Do you think that people listen to Jay's music with a preconceived notion?

[tc9.jay]

My friend, who is not a Jay-fan but enjoys some of Jay’s songs, once told me that he felt that many people are myopic when it comes to Jay’s music. He said that because the songs are written by Jay, people will just assume that the song (whether in reality it is nice or not) is nice. In a way, Jay Chou has become a brand name. Even if the song is not nice or nothing special, people will still hold it in very high regard, simply because it carries the name of Zhou Jie Lun.

After thinking through (in a very unbiased way) I felt that he was right to an extent. Often, when I listen to songs written by Jay and sang by other artistes on the radio, the DJ would almost always announced that Jay wrote the song. Sometimes, I would have to admit, that when listening to such songs for the first time, I do get a little influenced by the fact that the composer is Jay and immediately start to place high expectations on the song.

But then on the other hand, Jay also has to break a lot of barriers with people who are extremely critical of him simply because he’s Jay. I have many friends who after listening to 7lx for the first time, dismissed it as ‘unspecial’ and ‘boring’. But I was thinking, if 7lx was released by another singer, would they have like the song tremendously? I mean, it’s bcos 7lx carries the name Jay Chou that people starts to place really unreasonably and unrealistically high expectations on Jay and even if the song is nice, they would not be satisfied. (by the way, those friends are now incredibly in love with the song :bleh: )
So I was wondering, what do you guys think?

[kahel]

tc9.jay I have to agree on your observations.

Somehow, the name Zhou Jie Lun, the composer/artist whenever tied up to a particular song will always get people to expect highly. It's like a mark or a seal of excellence. And I have to admit that somehow, especially with songs for other artist, I am in some way affected when I know that the song was composed by Jielun.

This is probably because, with Jielun's works, from his very first album to the classic Fantasy, to 8D..the new horizons explored on YHM and now 7LX...we are always, in one way or another, left satisfied with Jielun's works.

This has a disadvantage though, like as you have mentioned, when Jielun's work is not as innovative as before, the quality of the work is always overlooked because they expect much much more...

[Seltsi]

That's an interesting notion, and there is certaintly logic behind what you're saying. What Kahel said in response is correct too; Jay Chou has been an extremely successful artist since his very debut, and in the years that have passed have rightfully earned the prestige that people associate with him and his work. So it's no surprise that a person's interest in a song is influenced by whether it was connected to him or not. In short, people have come to take Jay's work for granted as another masterpiece, but it's not undeserved, and generally, his works are masterpieces. :)

[ap]

i agree with tc9.jay too....
everytime when it comes to songs tt are composed by jay, even if they r sung by other artists, i would naturally think they r nice...even if others think its not nice at all....as long as it is "branded" with jay......its the same as our perception of, lets say, all "nike" stuff are good....hmm..tts y so many artists wanted him to compose songs for them now...

i think its coz jay has composed so many songs tt r of high standards, it makes us think tt all the songs he composed are of the same or higher quality and are equally nice....

[Eternalz]

Oh definitely, you'd be lying to yourself and others if you don't admit that for Jolin's 72 Bian album, if it weren't for Jay's compositions for Prague Square, Shuo Ai Ni, and Qi Shi Jing Shen, there was no way that her album would've attained the amount of popularity that it had. On this topic, some people discredit NQMM simply for this fact that they believe they are "using" Jay to bridge their career from nothing to stardom in one clean jump. In a way, NQMM should be grateful they have a friend like Jay to assist them in their musical career, however, NQMM does have their singing talents as a group, so I always think they are given less credit than they deserve.

[ask4more_jay]

Yeah i know. Because Jay has become so successful, most people would set high expectations of him--which is good, but on the other hand bad. Good because if proves what a good singer he is to become so succesful. We should be proud of him and that he is so good at being a musician. And also I heard that when other singers sing his songs, of course they have to pay him or "buy" the song, right? And now a song written by him is a min. of 10 000 NT$$. something like that. And that's just the min. And many people listen to those songs just because Jay wrote them. But the bad part about that is that now when people really doesn't like one of the songs, they criticize it a lot because JAY wrote it. It must be a lot of pressure to Jay. But either good or bad, I consider his songs the best of the history of music!! =P

[zaizai rox]

yea i totally agree with u guys. these days any song that in some way has zhou jie lun involved ppl automatically think that its great! but then again it usually heck it is! lol i know that i;ve become like that. if someone says that this songwas written by zhou jie lun im like it;s going to be wayy diao!
his name definately has become a brand name i mean yea without his help jolin;s albums wouldnt; be half as popular. i think that there is deifntalty alot of pressure on jay but he definately has so much talent.

[ClicketyClam]

yea i agree with you guys too. i find myself doing it alot especially when it comes to jay. even though the song is officially sung by a different artist who i might not like *coughjolincough* i tend to like the song because i know that it is written by jay. if nobody tells me before hand i might not like the song, or if i find out later then i change my mind and start to like the song. Zhou Jie Lun has really become a name brand but then without him writing other peoples songs *coughjolincough* they wouldn't be as well known. Shuo Ai Ni, and Qi Shi Jing Shen from jolin's album would never have been hits. people are probably just using him to get popular now. . . if i were him i wouldn't write songs for other people. We've all come to expect his music and works to be at a certain level and even if it is not i usually realize it but then i just excuse it and say oh but jay wrote it. . .

[Mushimushi]

He said that because the songs are written by Jay, people will just assume that the song (whether in reality it is nice or not) is nice.

That's definitely true for me. Well, it seems like we are really bias against who sings or produces the music, but i have to say that this problem would occur with all other fans of other singers. I believe that fans of eg. Jolin would say that her songs are wonderful..blah blah...and this is inevitable. It's already a sort of an uncontrollable way of thinking that everyone has for their idols, don't you agree?

Well, in the same way, i also feel that Jay is already sort of a brand name for many people, but this is something that i don't really like Jay to be seen as. It's sort of inappropriate to use Jay as a way of promoting some other singer's albums, but advertisements are not a problem to me. If people continue seeing Jay as a brand name, i guess in the future, people would not take notice of the quality Jay's has, but just his name itself, isn't that bad? :worry: Still, it's quite inevitable i guess.

[charmian]

No doubt about it. :happy:

However, Jay never fails to impress us right? I mean, he hasnt come to a point whereby his music style is unappealing and terrible. For now, he's just up high there, receiving much credits for his songs, appealing and people love him.

Many of the artist recognise this advantage and make use of it, well, appreciate Jay's music which appeals to many. Artist like, Jolin, SHE and many of others. :-)

until the day when people realise that Jay is not just another brand name for music, Jay has this HUGE workload to work after. :worry:

[jay1028]

hmm.. i think Jay's name/involvement does affect what we think of a song.. but i don't think the bias is strong enough to make us like a song that we otherwise wouldn't.. not for me at least. that being said though, it's so hard to prove this theory, because most of Jay's works ARE good (haha, bias at work here?)

i also understand why some people expect "more" of Jay and say his music has not improved (ie. "Jay Chou's songs all sound the same") because of his distinctive style.. BUT it does irritate me because in fact his songs do NOT sound the same.. they just fail to pay enough attention to notice the differences in the music.. he may more or less sing the same way, but i think his music has definitely gotten more sophisticated over time~

about the whole brand name thing.. the thought that other artists "use" Jay to gain popularity upsets me :dry: but maybe we shouldn't say "use".. because after all, nobody forces Jay to do anything and if he wrote a song for them he must have felt that he wanted to..

[snowflakez]

yea.. i agree.. there's no doubt tt wen i heard tt jay was the composer of tt song i will pay extra attention to it even though it's sang by somebody i dun like. and end up wif the conclusion tt the song is nice partially cuz it's composed by jay..

simliarly other singers will tink tt way too.. they tink believe tt now jay is so famous and wif an addition of one or two songs by jay can kind of boost the sales of their album. they tink so cuz they see tt the sales of jay's album is gd so they will already haf the idea tt jay's songs r nice(no matter they heard it or not) and thus wanna include his song in their album. thus they r willing to spend an amount to buy a song frm jay and to me they r indirectly making use of jay to earn more money..

[aniTa]

YEAH i tink so too!
but if jay is the composer of the song and sumone i dun sings it, i dun listen to it!
i only listen to jay's. jay might of wrote the song but i dun really care.
i mean i just like jay's voice, but he can write fulli good songs. if jay doesn't sing i dun listen!
if the song is sung by sumone else , composed by jay, still i dun listen to it!
JUST JAY!

[jielunfan4ever]

Yah I think there is, ever since Jay came out I think there is a high expectation of him to do the same amount of work over and over again, but I notice the other songs he writes for other artists like for Jolin, S.H.E's "ho niao". The first time I heard that song, I knew it sounded familiar and found out that Jay wrote it for them..I was like wow..no wonder I like it a lot...and also for Li Wei..I duno the title..but that song is good too!

[quadshock]

not always true... jay's work with Edison in Please Steal This Album didn't get attention from anyone... including almost every jay fan i've seen o.o and it was actually one of the morea verage tracks on thea lbum

[gCjs84]

I agree to a certain extent. It is quite true that Jay has become a brand name especially when it is used in songs. Recently, radio station DJs also repeatedly emphasized that Jay helped S.H.E to produce the song "Hou Niao" when the song 1st came out. More often than not, people has higher expectations of Jay's album, expecting his album to be special, unique... Just listen to the song "Wai Po". However, I believe that Jay create those melodies in the way he feels best so in the end, his tunes will all have his style whether it was meant for his album or for another person.

However, not all people are suitable for his music. Right now, I guess Jolin enjoyed the most success. I guess this is the way of the media or the company or radio stations to garner more attention. The word Jay already conjures the image of many fans and it is inevitable that it will be used for commercial purposes, or to garner more support...

[Amante]

I think like you because it happened with myself. Following his four great albums before, I accept that I expected this album 'Qi Li Xiang' must great like others. But when I listened whole songs in this album, I found that it's not like my expectation. I think it should be better than this. Then I thought about it a lot, I turn my idea to opposite way. If this album isn't belong to Jay, if it's belong to other artist, I'll admire this album. It's because I had high expectation. I think everything that have a brand name of Jay, they're great too. But I forgot one thing that Jay's a human. Human can do right or wrong, good or bad. Jay's just ordinary human. Everything that he do, it's not mean they'll always best.

Anyway, now, I like this album even it's not like my expectation. I like it because I like Jay and I'll always support him. :happy: But for other artist that Jay writes songs for them, if I don't like that song, I'll assist that I don't like.

[CJay]

I agree that some people may give a song a higher rating because it is labeled "jay chow,"
but in my situation, I have enjoyed many of the songs that jay composed like wu ding, etc prior to knowing he wrote them :-)

[aznsweet_sakura]

i agree with all you people....but even if he did compose or wrote a song for someone and it did really well...maybe its the person that sings it aswell....you cant have song if there are no intruments or even a voice to sing the lyrics......yea i can be a bit biased at times especially when the name "jay chou" appears......
my uncle ....he wasnt a fan of Jay when he first came out.....in fact my whole family was against the idea of me listeing to him...but i lent my unlce one of the albums and he changed his view...yet he doesnt admit that he likes his songs(its written all over his face that he likes them).....i guess it depends what situation Jays name is used in. but jolins album wouldnt exactly be complete if Jay didnt write those songs for her. but he still got praised for them which is still good..^^

[thupham]

yeah, unfortunately i do think so because they have not gotten a chance to hear his music
but because they first see him and how the media is portraying him, they have a idea of what
jay is like already, the person he is, judging him, therefore affecting how they feel about his music

[jaychou_21]

I'm afraid to admit it but sadly,
I have to agree with you guys. :depresse:
But isn't Jay so amazing?!? :excited:
He's just awesome! :happy:
He never fails to bowl me over. :D
I'm just telling the truth without
any partiality or whatsoever sort of bias.
But two friends of mine liked Jay's songs
and the songs he wrote for other artists
after dissing him before.
I think it's just the first impression
of you know,stupid people? :hmm: