杰伦 (2000)

Jay (traditional Chinese: 杰倫; simplified Chinese: 杰伦; pinyin: Jié lún) is the debut studio album by Taiwanese singer Jay Chou. It was released on 7 November 2000, by BMG Taiwan. It was entirely produced and composed by Chou, with lyrics written by Chou alongside his creative partners Vincent Fang and Vivian Hsu. Musically, the record incorporates popular music genres such as pop, hip-hop, R&B, and adult contemporary.

Jay received highly positive reviews from music critics; it is retrospectively credited for starting a whole new era of C-Pop music and is seen as one of the most impactful albums from Greater China of the 21st century. Commercially, the album was a success, shipping over 250,000 copies in Taiwan, and became the top seller for four consecutive months. It finished as one of the highest-selling albums of 2001 in the country, and is one of the best-selling albums in Taiwan of the 21st century. The album also earned an IFPI Hong Kong Top Sales Music Award for Top 10 Best Selling Mandarin Albums of the Year in 2001.

Background and development

In September 1997, Chou was discovered by Jacky Wu at a talent show and joined Wu's record company Alpha Music as a music production assistant. However, no singer was willing to accept the songs that Chou wrote. In December 1999, Wu told Chou that if he could write 50 songs in 10 days, he would help him select 10 songs to make an album. In the end, Chou completed it as promised. He single-handedly took care of the production, composition, and chorus writing of 10 songs, the arrangement of three songs, and the lyrics of two songs, creating his first album.

In July 2000, Chou showed the demo of "Adorable Lady" to JR Yang. JR Yang praised him and planned an album for him. The lyricism, composition, chorus, and guitar of "Starry Mood" were all done by Chou himself, with the song being submitted to Forward Music before 2000. Huang Shu-Jun, who was signed to Forward Music at the time, felt that the song was very well written and expressed to the company that he wanted to sign a contract with Chou, but when he wanted to use this song later, Chou had already started recording the album Jay.

When Chou created the song "Wife", he improvised a rap, and the words of the rap were extended to a passage in the song. This incident made Vincent Fang very angry. Fang felt that he could write another rap. Chou also insisted that the improvised version was the most perfect. If it was re-recorded, it would lose its original flavor, and Fang had to compromise in the end. "Tornado" was originally a sincere work dedicated to Jacky Wu by Chou when he debuted, but it was withdrawn on the grounds of unsuitability, and finally placed on the LP. Chou asked his colleague and mentor, Hsu, to write the lyrics of "Tornado" for him. He has gone on record saying that Hsu is a lovely woman, very talented, and writes imaginative lyrics that fit his songs. The best place she could be when writing lyrics for Chou was on the airplane; the lyrics to "Tornado" came to her partly on the plane, so she hurriedly wrote them on a sickbag.