Is Jay's Music Actually R&B? What Genre IS he?

[Hyde]

everytime i hear people call him the prince of chinese r&b
or king of chinese hip hop
I feel uneasy because those genres are so full of well, prejudice.
western R&B and hip hop are quickly being "out" because of how shallow and repetitive they've become, and i see people instantly turned off by those terms.
or people just go.
"haha. chinese rapping. that's funny shit."
and dont give it a second thought.

What genre IS jay's music?
We can't call it chinese music in general. That invokes thoughts of shrieky peking opera. .. or communist Mao worship music.

It's really been bothering me. What do you say when you describe his music?
What is his genre if not R&B?

[msv]

Well originally he started off with more R&B influence in his music, so that's how his name originated. And not till in later albums did he incorporated more of a variety of music to broaden his horizens/genre whatever you want to call it.

I feel uneasy because those genres are so full of well, prejudice.
western R&B and hip hop are quickly being "out" because of how shallow and repetitive they've become, and i see people instantly turned off by those terms.

I disagree. I'd have to say that rap and hip-hop and R&B is one of the fastest growing music trend in the asian music industry (even though Korea had it a long time before it really started getting big). If you compare today's music to music 5 years ago, you'll see a major difference. 5 years ago, rap was pratically non-existant in the chinese music industry. And repetitive and shallow? Well can't the same be said for every genre though? There's some stupid pop songs, rock songs, country songs that I wished I haven't heard of before ><

We can't call it chinese music in general. That invokes thoughts of shrieky peking opera. .. or communist Mao worship music.

That's just narrow-minded thinking I say. Communist Mao worship because you call it chinese music??? How the heck do you get music and political beliefs mix together (excluding songs that have political context orignally). I just think that's ignorance on the person making those assumptions. Its sorta like you haven't even tried it but already made a judgement of it.

I guess now its hard to really describe Jay's music. Like I said, he originally started with a strong R&B influence and the name just sticked with him. When describing his music, I simply tell people that he has a lot of genres into his music, a little bit of alternative, rap/hip-hop, r&B and pop, depending on what song you're listening to.

[HaNaBi]

Well "R&B" stands for rhythm & blues, and Jay is considered to be prince of Chinese R&B or King of Chinse Hip Hop, that's because of the type of music he made for his first two albums is a very different style of R&B compared to the typical R&B music made by David Tao, the "Godfather of Chinese R&B"

To me, I actually don't consider Jay as "King of Chinese Hip Hop" or "Prince of Chinese R&B" and certainly western rap and chinese rap are very different in terms of the techniques they use to rap.

Jay in particular, is always exploring new areas of Music & mixing different genres of Music together to create different effects on the music he make, because to him as a musician, he mustn't let himself be fixed in a certain category in Music like "Pop" ," ROck", "Blues". His music from his Second album, there is an increase in Rock elements, but so I can say he's more of a multi-music-genre type of Singer.
Though in the chinese music industry, we have talented singers like David Tao, Wang Lee Hom and JJ Lin Jun Jie (Just to name a few) but to the fact that Jay is always searching for new "type" of music, which is not found anywhere in the "Mandropop" industry, he is a star that outshine others, making him outstanding and making him this famous.

Shrieking Peking Opera? Don't get me wrong, but not understanding a country's music culture and calling it as "Shrieking", is really impolite, and sounds kinda arrogant. It's just like we Asian, who don't understand Western Operas, would consider it to be "trash" if we don't go and understand the culture and learn to appreicate why it's part of the western culture.

Chinese opera is a totally different music culture from those chinese music you hear on the radio. The chinese opera contains thousands of years of Chinese History and culture within it, and is more than just "shrieking". There are certain set of movements to things like "opening the door", "getting onto a horse" etc etc, there are procedures to obey and learn, certain ways of singing a song or saying a phrase. So it can't be compared to those modern chinese music, as it has been very westernized.

Maybe people think that chinese rap is "shit" that's because alot of those raps are too westernized and of cuz they are in a foreign language, but Jay's raps are different. For every song or rap song, Jay will try to have traditional chinese cultures in it.
Example in His first album, Niang Zi
Second album, Nunchuks, ninja, Shanghai 1943
Third album, Long Quan, Ye Ye Pao De Cha
Fourth Album, Shuang Dao, Dong Feng Po, San Nian Er Ban
Fifth Album, Jiang Jun, Luan Wu Chun Qiu, Wo De Di Pan

And also, his love songs will always have the type of conservations we Asian have towards Love, which is totally different from English Love songs.

Well, I guessed that's all I can say about Jay's music for now....plus a little bit of sidetrack

[Hyde]

clarification:
"western R&B and hip hop are quickly being "out" because of how shallow and repetitive they are"
and "shrieking peking opera"
arent my direct personal opinion.

but about how western hip hop and r&b are becoming "out"
it's true. the genre is still relatively strong, but compared to how huge it was 5 years ago, it's gone down by alot.

and the truth is. lots of people don't even know china has cars much less modern music.

but both are really the point.
how do you get past the categorizations and describe jay's music without giving the wrong idea? it's too unique.

[tvbaddict]

yeah i hate it when ppl make fun of chinese music *ppl who arent chinese* but one of my friends, shes funny...she likes edisons raps and shes polish :D

i think jay's music fits into a few generes, r&b, hip hop, rap, and a lil of pop

[msv]

clarification:
"western R&B and hip hop are quickly being "out" because of how shallow and repetitive they are"
and "shrieking peking opera"
arent my direct personal opinion.

I never said that was your opinion. I simply said whoever thinks like this is ignorant or narrow-minded since music is an abstract thing. :rolleyes:

[kilaalaa]

Jay Chou is Chinese/Taiwanese. Why would Chinese music be bad?

Yep but like his first album was mainly some sort of chinese rnb. I don't know how to describe it, its just different from the usual rnb you would normally associate it with?

It is definitely different from the David Tao brand of rnb.

[kuo]

Jay isn't R&B at all, i think, I've compared David Tao's songs to Jay's, and they sound very different, so I'm pretty sure that Jay isn't R&B. Jay is probably Pop or just his own style. :)

[msv]

Jay isn't R&B at all, i think, I've compared David Tao's songs to Jay's, and they sound very different, so I'm pretty sure that Jay isn't R&B. Jay is probably Pop or just his own style. :)

So by comparing Jay's music to David Tao's you can say that its not R&B? Well what if I said that David Tao's music was more based on pop and had little pieces of R&B in it instead? Then should vice versa be said that Jay is then R&B?

[Eternalz]

It would be nice if we could coin his music as being omniscient-ruling asian music, but people wouldn't understand it as well as we would. He has been given the titles in King of R&B and Hiphop because his songs are just that popular and well received in places where the music is distributed. The songs which are R&B and hiphop do get their deserved praises, but the majority of the songs on Jay's albums are in the popular genre as it has always been the celebrated category in asian music. Adding a touch of R&B here, a speck of hiphop there, a dab of rap in and out, you got yourself a unique potpourri of an album.

[moogleonxtc]

Most people don't have an idea of (modern) Chinese music, because, well...they aren't Chinese.

Hip Hop, RnB, Pop, etc are all American genres. How can you fit music from another civilization into these categories?

If you can, its only because Chinese artists are copying the West. Just my opinion but David Tao's albums all sound American. There are hundreds of American singers daily turning in demos like David Tao's to studios, but they get rejected. It's just that in China there was no competition so he became big, but his music isn't original (just my opinion).

Wang Leehom was good, but again born in US. And after he made that terrible second album and sold out to McDonalds...bleh. JJ Lin was promising 1st album but second is not on par.

I think true Chinese music has been few and far between. There was a period when Jacky Cheung was God. Then A-mei was good for a few albums. Now Jay has been consistently good for 5 years. All can't be defined by Western genres.

So yea, you can't find an American genre because Jay's music isn't American. And this is a GOOD THING. Hopefully, after a few more decades we won't be using American standards to categorize Chinese music.

[jessica1907]

Most people don't have an idea of (modern) Chinese music, because, well...they aren't Chinese.

Hip Hop, RnB, Pop, etc are all American genres. How can you fit music from another civilization into these categories?

If you can, its only because Chinese artists are copying the West. Just my opinion but David Tao's albums all sound American. There are hundreds of American singers daily turning in demos like David Tao's to studios, but they get rejected. It's just that in China there was no competition so he became big, but his music isn't original (just my opinion).

Wang Leehom was good, but again born in US. And after he made that terrible second album and sold out to McDonalds...bleh. JJ Lin was promising 1st album but second is not on par.

I think true Chinese music has been few and far between. There was a period when Jacky Cheung was God. Then A-mei was good for a few albums. Now Jay has been consistently good for 5 years. All can't be defined by Western genres.

So yea, you can't find an American genre because Jay's music isn't American. And this is a GOOD THING. Hopefully, after a few more decades we won't be using American standards to categorize Chinese music.

although jay's music is more on chinese side but he still add in western thing in his music. Look rap and hip-hop also from western and jay has many hip-hop and rap. so jay's music isn't completely chinese. he still add in western thing but he don't know how to speak english of course he don't add english rap in it (if he is born in US, that's another different thing). if you said jay's music is completely chinese ask him to sing chinese opera, don't add western genre in, will people want to listen?

david tao is not copying the west, just that he's growing up in US and his music influence is more on western but his mother sing chinese opera. so some of his songs has opera elements. if you said he is copying the west, must as well go and sing english.He didn't, he is the one who bringingin R&B to the chinese music scene, then more songwriter start to write r&b , if don't have david tao bringing in. Do you think now chinese industries will have people doing r&B? not only chinese industries is western influence even korea, japan is doing so.

[Apollo]

Jay's music has alot of variety, I mean even songs from the same album can be VERY different so I don't think it does Jay any justice to assign him to certain genres. Jay should have his own genre, the Jay genre :bleh: If someone asked me what genre Jay was I'd just let them listen to my MP3, makes life so much easier than trying to explain pop mixed with this and that :?

[linny]

What is up with everyone and Chinese opera as the definition of Chinese music? It's not currently the standard for Chinese music, is it? :? Because I listen to what could be considered Vietnamese opera, but it's certainly NOT the standard for Vietnamese music right now. I assume it's the same for Chinese. It's a cultural music, but it's definitely not the current standard... right?

Hip Hop, RnB, Pop, etc are all American genres. How can you fit music from another civilization into these categories?

Let's face it, anything sounding remotely R&B, rap or even rock to a degree, is Western. You can't deny that there is Western influence in Jay's music because practically all music in Asia has a Western influence in it. It's not simply about that Western influence, but what Jay does with it. What he manages to create using what he's heard from the West and fusing it whichever way he sees fit creates that lovely music that we're all so enthralled would.

In a perfect world, Jay would have no genre because his music is his and no others. But since everyone likes to categorize things, I'd say the closest thing he comes to now that the new album is out is Hip Hop and R&B. It's kind of odd because while he definitely belongs somewhere in the hip hop/r&b category, he also has a place in pop (and a bit of rock).

Of course, in my world, Jay belongs to the almighty genre that is Shiny. Nevermind what standard genre he's in, he is a shiny one that is worth listening to. XD

[the one]

i think his music should be classified as taiwanese pop. he's got a little of everything: ballads, rhythm & blues, rap, traditional, and even rock like the alternative songs he did for his two latest albums..

[Muzi]

Even though there are western-like and asian elements in his music, Jay's songs are still chinese pop. Cuz chinese pop can emcompasses different genres and styles...

[flackjack]

In my opinion Jay doesn't really have a genre, as he has too much of a variety of music styles which is a good thing and why he is so popular. He has a music style to cater for everyone, but my favourite ones would be his ballads and his R,B songs. They don't sound like American R,B at all, which is good coz these days all music is starting to sound unoriginal. Just my opionion.

[sweetea77]

i've been having the same question on jay's music genre; and ive honestly concluded that i cant label it; its not r&b, it sounds nothing like american rap...so i've really just left it.
it somehow agravates me when americans label jay as rap; because it sounds 100000000000000000x awesomer than american rap (which i hate....i just dont like it), and theres way more melody and tune to jays songs....haha...we should probably name his genre "jay music" or something..or just leave it at 'chinese pop'

[kamui]

i can't say if for sure if he is r&b coz i'd be defining his music by american standards... for example, i know his music has some rap, but by comparing it against ppl like eminem or jay-z, sometimes it feels as if jay's music isn't as hardcore like that.. but its hard for me to call it r&b coz when i hear r&b i immediatley think of usher... of course i know that jay is somewhat r&b for chinese standards, i guess i'm just saying that i can't judge jay's music without being biast. i mean compared to alot of other chinese music, yes i would say his music is r&b, but i dunno compared to other american artists...
technically iwould think that jay's music is pop (short for popular btw) but then again you have people like jolin and all those boy/girl bands out tehre, so i don't thnik jay would really fit into that catagory either..

hope my explanation isn't to hard to understand ^_^;;

[ask4more_jay]

I think he has some R&B. And he doesn't have a lot of hiphop. Actually I think he mixes both styles+a bit of classical music(like in Zhi Zhan Zhi Shang) and sometimes combines a chinese-ish feeling (Dong Fong Puo) so he's like a lot of different types. But generally I say he's just Mandarin Pop.

[juzluv]

well... i'll label his music as da 屌 music.. cuz he's too 屌 and his music juz rawks...

ok.. well, he doesn't haf a specific genre so we cant really say which is correct.. if we juz leave it as mandarin pop, to me, it feels like his music is downgraded cuz mandarin pop has sooOoOooOoo many other pop singers and their music is like almost da same.. PLUS, he aint a pop singer.. so without any specific label, in my opinion, his music genre is: da 屌 music....

[nycgirls]

Haha... maybe a little bit of everything! You know him, he's always bored of being at the same place in music... he jumps around a lot... Nine Inch Nails, sometimes they don't sound like a rock band at all... Jay is just like that.

These are totally sleep talks... maybe I should be stopping for now.

[zaizai rox]

hum...orginally i would say R & B but some of his songs are like ballads and others just don;t fit in that category so i think it;s a bit of everything also i mean some of his songs are like pop too so i think he should be in a category that is multi faceted with all different genres in it.

[Odium: De_Vangelis]

I think at first, his style is R&B. But as he develops into the entertainment world, He's kinda experimenting and fusing a mixture of genres. We can clearly see that his style is changing from the first album to the latest one.Today, I think he has more variety of genres but I still think that his main one is still R&B.

[ClicketyClam]

Haha... maybe a little bit of everything! .
yea jay is definetly a little bit of everything. most of it is R&B bu then you listen to the rest and its pop and whatever. i dunno i think that he belongs in his own genre called "jay chou" lol. cuz it doesn't really all fit into one specific catagory. . . .

[eimiie]

i never really considered his music r&b mainly cause from the american music i heard, jay`s music is definetly better than any of those transient hiphop r&b artists like alicia keys. i dont really consider it pop either cause pop is all the same, whereas jay`s style is unique from other artists. right now, i have him labeled under chinese classic cause i figurerd, jay is the best, so might as well put him underneath the best ranking right? :D

[spork]

yea jay is definetly a little bit of everything. most of it is R&B bu then you listen to the rest and its pop and whatever. i dunno i think that he belongs in his own genre called "jay chou" lol. cuz it doesn't really all fit into one specific catagory. . . .
I agree, Jay should have his own category :D
But I agree with the people who say that it's only us (press, fans, the music industry, etc) who feel the need to classify his music as hip hop/rap/r&b. I guess that since the western world has such a big influence on other countries, we feel the need to use western genres to label the music of other artists who have music that's even the tiniest bit similar to western genres, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but some people end up comparing the asian popular music to american music rather than accepting both as different things.
It's like a synonym :bleh: You can find a synonym for a word in the thesaurus, but that doesn't mean that a word and its synonym(s) mean EXACTLY the same thing, or are used in exactly the same way...Or words like bow (like bow tie) and bow (bow down! :P) that are spelled the same but sound and are defined differently. (wow that sounds dorky :bleh:)

It's good that people like Jay are really diverse and can make good music or art that is unique by using bits and pieces of everything they are influenced by..maybe the reason some American rap or hip-hop eventually goes bad is because they don't try new styles or topics. Like Eminem's second album, which became pretty popular in the bay area because it shows growth (lots of growth! if you compare it to his first album :bleh:) although I'm not saying the album was good or bad. I wouldn't say rap or hip-hop is declining though, there are a number of rap/hip-hop artists who do try to incorporate different styles into their music, and to make their lyrics meaningful...it's just that the general public isn't interested in that kind of stuff, which is sad :(

But I'll stop rambling now :sweat:

I wonder what Jay Chou thinks his music is :rolleyes:

[quadshock]

his music is often different and unique enough so that people can't just label him a genre... so the only safe genre i can give his music is "pop" because if you think about it

-his songs are not hip hop... maybe "ba wo hui lai le" is kind of hip hop, but even that sounds different from what's generally accepted as part of the genre
-i hear little to no songs that i feel are considered r/b
-he doesn't really have any rock songs... some incorporate the rock feel but never entirely

so yeah... "pop" is all i can think of

[twilighthush]

It's pretty much unnecessary to say that Jay's music is diverse, considering the fact that if there is any word that should describe his music, it would certainly be "diverse".

Ranging from pop, to r&b, to rap, to even hard rock -- the only prevalent theme that we can hear in almost every single song is the incorporation of a very distinctly Chinese sound (certain instruments that he use evoke traditional Chinese music) which he twines with his very modern beats.

As someone who works in the industry, usually categorization is done by seeing what genre is the -most- prevalent. Despite his level of diversity, the r&b style is what outweighs almost any other genre that he's delved into within his music.

Industry categorizations would -easily- throw him in the hiphop/r&b section.

There's nothing wrong with a r&b categorization. Some of the most incredible artists fall into r&b genres, including classic stars like Aretha Franklin and Etta James. Jay's apparently fine with this categorization, and with his incorporation of Western influences in a very overtly Chinese presentation.

And I think that's what's totally awesome about him. :D

p.s. >_> Maybe I just suck or something, but can SOMEONE please explain to me WTF "diao" is supposed to stand for? I'm Chinese, and every time I see the word "diao" I think "drop".

[jaylover_ryke]

Jay?
he doesn belong 2 any genre..
he's a genre by himself cos u realise he doesn sound lyk anyone else,
and nobody sounds lyk him..
agree all ye out there?
i tink his music is a cross of rnb,hiphop,pop and dashes of different cultural music..
and plus the lyrics which can spell out a whole movie..
agree now?

[swtaznkandi]

i myself have been wondering for a long time what exactly to classify jay as, and i've finally given up and come to the conclusion that jay is so wonderful that he transcends all categories!!! haha well in actuality i've given up because i simply don't know what to call him. at first that really bugged me, because i like to organize my CD's by genre and whatnot, but now i've really come to respect jay for his amazing versatility and his ability to be able to create such wonderful music in ALL kinds of music - hip hop, R&B, ballad, rock, etc etc. i still think jay's music is sometimes somewhat strange, but it's weird in a good way and as long as it sounds good then i'm happy.

[thupham]

from listening to lots of his songs, i would have to say that in general, that's what it would sound
like. But i think jay is learning to incorporate other types, willing to try out other styles
because he is always trying to better himself and improve as an artist

[jaychou_21]

I have the same problem too. :oops:
That question keeps on bugging me until now. :worry:
I think you can't classify Jay's music because
he's such a VERSATILE ARTIST!!! :excited:
Because Jay is one multi-talented artist,
it's quite difficult to identify the genre where he belongs.
I've known him for being the King of Mandopop
and now,as the King of Mandarin R&B.
Which ever title suits him best,
he'll still be THE ONE!!! :happy:
I want to just call him INCOMPARABLE JAY
or HEAVENLY KING :thumbsup:
I think those tags are just appropriate. :wink2:
What do you think? :hmm:

[yokatta]

For me… he is in R&B and Hip hop genre…
He might also have other genre of music in all his albums...
But he is a composer… a lyricist… and also he sings all his originally songs…
He made songs for others too… he not just sings ballad… but he CREATE hip hop songs… not many song writer got this ability… he just great!!...
I luv 101% of all his songs… even though I can’t understand Chinese… nor speak a word in Chinese… but I like his hip hop and R&B songs most… :-)