Like many singers today, Zhou Shen's main method of releasing his music is singles rather than albums.
However, the density of his singles released is so high that other singers can only sigh: check the catalogue of his works, and maintain an annual output of at least 30 singles in 2020 and 2021, and he has released 5 singles in January this year. head!
What is even more remarkable is that almost all of these song titles are suffixed with "theme song", and their sources cover a wide range of fields such as movies, TV series, games, animations, documentaries, celebrations, and sports events.
In the epic drama "The World", when Zhou Shen sang "Light Word Pieces", he was always soft and gentle, just like a heated kang in winter. He warmed the times under the changes of the times in the fireworks of "tiles, cooking smoke, scarves, hairpins". Ordinary people.
Zhou Shen is neither a music veteran nor a traffic idol, why did he find him all the time to speak for him?
Now that the culture is divided and there are many dimension walls, how can Zhou Shen wander freely and form bonds?
We might as well go back to the starting point of "Sound", the "Zhou Shen phenomenon", to find out.
Sophisticated vocal "craftsmanship"
Zhou Shen entered the public eye with two iconic events: he participated in "The Voice of China" in 2014, and sang "Big Fish" in 2016.
In the "Good Voice" program, Zhou Shen showed Qi Yu's ethereal and poignant voice with "Huan Yan".
We are not unfamiliar with the singing methods of male and female voices, but Zhou Shen is so smooth and natural, it is rare.
In "Big Fish" two years later, Zhou Shen not only showed an ethereal and pure voice, but also in the back part of the song when he chanted without words, his voice was as fantastic and charming as a sea monster, and the magnificent and penetrating singing seemed to from an alien space.
At this time, Zhou Shen's singing can no longer be simply defined by "female voice" and "reverse string", and a unique Zhou Shen-style singing method is taking shape.
The formation of Zhou Shen's singing style is based on talent and talent, and it has the bonus of hard work.
The voice-changing period did not have much impact on his voice. He not only retained the clear and sweetness of a child's voice, but also had the strength of an adult. He could also sing the timbre of an adult male's voice, which made his voice change in many ways. There is no obvious change point in the sound zone, and it is not limited by the sound range.
When he sang the song "Dalabang Bar", he can control the sound range of more than three octaves freely, and can play five roles by one person, and freely switch between the timbres of men, women and children.
In singing, he used the trump card of "coloratura soprano" and used continuous skipping in the high-pitched area as the Huacai section. This kind of bel canto skills are not acquired by talent, but the result of hard training.
Zhou Shen was born in the Bel Canto law school, and singing a gorgeous falsetto tenor is like picking things out of a bag. This foundation is used in the opera paragraph at the end of the song "Shallow", and when he sang "Time to Say Goodbye" in the "Sound into the Heart" program and other works. Wonderful show; but what he used before was a translucent and soft vocal method that highlighted the soft whisper-like texture of pop singing. This aura singing method not only amplifies the beauty of his pure timbre itself, but also creates a warm and lyrical atmosphere.
Zhou Shen's technical research is to organically combine the two. He deliberately hides the metallic luster of bel canto (released only at the critical moment of some emotional catharsis), and transplants the powerful breath control technology to the popular voice that focuses on aura. In singing, the lyric is supplemented with tension, and the lightness is added to the thickness.
This self-internal cross-border fusion further chemically reacts with his gifted voice, making his singing skills perfect day by day, achieving an aesthetic voice that hides age, gender, range, and fuzzy singing. Surreal colors, or in other words, Zhou Shen has built himself into an almost impeccable "instrument" that shimmers with bizarre light.
Empty self-identity
Singers emphasize the "recognition" of their voices.
Many times, this kind of "recognition" is precisely reflected by the "defects" in the voice, such as Luo Dayou's hoarseness, Cui Jian's roughness, Liu Huan's nasal voice, Jay Chou's ambiguity... These imperfect voice images, It can be translated as a concrete manifestation of the singer's imperfection, but instead makes the singer's personality appear more real and the emotions they convey more credible. This is a way for the singer to express his true nature.
This imperfect and personal voice is embedded in the fabric of our memory and becomes the key to unlocking the holographic image in our minds of the singer, the song, and the state of mind and body at the time of listening to the song.
Zhou Shen's vocal technology is exquisite and delicate, and the sound is hard to find flaws. After the baptism of modern recording and amplification technology, it is completely "noise-reduced", and finally it has become a crystal clear and sparkling sound craft.
The beauty of this handicraft is so pure that it is difficult for us to find its counterpart in reality, and it is impossible to grasp and interpret it from the experience level to generate a more profound aesthetic experience. The listener may only let the beauty stay in the senses , or follow this voice into a surreal mind hallucination.
This is almost impeccable. On the one hand, the compatibility is extremely strong: the voices are versatile and easy to cooperate. Li Keqin, Sun Nan, Mao Buyi and other singers with different voices can spark sparks with Zhou Shen, and with the people The duet of female vocalist Zhang Ye and the older generation of bel canto singer Yang Hongji also fits Zhou Shen's duet.
On the other hand, this seemingly all-inclusive voice conceals the singer himself, the singer's main body is dissolved, and the singer's self-identity is taken away.
When Zhou Shen sings, the basic timbre tends to be female. Although he did not intend to use falsetto to imitate female voices, the effect of singing too natural makes it difficult for the audience to connect the singing with Zhou Shen, an adult man, and even sometimes The person who cannot be accurately identified by listening is Zhou Shen.
This has some subtle commonalities with the traditional singing of "Ga Pipa" by the Dong people in Guizhou.
When men and women of the Dong nationality sing the love song "Ga Pipa", men and women are required to sing duet with falsetto in the same tune, and the more the male voice resembles the female voice, the better. The purpose is to prevent parents and elders from identifying the singer's gender and identity through the voice.
And Zhou Shen not only sang a female voice, but also wrapped it in a lot of aura, like a veil covering the voice, making the identity of the speaker even more confusing.
Zhou Shen may not want to hide himself through singing, but objectively, the radiance of the beautiful voice created by his voice characteristics and singing method is really dazzling, completely obscuring the singer himself, who is not strong in character, who should be released through songs. Singers who express emotional information become "virtual singers".
When a singer takes time out of his own identity, his meaning expression loses his reliance and becomes empty. At this time, the subjectivity of the listener is unprecedentedly strong, and they can use any meaning and any emotion based on their own experience to fill and imagine the meaning gap in the song. The meaning of listening has been reconstructed.
And Zhou Shen, who was hidden in the light, sacrificed himself to art, in exchange for orders from all directions and the worship of fans.
warm healing light
Among the works that Zhou Shen sang with the theme song, the two themes of Xianxia, fantasy and costume romance accounted for more than half.
Most of these themes are ACG (animation, comics, games) works, as well as fantasy and martial arts novels adapted from film and television dramas. Most of these creations are based on alternate history, isolation of reality, false backgrounds, and relying on fantasy to build a beautiful world. Dimensional culture, Zhou Shen, as a "virtual singer", his beautiful and dreamy voice is a match made in heaven with this culture.
In fact, after singing "Big Fish", Zhou Shen has almost become the designated singer of domestic ACG.
The popular ancient songs are the most commonly used soundtrack styles for ancient costumes and fairy tales.
In the classical and beautiful picture and music atmosphere, listening to Zhou Shen's immortal voice of nature narrates the lingering and melancholy in the fantasy world, in order to vent the unsustainable excess emotions in the real world, perhaps it is now more and more A true portrayal of the life of the "otaku".
The beautiful sound creates a very contagious void of meaning, which conspires with the two-dimensional culture that is addicted to fantasy and advocating aesthetics. By conquering the hearing, more and more modern people are domesticated into "aesthetic ears", and then Lost the ability to hear reality.
Fortunately, Zhou Shen, who is a master of this kind of sound, is not indulging in the carnival of the virtual world, and he is increasingly trying more realistic works.
Movies and TV dramas about family emotions often focus on describing the emotional entanglements of small individuals in the city in daily life, or the ups and downs of fate in the torrent of the times. In the past, the main creators tended to choose stronger singing voices for such works. It boosted the expression of emotions in the play, and the appearance of Zhou Shen provided them with another way of thinking.
In Zhou Shen's singing of the theme songs of such film and television works, it is no longer the dreamy but somewhat cold "sounds of nature", but a warm and healing lyric.
In "Say Hello" (from "Xiao Min's Home"), he used gentle and delicate singing to further dazzle the emotional healing background of the drama; "Children"), he clenched his fist and whispered "Come on" while soothing the pain of all beings struggling to grow up.
The theme of these theme songs is nothing more than to sing the words "eat a good meal, sleep well, and live a good life" ("A good life is a good life") to each "the smallest and the weakest". The softest and most fearless you" ("Light"), the warmth released by Zhou Shen's singing, to a certain extent, fills the current public psychological needs of using aestheticism to relieve real pressure and heal real pain.
And when the brilliance of Zhou Shen's singing warmed, illuminated, and comforted people in this world, Zhou Shen, who was hidden in the light, was also sublimated.
(Author: Zhao Pu is a Ph.D. in Pop Music Studies and an associate professor at Hangzhou Normal University)