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    "The Greatest Work" is "unpleasant" on the hot search, because there are still habitual expectations for Jay Chou

    As soon as I opened my eyes in the morning, the editor sent a message: Jay Chou's new album "Unpleasant" is a hot search.
    "Ugly" is expected, and the five old songs included in it are there (some people thought it was a tribute from fans). The main hit of the same name pulled back a game because of sincerity, and the remaining five new songs were unable to turn the tide. Looking forward, Jay Chou, who was more than ten years ago, began to decline. Although he can come up with a new work every few years, he is like us in this hot summer. We are weak and weak, and fat is also fat with water. But no matter what, scolding the hot search is also out of expectation. Having expectations and a common thread is always better than having nothing.
    It's hard to break habitual expectations, especially the delightful things that happened in good years. For example, there was a period of time when Jin Yong's martial arts dramas were played every summer vacation, "Journey to the West" and "A Dream of Red Mansions" were sure to be rebroadcast, and the evening and night when "Slam Dunk" and "Huanzhugege" premiered. The frequency of Jay Chou's new albums is lower, and the level of happiness is lower than that of film and television dramas, but they last longer. He is a magician with moderate secondary disease, and he is best at creating one fantasy after another, which is unprecedented in the mature Chinese music world.
    Chinese people have always been bad at making up illusions, and they should also cling to reality in their dreams. There are many myths, legends and fantasy stories that have been handed down, but although these are called wonderland and wonders, they cannot escape the blueprint of reality. Like Grandma Liu said, your garden is ten times better than the painting. The dream place of the common people, the New Year pictures, was originally drawn according to the wealthy family. We are attached to reality, too beautiful fox spirits are vulgar fantasies, those who have the function of "warning illusion" and can admonish the world are worthy of being called fairies. Heavenly Court is a cloud and fog special effect version of the Emperor's Palace. Peach Blossom Spring is just the highest realm of pastoral songs.
    So Jay Chou is very special, there is no one before, and there is no successor. It's not that he and Fang Wenshan can create an overhead world. But they are fully modern, fully breathed in the air of pop culture, and especially free in body and mind—unrestricted in time, space, and cultural categories.
    The songs written by this pair are all like a game of life. They are full of childlike innocence, heaven and earth, showing the characteristics of children: obsessed with one thing for a while. When writing songs, he exaggerates the festivity, loves beautiful words and sentences, and speaks surprisingly fast. Often the prelude is extremely stunning, and as soon as the voice comes out, it immediately flows down the old river. It doesn't matter, there is always a catchy melody anyway.
    The Jay Chou I like is never sad, only inexhaustible lightness and surprise. This is also like the innocence of a healthy adolescent, not only curious, but also concerned about the world. Time flies fast, the future is blurry, and everything is yet to take shape. Jay Chou's songs make people believe that important things will be caught one day.
    He used to be a dividing line, marking the territory of minors. It was an honorable dividing line due to his huge success. Although he was repeatedly mocked by adults, he still had the joy of cherishing his own broom. Jay Chou today is also a dividing line. This line blocks the turbid current of reality and encloses a bay of clear water.
    Although the people who listen to the song have grown up, the habitual expectation is still unwilling to stop. For the ratio of one intro + five old songs + six new songs on a new album, Tucao can be sweet. Because he gave us a feeling of happiness and freedom, all the news about Jay Chou's good marketing, appetite, and lack of work in recent years can be laughed off and turned into kind teasing to old acquaintances.
    Adult expectations are low. We've learned that not all expectations last forever. Just as house prices don't rise forever, tomorrow is not necessarily better than today. When the blows came one after another, Jay Chou, who finally kept his word and came up with a new album, was still a good one. The Greatest Works album cover

    The Greatest Works album cover

    The Greatest Works is like a mythical beast with its wings cut off, with one and only two themes: pure love and exotic dreams. Most of you who read this are not the target audience of "pure love". Jay Chou's first fans didn't fall in love for a long time, they were already familiar with it. The song of pure love is sung to the new generation of children. If the enlightenment of primary school students' independence consciousness can be Eason Chan's "The Lonely Brave", why can't love enlightenment be Jay Chou?
    "Say Good Don't Cry" depicts the image of a remorseful man with serious straight male disorder, who plays a deep and serious role, and does not shy away from selfishness and cruelty. "Pull me down if you don't love me" made me gasp at first. "Brother's chest muscles if you still want to rely on it", the Northeast rap known for its down-to-earth style is not so rough, it will be embarrassing for elementary school students to sing. "Wait for your get out of class" is better, although still wandering in the narrow alley of infatuation + paranoia, Gu Ying's self-pity at least has the endless luxury of time.
    Jay Chou's pure love songs are like Qiong Yao dramas, infatuation and longevity have never changed, but the times and people's hearts have changed. They are all signposts, when collectively addicted, when passing by without looking sideways, when sneering or feeling uneasy about it. No matter how it changes, there is always a bit of emotion in it, attracting passers-by to stop for a while, even if it is to visit a museum.
    He may have deliberately hit the edge of the time. These pure love songs are so unique today, but Jay Chou does not care that this male image is outdated, and still concocts one after another. I don't understand, this is an image strategy that is in the same vein as his endorsement, focusing on economically underdeveloped areas (and later cooperated with Kuaishou), or Jay Chou really hasn't changed, and the mind of love will always be fixed in the teenage years.
    Another kind of exotic dream song, as the name suggests, the theme and MV of "Mojito" was filmed in Havana, Cuba, "The Greatest Work" in Paris, France, and "Pink Ocean" has Kangaroo Island and Ukulele. These songs rekindle the longing for the distant future, and even if globalization subsides and the ideal of global citizenship is shattered, they remain like unquenchable lights.
    "Still Wandering" is a combination of love and exotic, and the genes come from the favorite themes of twenty years of popular songs at the turn of the century. We have heard too many songs like this. The protagonists in the songs all fly away with broken hearts, use old backpacks as rings, travel abroad, and eat and drink with confidence. Jay Chou's song is like the last sigh of this theme, from the arrangement, melody to singing are all familiar to the bones. There is no movie feeling, only MV feeling. A single heart is painted on a projection screen wall.
    He pays tribute to others, and more often to himself (repeated). The piling up and long-windedness in the national anthem is an infectious disease. This kind of disease specially intrudes on the concise and meaningful Chinese, and the beauty who wrote the letter of hope in "The Beauty of the Face" is dressed as an ugly woman surrounded by Lingluozhucui. This disease has infected them too. Only Jay Chou's melody is still trying to pick up the fragments of the rhetoric. With the careful darning of the acoustic instruments and harmony, the ugly woman is a little more beautiful. But it's still just Jay Chou's imitation of himself, and it's hard to call it great.
    In fact, we have long known that because Jay Chou's fantasy is too lacking in the texture of reality, the vitality will inevitably flow away with time. No matter how beautiful the texture of frozen meat is, the palate will not deceive. The young man's heart will not be with him forever. The problem is that he also doesn't want to look at reality and refuses to put the growth of experience into the music. Because of the high talent, the melody of "Ouch is not bad" when you play it casually, so as long as you make up your mind and change the old formula, you can look forward to it for a long time. Jay Chou has been lying and winning, and we are still listening to him, with mixed flavors.

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