Yeah, it leaked. Again. Jay’s past two albums (Still Fantasy and 我很忙) have both been leaked early. I think Jay needs to toughen his record company’s internal security, haha.
魔杰座 (Capricorn) is Jay’s 9th album set to be released Oct. 9, 2008. Apparently the album is based on his interest in sorcery. Well, the album certainly has some weird tracks on it, reflecting this theme. I’m on my second run through the album. Here are my thoughts.
The tracks
- 稻香 (Fragrant Rice) – The song he released earlier on the radio and the one I posted a week ago. I really liked this back then and it turns out to be one of my favourites on the album. It’s a nice relaxing song.
- 魔傑座 (Capricorn) – The titular song of the album. Another one of my favourites. It starts with some dramatic instrumentals and goes into a rock track with hip hop influences. Along the same lines of 黃金甲 (Golden Armor). This is also another favourite.
- 女兒紅 (Red Girl) – The first ballad of the album. It’s a nice song, I like the chorus, but there’s a part in the verse that kind of bothers me.
- 東方之殿 (Temple of the Orient) – This is where it starts getting weird. This song sounds INDIAN. Yes. It’s a rap song with a chorus by a female voice (possibly Lara from 南拳媽媽, not sure). I really don’t know what to say about this. I’d classify it as one of the silly/experimental songs he always has in each album such as 牛仔很忙 (Cowboy is Busy) and 迷迭香 (Rosemary).
- 紅樓夢中 (In the Red Building Dream [lit.]) – A slow piano/guitar ballad. Its got a nice melody, but there’s something about his vocals that kind of bothers me.
- 失戀的青蛙 (The Frog that Lost Love) – A second silly/play-around song. It starts of with… yodelling. Yeah. It then goes into a circus-like tune. Yeah. No comment.
- 失落非主流 (No Clue What this Translates To) – Another ballad. I prefer this one to the others right now, its got a nice chorus.
- 從新愛 (From a New Love) – The 中國風 (Chinese-style) song of this album. In the same lines as 青花瓷 (Blue and White Porcelain) and 髮如雪 (Hair Like Snow). It’s got the 二胡 (erhu) playing to the a traditional Chinese melody. It’s a pretty good song, I like it. The verses showcase his lower vocal ranges, which he doesn’t use quite often.
- 大灌藍 (Big Slam Dunk) – Another weird song. It sounds… Western? With harmonica and guitar instrumentals. It’s okay, I don’t really like it though.
- 達芬奇的畫布 (Da Vinci’s Painting) – An upbeat, pop-rock song, similar to 陽光宅男 (Sunny Otaku) but slower and more melodic. It’s a pretty good relaxing song.
- 秘密花園 (Secret Garden) – The final song of the album and he ends it off with a weird song. I really don’t know how to describe it. Seriously. It’s got like a rap-ish verse, then some weird high pitched falsetto lead in to the chorus. The chorus isn’t bad, but its pretty weird. Not sure what genre to classify this as, haha.
That’s it. It’s a pretty odd album. To sum it up, I think the best tracks are: 稻香, 魔傑座, 失落非主流, 從新愛, and 達芬奇的畫布. To be honest, I was slightly disappointed with this album, especially with all those weird songs and a lack of a really memorable ballad. It might just be that the music needs to grow on me or that one of my favourites was not “new” because it was released previously. It’s a good album, but I was just expecting a bit more I guess.
I couldn’t find 魔傑座 yet so here’s 達芬奇的畫布:
Album download link:
http://www.sendspace.com/file/7phewg
Courtesy of Dreamstar @ http://broken-strings.net/melodies/
The password is dreamstar
an awesome review! i think you really hit the spot in your criticism of this new album lmfaaoooo. i’ve taken a particular liking to the first song, so i’ve been mainly listening to that one lmao.
OMG first song/single = *faint*
) GO JAYYYY for being a janurary 18th baby.
the second song is pretty cool. i agree with you.
and it’s not only because i’m also a capricorn (and so is hilary
have yet to listen to indian song. i’m scared. XD
The Indian song is so weird =(
By the way, the hong lou meng zhong song, PLEASE DO NOT TRANSLATE LITERALLY GODDAMMIT. Hong lou meng is a famous Chinese classic. It’s a love story. Even as a canto child, you should have heard of it.
SHAME.
TSCH.
PFFT.
Yes.
BTW if you want to know why I stopped at track number five, it’s because the yodelling in number six really freaked me out and I was like I AM GOING TO STOP HERE.
the circus song is awesome, hilary.
Oh right. One of those classics. I only know san guo yan yi, xi you ji and the water one lmfao.
The circus one is annoying, lmao. It reminds me of the cowboy song. There are some good songs after track 6. Lol.
actually i disagree with most of you, the weirdness of the album is what makes it good and unique, and not so mainstream as his previous album. no more of those boring generic love ballads, i give this album a 10, possibly his best album so far besides november’s chopin.
Hm, I see your point with the songs being less mainstream and I agree that On the Run and Still Fantasy were a little too similar. Change is good, but I guess I wasn’t expecting such a drastic stylistic change. Some of those songs came off as being sorta silly and joke-like to me. And yeah, November’s Chopin was one of his best though xD.
btw, jvr music confirmed the song titles are fake
Hm, fake? But the actual songs are real though?
yea the songs are real, just the names are fake
JVR is now saying that these aren’t the complete versions of the songs and are only demos… wth, they sound pretty complete to me
Interesting… wonder if the final album is gonna be any different.
is there anyway that you can reupload the album. it seems to have been removed
hey yo! the link tats for downloadin the full album seen to be removed, when u click on then link it say the file have been removed……some1 pls post other link tat can download the full album…=D ty in advance
apparently, jay chou has edited the songs because they leaked so early, so the final album will sound different from the leaked songs
“in order to go against the new songs being revealed early, the album is delayed till 15th, Jay Chou stressed: “I’m doing a reverse action, I’m not compromising with the pirates, releasing it early, instead we’re giving away more gifts, I’ll be taking out some audio tracks and doing new rearrangements.”