Jolin Tsai

Jolin Tsai (Chinese: 蔡依林; pinyin: Cài Yīlín; Wade-Giles: Tsai I-lin; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chhoà I-lîm), born September 15th, 1980, is a Golden Melody Award winning Taiwanese mandopop singer. She is one of the most successful and popular singers in the Mandarin music market. 1998-2001: Universal Music Tsai started out by taking part in a MTV singing competition at the age of 18. She won the top prize at the competition with her rendition of Whitney Houston's #1 hit "Greatest Love of All". She was then signed by Universal Music. On July 1999, her first single "Living With the World" (和世界做鄰居) was released. It was sold in convenience stores and was a tremendous success, which led to the release of her first album, Jolin 1019, on September 1999. At that time, she was packaged as "The Girl Next Door," and was an instant hit with teenagers, earning her the title "Teenage Boy Killer". Jolin 1019 ended up selling more than 400,000 copies in Asia. With the success of her first album, she released her anticipated second album in May 2000, Don't Stop. Many of the hits from that album were well-known throughout Asia and the album was also a tremendous success. She also released her first photobook with pictures mainly taken in Hawaii. Tsai's image changed for her third album, Show Your Love. Nearing the age of 21, she released an album that was much more mature and soothing. However, the album did not sell as well as her last two albums. Her fourth album, Lucky Number, was not able to bring her back to the same level of popularity either. The following year, due to conflicts with her record company, Tsai did not release any albums. She did, however, release her second photo book, with photos taken in Thailand. At the end of 2001, Tsai's contract with Universal Music ended and her first greatest hits compilation, Together, was released. 2002-2006: Sony BMG Jolin Tsai signed with Sony Music that year and got the biggest break of her whole career. The first single released was the track "Spirit Of The Knight" (騎士精神), which became a big hit and led to the highly anticipated release of her album Magic (看我72變). The album turned out to be a success, topping the Taiwan album charts for three months and selling more than 300,000 copies in Taiwan alone. The album has sold over a million copies in Asia. The album boasted many of her most well-known singles, including the hit dance song that brought Tsai back to the top of the charts "See My 72 Changes" (看我72變), a song which has been suggested to have been named after The The Monkey King's 72 transformations. Other songs from the album, such as the extremely popular "Say Love You" (說愛你) and several others, including the hit "Prague Square" (布拉格廣場) were penned by fellow Taiwan mega star Jay Chou (周杰倫). The new image she presented for this album was more playful and sexy than before and her music became more dance-oriented. This transformation gave her what she needed to make a comeback to the music scene after being gone for almost a year. Tsai's sixth album, Castle (城堡), was just as popular as its predecessor and became a top album in many Asian countries. Just as with Magic, many songs on this album were written by Jay Chou, her rumored boyfriend at that time. Two of these songs, the cute and playful "It's Love" (就是愛) and the moving rock ballad "Rewind" (倒帶), became two of Tsai's biggest hits. Prior to the album's release, she showcased her single "Pirates" (海盜), another song composed by Jay Chou, at a mini-concert. She later filmed one of the most expensive music videos in Taiwanese history for the song. This album also featured many other hit songs including the main upbeat dance track "36 Tricks of Love" (愛情36計), the sad love ballads "The Smell of Lemon Grass" (檸檬草的味道) and "Disappearing Castle" (消失的城堡), and "Love Love Love", a Mandarin cover of the Ukrainian song "Stop! Stop! Stop!" by Nu Virgos. Tsai also wrote the lyrics to the song "The Starter" (始作俑者). Between Castle and her next studio album, Tsai released a CD of remixes called "J9 Party Collection". This remix album featured two new songs including the hit song "Signature Pose" and remixes of Tsai's most popular dance songs. A medley of her dance hits was also included on the album. In 2003, Tsai sang the Mandarin version of "Mirage (Warriors In Peace)", the theme song for the film Warriors of Heaven and Earth. On April 25th, 2005, Tsai seventh album J-Game was released, also topping charts throughout Asia and making her extremely popular in Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, and Singapore. Not only did the album become the longest running album on the Taiwanese album charts in 2005, it also sold over 1 million copies throughout Asia in little over a month. The album featured many more hip-hop influenced tracks than before, though it retained the dance pop and love ballads that made her famous. Though she supposedly broke up with Jay Chou around the time the album was recorded, Tsai was able to find many other writers and producers for this album, including another huge pop star, leehom wang (王力宏). One of the songs he penned for Jolin, "Exclusive Myth" (獨佔神話), was included on the album. The first single of the album "Barbaric Game" (野蠻遊戲) was a huge hit across Asia and it was followed by several other strong singles including "The Greek Girl Next To The Wishing Pond" (許願池的希臘少女) (composed by rising Hong Kong singer Ivana Wong (王菀之)), "Sky" (天空), "Repeat Signs" (反覆記號), "I Really Miss You" (好想你) and "Eyes Half Shut" (睜一隻眼 閉一隻眼). The music video of the latter song presented a much sexier image of Tsai than ever seen before. During this time, Tsai also rapped on a smash duet with her good friend Show Luo called "The Real Chosen One". Late in 2005, Tsai released her J1 Live Concert DVD, featuring performances from a concert she did in Taipei in late 2004. Her biggest hits from her first two albums with Sony were performed. Luo makes a guest appearance in the performance of "Prove It". The concert also had a guest appearance by Jay Chou, where he danced together with Jolin, however this part was not included in the DVD. It was later placed in the DVD for her greatest hits compilation, J-Top. In early 2006 it was announced that Tsai would be leaving Sony BMG, the record company that helped elevate her to superstar status, and joining EMI Capitol. Since her début and through her years at Sony, Tsai progressed very quickly in becoming an excellent dancer and performer. To prepare for her new album, Tsai worked very hard to perfect her dancing and change-up her style yet again. This was clear at the 2006 MTV Asia Awards where she performed her hot new single "Dancing Diva".(舞孃). with elements of yoga and using various props including a ball and a ribbon. She also won the Style Award during the ceremony, demonstrating the influence she has in Asia. In May, 2006, Sony released a greatest hits compilation album called J-Top, which included two CDs and a DVD with new and previously unreleased music videos and a 70 minute documentary on Tsai's time at Sony. The compilation featured many of her best songs from the albums she released under Sony. There were two new songs included on the album, one of which featured a music video where Tsai looks back on all her old music videos. 2006-2009: Capitol Records After the release of J-Top, her first album with Capitol, Dancing Diva was released on May 12, 2006. This album became Tsai's biggest album yet, selling over 2 million copies in Asia. The album featured some of her most popular and sexiest dance songs ever, including the title track "Dancing Diva" (舞孃), "Pulchritude" (玩美), "Mr.Q" (the music video for this song shows a very sexy Tsai getting intimate with Hong Kong pop star Edison Chen (陳冠希), and the bonus track "Attraction of Sexy Lips"(唇唇欲動) (a song she did as part of an endorsement deal with MaxFactor which is almost close to Anita Mui's song "Hot Red Lips"). The album also featured two of the biggest hits in Asia during the year: the fun and upbeat "A Wonder in Madrid" (馬德里不思議)and the touching love ballad "Pretence" (假裝). She collaborated with good friend and labelmate Stanley Huang (黃立行) on the song "Nice Guy" (乖乖牌), which he also helped to write. Tsai also had some writing duties on the album, writing the lyrics for the song "The Prologue" (開場白), which many speculate was written about Jay Chou. The album was re-released in July as the "Perfect Celebration Edition" with a DVD featuring music videos of all eleven songs on the album. She has done the same thing for Magic, Castle, and J-Game as well. During the fall of 2006, Tsai began her Dancing Forever World Tour, performing concerts to sellout crowds in Asia. The huge opening concert in Hong Kong, which took place on her birthday, featured many special guests, including one of Hong Kong's top male artists Eason Chan (陳奕迅), Taiwan's rising pop princess rainie yang (楊丞琳, and Show Luo (羅志祥). Show Luo and Huang also made surprise appearances in other stops of her tour, however, the most shocking moment was when she kissed fellow Taiwanese diva Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) on the lips during one of her concerts. Tsai made guest appearances at her friend Stefanie Sun's concerts, while she and popular Singaporean male artist JJ Lin took turns appearing at each other's concerts. Tsai released another album, Dancing Forever (唯舞獨尊) in October 2006. It features two CDs and a DVD. The first disc has all new material, including the title track and theme for her tour: "Dancing Forever". Covers of songs by Chinese divas Sandy Lam (林憶蓮) and Faye Wong (王菲) and a duet called "Marry Me Today" (今天你要嫁給我)she recorded with her idol and mentor David Tao (陶喆), are also included. Furthermore, she experimented with two other dialects - Taiwanese and Cantonese (the Canto version of "Pretence" is on the album). Up to this point, she had only released music in Mandarin and English. The second disc features remixes of three dance hits from Dancing Diva, while the DVD features the LUX sponsored mini-concert she performed in the summer in Kaohsiung. It features Huang and Taiwanese guy group Energy A month later, Sony released another 2 CD compilation album called Jolin Favorite Live Concert Music Selection. This album consists of remixes of popular songs Jolin recorded under Sony, as well as rare live tracks. Tsai ended 2006 on a high note, performing hits like "Mr.Q", "A Wonder in Madrid", "Pretence" and "Dancing Diva" at several New Year countdown parties in Taiwan. Furthermore, according to g-music, Dancing Diva became the biggest selling album of the year in Taiwan, while Dancing Forever reached #15 on the year-end album sales charts. Dancing Diva accounted for 4.26% of all Mandarin album sales in Taiwan for the year, ahead of Jay Chou's Still Fantasy, which placed second and accounted for 3.50%. Tsai's singles also topped year-end charts, particularly her extremely popular duet with David Tao, which is considered by many lists to be the #1 song of the year in Taiwan. Singles like "Dancing Diva," "Pretence," and "A Wonder in Madrid" were also the winners of many song awards at the end of 2006 and the start of 2007. Tsai released The Acquired Talent (地才) (DVD, photobook and poster) on June 8, 2007, which featured performances from her latest world tour and documented her hard work and perseverance in preparing for the tour. The DVD shows footage of her performing dance sequences with concert guests Luo, Huang, and Elva Hsiao. The DVD opened at the top of the Taiwanese audio/video charts and stayed there for thirteen weeks. It is said that her new album will be coming out in mid-August or September. On June 16th, Tsai finally won at the most prestigious music awards show in Taiwan. She received the Most Favorite Female Artist and the Best Female Singer awards at the 18th Annual Golden Melody Awards. Furthermore, her duet with David Tao won the Best Song award. Tsai's win for Best Female Singer has drawn some criticisms from netizens and industry critics due to her voice not being as strong as the other nominees, however, many say that she won due to her all-round talent, hard work, and universal pop appeal. Regardless of the controversy surrounding this award, her other award for Most Favorite Female Artist shows the immense popularity she has around the world as the award was voted on by the fans for a couple of months before the awards show. She beat out many other huge pop stars like, Fish Leong (梁靜茹), Sun, Hsiao, Twins, A-mei, Yang, and others. Just a few days before the release of Tsai's new album at Capitol Records, Sony released another compilation album, Jolin's Final Wonderland (Jolin夢綺地精選). This collection is the most comprehensive, featuring almost all the songs Tsai released during her time at Sony. The album includes three CDs (songs are separated into dance songs, cute songs, and love ballads), as well as a DVD with 22 music videos and a 52-page photo book. Tsai's second album with Capitol Records, titled Agent J (特務J), was released on September 21st, 2007. The album features eleven new tracks and the bonus track "Let's Move It," which was used as a promotional track in commercials for Toyota. The deluxe version of the album features a 3-part 70-minute music movie filmed in France, London, and Bangkok. The movie, costing NT 50 million to film, stars Tsai as the leather-clad Agent J and features popular Korean actor Kim Jae Won and Hong Kong stars Stephen Fung and Carl Ng. During the filming of the movie, Tsai had to learn two new forms of dance in 10 days: aerial silk dancing and pole dancing, almost paralyzing her right arm and causing her to faint in the process. Hits from the album include the title track "Agent J" (特務J), the ballads "Alone" (一個人) and "Fear Free" (怕什麼), and the dance tracks "Bravo Lover" (愛無赦)(best known for its often-imitated dance steps) and "Tacit Violence" (冷‧暴力). According to g-music Taiwan, the album accounted for 45% of album sales and over 65% of Mandarin album sales in Taiwan in its first week of release. Since its release, the album had stayed at the #1 position for two weeks. For the first time, Tsai released two more versions of the album: the Champion Special Edition (featuring 10 music videos, 4 dance instruction music videos, and a remix of Bravo Lover) and the No. 1 Special Celebration Edition (featuring the "Let's Move It" music video and her "Agent J" celebration concert featuring the best male artist at the Golden Melody Awards, Nicky Lee from Taiwanese hip-hop group Machi). Tsai then collaborated with Australian pop queen, Kylie Minogue in a song called "In My Arms", which would be included in the Asian version of Kylie's album X. Tsai was invited to the world première of Kylie's movie 'White Diamond', where Tsai presented Kylie with her newest album and a jade bracelet which she personally picked for her. Soon after, Tsai traveled to Hong Kong for Christmas, attending various functions and performing and winning three awards at the 2007 Metro Showbiz Music Awards, before returning to Taiwan. Once again, Tsai ended off the year performing hits in Taiwan to celebrate the end of 2007. For the second year in a row, Tsai had the best-selling album in Taiwan. According to g-music, sales of Agent J accounted for 3.08% of all album sales in Taiwan and 5.96% of Chinese albums for the year, even higher than the numbers for Dancing Diva a year ago. Agent J also topped the year-end album charts according to Five Music, while The Acquired Talent was the best-selling music DVD of the year. Like the previous year, Tsai also topped the Hito Top 100 Singles chart for the year. This time her song "Sun Will Never Set" was voted to be the top song of the year by over 340,000 voters. In April 2008, Tsai incorporated newly learnt skills such as flying rings and pole dance in addition to her usual multi-style dances in her concert in Beijing's Workers' Gymnasium. Tsai's first English album Love Exercise (愛的練習語) was released in November. The album features covers of 10 popular English songs such as "I Won't Last A Day Without You" and "Lady Marmalade". This marked her first full-fledged venture into the English music territory. However, the lack of promotional activities leading up to the release of the album and the fact that it was pushed back from its original release date in March, contributed to lower-than-expected sales volume being recorded. Because Tsai was not active in the Chinese music market during the 2008, Jolin was not on the year-end music charts. This broke her streak of having the year's best-selling album in Taiwan as Dancing Diva and Agent J topped the charts in 2006 and 2007. Love Exercise would mark Tsai's last studio release with Capitol. Similar to how Sony released a J-Top when she left the label for Capitol, Capitol also released a greatest hits compilation to mark the end of Jolin's contract with them. Jeneration Collection 2006-2009 (J世紀Jeneration 大牌新曲+精選盤2006-2009), a 2CD compilation of songs from Dancing Diva, Dancing Forever, and Agent J was released in February, packaged with a 416 page photo book with over 555 photos of the "goddess of a thousand faces." The album hit #2 on the album charts, while J-Top hit #1 back in 2006. 2009-Present: Warner Music Jolin's new Mandarin album, Butterfly (花蝴蝶), was released on March 27th. This was her first official full-fledged album after joining Warner Music. Early images that were released indicated that the album's image would be based on the concept of a "colorful butterfly", namely it being colorful and able to fly freely without worries. It is of her view that the songs in the album seek to encourage her fans to follow their dreams and not allow anything to hold them back from succeeding, thus the meaning of "flying high, flying freely" just like a butterfly. The production costs of Butterfly reached a new high – the 16 promotional outfits cost $2.5 million and the 6 most beautiful outfits were specially ordered from America. The album's first plug, entitled "Real Man" (大丈夫) was released and features Taiwanese rapper Nick, and was announced as the first single of the album. The album's subsequent singles, and the ballad "Compromise" (妥協)the title track "Butterfly" (花蝴蝶) were released soon after and announced as the 2nd and 3rd single respectively. The music video for "Butterfly" features Jolin's new dance skill, ballet pirouettes, while the video for "Compromise" features one of Taiwan's biggest idol actors, Ethan Ruan. The final track on the album, "Hot Winter" (熱冬; 热冬), is a cover of a Monroe's song called "Hot Summer," written by Thomas Troelsen. After almost two years off the Chinese music charts, Jolin was back at the top. According to g-music Taiwan, the album accounted for 37% of all album sales in Taiwan and a whopping 68% of Chinese music sales in Taiwan in its first week.[26] So far in 2009, Butterfly Jolin has the largest first-week sales of any artist. Its first week-sales are also greater than the first-week sales of last year's best-selling album, Poetry of the Day After... by Taiwanese band Mayday. So far the album has spent two weeks on the top of the sales charts, outselling BoA in its second week but being overtaken by TVXQ in its third week."Slow Life" (愈慢愈美麗) and "My Reliance" (我的依賴) became the 4th and 5th single of the album respectively. Her new song, "Slow Life" (愈慢愈美麗) has been used by almost 3000 schools in Taiwan as their recess song to replace the bell ring. Jolin had recently injured her waist while holding a "school tour" in Taiwan. Due to the injury, Warner Music had announced that she will be taking a 2 month break from her work. In May 2009, she was invited as one of the special guests of her good friend Stefanie Sun's "The Answer Is.." world tour. She then performed a duet of the song "First Day"(第一天) with Stefanie in the concert. 2009-Present: Seventy Two Changes Jolin launched her own brand of apparel, Seventy Two Changes, during Fashion Week in New York City, inspired by the star’s own distinctive style. The designs for the clothings sold under this brand are specially designed by Jolin herself. Fundraising After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Tsai was one of the first few artists to give to the Earthquake Relief Fund. She, together with Jay Chou, S.H.E, Jiang Hui and over 100 celebrities appeared in the “Send Out Your Love” fundraising disaster relief show on the 18th of May to help raise more funds to help the victims.