bragging, is it a good thing for him?
After all, what this song brings to us is just like its theme.
traverse.
We seemed to be pulled back to that long-ago summer vacation in an instant, with the scorching sun dancing above our heads, cicadas shouting wantonly, and summer vacation homework still lying in their schoolbags.
A friend said: "Hey, Jay Chou has released a new song."
So we listened together in front of a TV and had a heated discussion on the same network, just like the past reappeared.
Rather than that, we love how stunning The Greatest Hits is. Rather,
.
What we love is the illusion of going back to the past.
The essence of this carnival is a collective rejuvenation.
Jay Chou, who has dominated the headphones of a generation, is enough to trigger our musical nostalgia.
When we grow up, we are deprived of the time to listen to music, our enthusiasm for listening to music is polished away, and we gradually lose interest in new music.
In the Chinese music scene of the new era, we are at a loss.
doesn't know how to listen, and doesn't want to listen.
But Jay Chou is still there.
Even if he is no longer sharp and rebellious, he still has the magic power to drag us back to the past in a second.
Jay Chou’s new song ≈ an opportunity to travel through time and space has become the collective recognition of our generation.
Fortunately, the "comfort zone" that Jay Chou once opened up is so broad.
is so big that even if he lies flat, he can roll around without touching the boundary.
But just, as I said before, Jay Chou is trapped, and we are also trapped.
is to Jay Chou.
We don’t want to see the middle-aged man write divisive songs for the Z era that we cannot see through, so we repeatedly hope that he will bring back his former self.
Even, the expectations for him were downgraded to "I will be satisfied if I can sing."
For a creator who once had a lot of talent, this is not necessarily a good thing.
Finally, let’s go back to the callback of “Capricorn”.
This is not Jay Chou's most well-known or best-known album, but Piao feels that it highly overlaps with Jay Chou's life trajectory and even mental journey.
This album plays with a circus theme. Jay Chou plays two roles in it:
One is a magician and the other is a clown.
Looking at the order of the songs, the song "Mr. Magic" sung earlier is just like the high-spirited Jay Chou in his early years.
At that time, he was the most prosperous magician on the stage. He sang proudly:
"He is the clown and I am the master."
And the song "Uncle Jock" ranked next is like watching it after becoming famous. Jay Chou is the most beautiful person in the world.
After the circus closed, he was a clown who had seen all the sorrows and joys of the world. He murmured alone late at night:
"I am not a lonely clown. After you laugh, you don't need to remember me."
At that time, he could still talk hard and shout I am not alone.
Now, at the age of 43, he has been standing at a high place for too long, and his invincibility eventually leads to loneliness.
So, in the new song "The Greatest Work", he puts on the skin of a magician, but sings about the mentality of a clown:
"The excitement in this world comes from loneliness."
Yes, just this sentence, debunked The essence of this carnival.
The excitement of the public comes from his loneliness.
"The Greatest Work" is a dance performed by Jay Chou to his old listeners.
He performed various magic tricks on the stage.
We cheered, we clinked glasses, we clapped our hands and laughed. After
ended, he returned to the background alone.
Take off the magician's hat and put on the clown's red nose.
one of the greatest works.
A time-travel magic that he and we completed together, is now complete.
