Jeremy's promotion, music tastes and New York

Jeremy Chang's promotion in 56 mainland cities (June 18, 2004)

Having been in the music industry for 18 years, this is Jeremy's first prolonged promotion in mainland China. His goal is to visit 56 cities in the mainland for his "In the Entire World Only You Don't Know" (Quan Shi Jie Zhi You Ni Bu Zhi Dao) collection promotion.

Life: Love Is More Important Then Music

Jeremy still works as a dentist. He believes his dentist occupation helps balance out his life. Being a singer is for himself, dentistry is to help others. In this time's promotion, he hopes to accomplish his father's wish, which is to find a wife to take home. This time in mainland he may be roaming about by himself, seeking for the right person. Jeremy says that he would rather die for someone who loves him, rather than die for music. His attitude towards life is, "Make sure you have an enjoyable life."

During his youth, Jeremy hung around bands in nightclubs. It wasn't until he had his electric guitar stolen in university did he learn to compose music. At that time, he never listened to Chinese music but preferred western music created by Yes, Pink Floyd and Queen.

In 1987, his first album, "Condolence" (Ji Wen) came out on cassette tapes and vinyl records. The vinyl is worth 9000 RMB in the market now. At the time, Jeremy thought he wasn't doing so bad with a few thousand copies of his album sold, until Dave Wong's album, "A Game, A Dream" (Yi Chang You Xi, Yi Chang Meng) came out and sold 20,000 copies. He realized then how bad his achievement was in comparison with Dave's. After listening to Dave's songs, he felt that this type of song shouldn't be too difficult to write, hence he made an attempt at writing in this style. The result came out in his song, "Do You Know I Am Waiting"(Ni Zhi Dao Wo Zai Deng Ni Ma) which became the most popular song in his album. Although this style was highly popular, it wasn't the style that Jeremy preferred.

In his album, "Guts of the Race"(Yao Zhong), his song, "Think Freely Eighteen Times" (Hu Xiang Shi Ba Ci) which contains 1800 characters, is the longest Chinese song ever created. While in New York, he created the shortest Chinese song in his album, "The Manhattan Bridge" (Qing Ding Ri Luo Qiao), called, "New York" (Niu Yue) with only 9 characters, "Broken Guitar, Worn Out City, Wish to Go Home" (Lan Ji Ta, Po Cheng Shi, Xiang Hui Jia).

In 1991, during the time when he was highly popular, he went to New York University to study filmmaking for one year. From 1995 to 2000, he returned to New York University for 4 more years and gained his master's degree in filming. His works included creating three music videos.


MY says:
Geez, it looks like Jeremy was homesick while in New York.

Composing and songwriting is like any other profession that requires creativity. Filmmakers, architects, interior designers, fashion designers, automobile designers, industrial furniture designers, programmers, etc., all have to lean their creation towards the liking of the person paying the money, the client. All too often I hear of students, all excited, getting ready to step out into the working world with their hard-earned education and their creative minds, only to be disappointed by their first, second, third and all other jobs afterwards. Money is what makes the world spin, though we may deny it at times. You have to be rich to create a film that you like and take the risk that others may not accept it. You have to be a rich architect to make a house that you and only you like. You get my drift?

Jeremy is a smart one though. He was able to steer his works in the path of the audience's taste. Good for you, Jeremy.


Source of info:
http://glsr.gov.cn/ent/news/shownews.asp?NewsID=91762