范特西 (2001)

Fantasy (Chinese: 范特西; pinyin: Fàn tè xī) is the second studio album by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou. It was released on 14 September 2001, by BMG Taiwan. Akin to his debut record, Fantasy was entirely composed and produced by Chou himself, while the lyrics were penned by him along with Vincent Fang and Vivian Hsu. Fantasy not only breaks new ground in Chou's production standards, but also matures in its creation. The album not only includes lyrical R&B songs, but also broadens his horizons to include other styles such as hip-hop, rock, rap and traditional Japanese music.

Fantasy received generally positive reviews from music critics, who complimented the album's production and praised the mixture of musical genres. Commercially, the album attained huge success in Greater China. The album sold over 460,000 copies in Taiwan, making it the country's best-selling album of 2001, as well as the fourth best-selling album in Taiwan of the 21st century. Fantasy is also credited for helping Chou buoy his popularity across the mainland China. The album has since sold over 1.7 million copies throughout Asia overall. Chou promoted the album by embarking on the Fantasy Tour, which ran from November 2001 to February 2002.

Background

On 7 November 2000, Chou released his debut album, Jay, which sold more than 250,000 copies in Taiwan. The album was a groundbreaking release, combining R&B, hip-hop, classical and Chinese style; which established Chou's image as a "Chou-esque" singer. After the success of his first solo album, Chou faced pressure from all sides but continued to do his own thing and produced the album Fantasy. In addition to producing and editing music albums for himself, Chou had also started composing music for other well-known singers such as S.H.E, Jordan Chan, Landy Wen, Jolin Tsai, Andy Lau, among others.

In 2000, Vivian Hsu's studio album Jiaban de Tianshi, which she devoted herself to creating, was a commercial failure, and she fell into a deep depression as a result. At this time, Chou, who was just starting out, listened carefully to Hsu's album and decided to invite her to compose songs for him. Therefore, Hsu wrote the lyrics for three songs for him, including "Simple Love."

Development and production

The album Fantasy is produced by Chou, with all the ten songs composed by him. For lyrics, Chou is responsible for two of the songs, while the rest of the lyrics are written by Vincent Fang and Vivian Hsu respectively. During the creative process of Fantasy, Chou put various creative ideas such as nostalgia, love, domestic violence, and martial arts into the songs. The record company also attached great importance to this album; not only did they make music videos for all ten songs in the album, but they also promoted it extensively across the country and even across Asia, hoping to push Chou's music to a new peak. Chou was personally very worried that the album's performance would not be as good as he had hoped; therefore, he was under a lot of pressure.