The Faye Wong Era was the highest professional level in the Chinese music industry (2010)
by Liu Yangzi
Zhang Yadong once said in an interview: “When I recorded with Faye Wong in the past, she sang many songs in one take and left. There was no need to redo or repair…. Nowadays, many singers often have to record a song twenty times and then I fix it and apply effects word by word. It is simply torture.”
Over the past decade or so, recording technology has advanced by leaps and bounds while singing standards have been lowered again and again. But even in an era when professional singers had to have talent and luck, Faye Wong’s ability is also a benchmark. Faye Wong, who retired after releasing her last studio album “To Love” in 2003, represents the highest professional level of Chinese pop singers in the 1990s. Her voice was extremely beautiful, bright and full. She learned the superb skills of European and American alternative pop singers. She never claimed credit. She always had natural talent.
At the 1998 Spring Festival Gala, Faye Wong and Na Ying sang “Meet in 1998”, which made many older people at that time exclaim: “Faye Wong sings really well!” They may not have had a sense for pop music and their standards for vocals came from the likes of Guo Lanying and Li Guyi, but they were surprised to find that the singing level of this “Hong Kong and Taiwan singer” Faye Wong was not beneath them.
During that time period, Faye Wong was preparing for her upcoming album “Sing and Play”. In October of 1998, Faye Wong with her sunburn makeup dominated all over. This album cover became Faye Wong’s most well-known symbolic logo. The double harvest of sales and critical acclaim also allowed Faye Wong to become the “Heavenly Queen".
Why did Faye Wong become the “Heavenly Queen”? Was it because she was unique and ahead of her time? To describe her uniqueness, we need to use the era as a reference.
1. When Faye Wong Appeared
Faye Wong’s stage name when she debuted was Wang Jingwen [Wong Jing Man] and her corresponding English name was Shirley. “Mainland Girl” Faye Wong was given this stage name in order to try her best to get close to the sensibilities of the Hong Kong audience. “Shirley” was also the name of Guan Shuyi [Kwan Suk Yee], one of the big sisters at the time. In 1989, Hong Kong music listeners’ favorites were Shirley Kwan, Vivian Chow, and Sandy Lam.
Shirley Kwan and the others were the leading female singers in Hong Kong. Nowadays, with the help of MP3, we don’t have to scramble for old records and we can immediately hear Shirley Kwan’s warm and mellow voice. The mainstream pop music in Hong Kong during the late 1980s and early 1990s, especially by female artists, put the emphasis on vocals before musicality in production. The goal of Faye Wong’s first three albums “Wang Jingwen”, “Everything” and “You’re the Only One” was to make Faye Wong, who had a good voice, approach the level of Shirley Kwan and Vivian Chow in sound performance and aesthetic as much as possible, to please the mainstream market and to gain recognition by the audience.
Faye Wong’s singing skills were well received by some Hong Kong audiences, but the label of “Mainland Girl” hindered her acceptance by Hong Kong people. Although “However That Day” and “Still The Same Old Phrase” are familiar songs today, and “You’re the Only One” also showed her explosive power, few Hong Kong people were willing to admit that they liked this Beijing girl who did not yet have accurate Cantonese pronunciation.
In 1992, after releasing three albums, Faye Wong decided to leave the music industry temporarily and go to the United States to study. One of the main reasons was that the newly appointed owner of Cinepoly Records was completely at odds with her personality. “I won’t sing if I’m not happy,” she said.
In the United States, Faye Wong regained her confidence. Upon her return, she released the Cantonese album “Coming Home”, in which the song “Fragile Woman” received a strong response and was recognized by Hong Kong people in one fell swoop.
In 1993, Faye Wong released “One Hundred Thousand Whys?" Although the album cover still said "Wang Jingwen”, she had increasingly faced the media under her real name “Faye Wong”, and she was also credited as a songwriter under her real name. This conflicting duality is considered to be a manifestation of her deliberately “digging into herself” and taking the initiative to shed the false commercial music facade. Of course, this is only a theory in hindsight. The reason at the time may also be that it is just Faye Wong’s style and she did it for fun.
2. Transformation Into An Alternative Female Singer
With the help of “One Hundred Thousand Whys?”, Faye Wong had a greater degree of freedom in record production. The album title had a strong mainland China cultural background. Hong Kong audiences actually didn’t know that this title was a reference to a well-known popular science book in mainland China. She sang a cover of “Silent All These Years” by Tori Amos, an alternative female singer. The Chinese version called “Cold War” was written by Lin Xi and became a masterpiece of pop music in the 1990s. Faye Wong’s interpretation added more intricate femininity to the original song and the subtle respite became a bonus. Faye Wong’s name began to become synonymous with the word “alternative”.
Since this album, the musicality of Faye Wong’s albums became more and more literary. Each album expressed pop music in a way that was unheard of by the public, and each album raised her status in the recording industry and became steps for her to become a heavenly queen.
In “Random Thoughts”, Faye Wong covered “Dreams” by the Irish band The Cranberries called “Dream Person” in Chinese. Although the style was almost the same as Dolores O'Riordan, the lead singer of the band, this unique and fresh pronunciation made Chinese listeners stunned. The album also contains a pop song called “Pledge” co-written by Dou Wei with a new mainland music style. It is smooth and beautiful, and it also clearly reflects the influence of Dou Wei at that time. In addition, the song “Sleepwalk” is also a masterpiece.
The album “Sky” vividly expressed the aimless inspiration of Faye Wong’s voice. Songs such as “Sky”, “Devotion”, and “Reserved” are too pure. The word “sing” was rediscovered by music critics and listeners under Faye Wong. Huang Shujun’s “Angel” and Dou Wei’s “Pledge” which reappeared here, also added some changes to the rhythm of the album.
“Please Yourself” has a clever album title. The rap song “Exit” reflected Hong Kong’s mentality about 1997 at the time. Songs such as “Committing Crime” and “Float” are very modern, and are clearly different from traditional Hong Kong music. This temperament also enriched Faye Wong’s public image. Her image was unique in the system of mass entertainment. This album also included popular traditional songs such as “The Brink of Love and Pain” and “Simplicity Is Most Romantic”. The release of “Simplicity Is Most Romantic” had no response at the time, but many years later the Mandarin version suddenly became popular, proving that even her second-rate songs also have potential.
The subsequent release of “Di-Dar” adopted the same two-character song titles as “Sky”. “Di-Dar” also possessed the same spirit. “Lost”, “Ambiguous” and Liu Yida’s “Shooting Star” have all become songs that are essential when talking about Hong Kong pop music. In the two years from 1994 to 1995, Faye Wong released no less than 7 albums, which had some repeated songs, but their high production and quality are undeniable. At that time, Faye Wong was very energetic, wandering between several creative teams in Beijing and Hong Kong, engaging in different styles simultaneously with ease, producing wonderful songs for fans.
In 1996, Faye Wong released the album “Fuzao”, which was the farthest thing from the mainstream pop music scene. This legendary album was produced by Dou Wei and Zhang Yadong. Influenced by Dou Wei’s “Sunny Days” period, it extremely downplays lyrics and emphasizes fragmented consciousness. “Split” and “Imagination” carry the genes of the 4AD sound especially the Cocteau Twins. Songs such as “Fuzao” and “Wild Three Hills” were the continuation of “Beijing-style Western music”. Faye Wong’s own lyrics in “Impermanence” is like the cult version of “Seeing the Chimney Smoke Again”. “Degenerate”, “Doomsday”, and “Disappointment” are beyond the imagination of mainstream pop music. Fragile, neurotic, and wicked notes were strung together in an apocalyptic revelry, all turned upside down. Faye Wong here became less like a singer and more like a voice-over in a dream.
“Fuzao” is a record that does not belong to the Hong Kong pop music era. Naturally, it suffered poor sales but received high praise from critics. Faye Wong’s innovation in the Hong Kong music industry ended here. She successfully implanted the alternative female voice that emerged in the early 1990s. With her preference of Brit Pop and Dream Pop elements that she infused into her works, she achieved success and subverted the Hong Kong pop music industry to a certain extent. After “Fuzao”, Faye Wong moved to EMI. Although her subsequent albums were more mature, refined and beautiful, and her singing reached another level, from then on, Faye Wong’s heart was difficult to find.
3. The Exquisite and Mature Heavenly Queen
In 1997, she released the self-titled album “Faye Wong”, which contained a popular song “You’re Happy (So I’m Happy)” and a British-style rock pop song “Bored”. The attitude reflected in the lyrics became the endorsement of feminism at the end of the century. The album also included hits such as “Mortal World” and “I Don’t Want To Be Like This Either”.
The production of “Sing and Play” in 1998 was extremely rich. “Emotional Life” and “Sex Commandments” are both strange and beautiful tunes. A series of folk songs such as “Can’t Wake Up”, “You”, and “Fly” also added to the overall warm and dreamy atmosphere of the album. The hottest single was “Red Beans”. The phrase “nothing will be immortal” in this lingering love song was suspected of political incorrectness. The subtitle was once changed when it was sung on a live broadcast on CCTV.
During this same period, Faye Wong held the “Scenic Tour” concerts. In this series of concerts, Faye Wong was in her prime. From song selection to band support, Faye Wong possessed the most star-studded resources in the Chinese music circle, which was amazing. Needless to say, the recording of “Scenic Tour” was the best live version of Faye Wong.
The cover of 1999’s “Only Love Strangers” was Faye Wong’s sexiest. At the end of the century, the European electronic music boom was flourishing, and “Spectacular” was an electronic attempt by Faye Wong’s team. In this album, Faye Wong continued to collaborate with producers from both Beijing and Hong Kong. The album includes the song “Hypnosis” by Guo Liang, the guitarist of the band Compass, and “Only Love Strangers” by Zhang Yadong, as well as “Last Blossom” and “A Hundred Years of Solitude” by CY Kong from Hong Kong, and Adrian Chan’s “Butterfly”. All were a blend of a variety of popular music styles. At that time, Faye Wong was going through a divorce from Dou Wei and the media paid more attention to her private life than her music.
In 2000, “Fable” was an album that should have been divided in two. The first five songs (all with three character titles) were part of an epic produced by Zhang Yadong. These five songs should have been released in a separate collection. They were bound to become the second “Fuzao”. After the first half of the album, the style changed in the second half and it became a continuation of Hong Kong-style pop. Among them, “Goodbye Firefly” is a musical masterpiece, and songs such as “I Won’t Love Anyone Who Doesn’t Love Me” and “Your Likes Are Not as Important as Mine” also became hot topics.
These four albums constituted the essence of when Faye Wong was the heavenly queen, that is, the combination of high quality pop music of Beijing and Hong Kong and golden karaoke songs. At this time, Faye Wong’s singing was extremely progressive and unmatched by her peers. While the music taste of Faye Wong’s songs challenged the public’s listening habits, it was not unpleasant and achieved a complex and charming temperament. But at this time, the overall feeling was that Faye Wong’s albums could no longer be compared with that of “Sky” and “Fuzao”. Although she had achieved greater commercial success, she was already regressing in the area of pioneering music ideas. The later “Faye Wong” (2001) and the pre-retirement “To Love” albums were not as special and only routine.
From going to Hong Kong in 1989 to retiring in 2003, Faye Wong went through 14 years of her career as a professional singer. From imitating Teresa Teng to finding a balance between her personal taste and the public’s taste, and finally achieving her unique idol status. Her success includes not only the success of music, but also the success of the market. She did it with her complicated personal temperament and exceeded the public’s expectations. But in the final analysis, maybe it was just all for a little bit of fun.
4. What Did Faye Wong Leave Behind?
It is not an exaggeration to say that Faye Wong ended an era. Her retirement coincided with the decline of the pop music industries in Hong Kong and Taiwan. After her withdrawal, the golden years of the music industries in Hong Kong and Taiwan are gone. Taiwan has the lone singer-songwriter Jay Chou and only Eason Chan can receive praise from audiences and critics in Hong Kong, and the state of female singers is terrible. Faye Wong seems to be a special case because no one has been able to pick up what she left behind.
Some mainstream pop music can contend with alternative music to a certain extent. But in recent years, mainstream pop music has not been capable of competing with niche and independent/alternative music. Faye Wong dared to boldly use influences from European and American music that was compatible with herself and went against the audience’s expectations. It seems that this has never appeared again in the Chinese mainstream pop music world. With the popularity of independent bands after 2004, this division became clearer. Due to the decline in the profitability of the recording industry, the recording industry spends less money on risky music projects. The mainstream music industry has repeatedly retreated and become extremely conservative. Its ability to discover newcomers is also deteriorating. The quality of pop music has decreased and so did singing skills. Nowadays, even a newcomer with only passable singing skills will gain attention. As Zhang Yadong said at the beginning of this article, it has become a process of piecing together a song and applying effects word by word. The music industry has gradually declined and the number of stars is not as great as before.
What Faye Wong left behind was a legendary mentality that “personal singers are supreme”. This conforms to her own wishes but does not conform to the general practices in business. What Faye Wong left behind is more than just countless albums and songs. All the record companies she has signed with have benefited from this. Faye Wong was the last figure of the golden age of Hong Kong pop music. She represents the highest level of pop music production, the highest level of vocal performance by singers, and the peak of pop culture in the entertainment industry.
The golden age of pop music ended in the 1990s, lingered at the beginning of the new century, and then died. Fortunately, sound recordings can be preserved and can span the ages, and good songs can remain “new” over time. Although today’s pop music listeners are far from the lively 90s, when the dust settles, they will be more motivated to carefully appreciate the past.
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SOURCE: SINA // TRANSLATED BY: FAYE WONG FUZAO
