Jolin Tsai

Jolin Tsai 蔡依林
MTV Asia Awards 2006, Bangkok, Thailand
Chinese name	蔡依林
Pinyin	Cài Yīlín (Mandarin)
Birth name	蔡依林
Ancestry	Fujian, China
Origin	Republic of China (Taiwan)
Born	15 September 1980 (1980-09-15) Xinzhuang, Taipei County, Taiwan
Occupation	Singer, Dancer, Actress, Designer, Model, Spokesperson
Genre(s)	Mandopop, Dance
Instrument(s)	Piano
Label(s)	Universal Music Taiwan (1998–2001) Sony Music Entertainment (Taiwan) (2002–2006) EMI Music Taiwan (2006–2008) Warner Music Taiwan (2008–present)
Years active	1998–present
Official Website	Jolin@Warner Music Taiwan
Awards Golden Melody Awards Best Female Mandarin Artist (2007) Dancing Diva Most Popular Female Artist (2007) MTV Asia Awards Style Award (2006)

Jolin Tsai (Chinese: 蔡依林; pinyin: Cài Yīlín; Wade–Giles: Tsai I-lin; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Chhoà I-lîm), born on 15 September 1980, is a Taiwanese Golden Melody Award-winning Mandopop singer, dancer and actor. Tsai was the second top earner among Taiwanese singers in 2010 behind Jay Chou (周杰倫), with earnings of US$14.51 million that year. She is managed by Mars Entertainment Ltd (天熹娛樂).

Early life

Though Tsai was introverted and shy as a child, she studied English intensively during her youth and eventually majored in English Literature at Fu Jen Catholic University. During her childhood years, Tsai developed an interest in singing and experimented with different vocal techniques after listening to the songs of popular female singers such as Teresa Teng and Faye Wong.^{[citation needed]}

Musical career

See also: Jolin Tsai discography and List of awards and nominations received by Jolin Tsai

Universal Music Taiwan (1998–2001)

Tsai first started her singing career by taking part in an 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.

In 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, in September 1999. At that time, she was promoted as "The Girl Next Door," and was an instant hit with teenagers, earning her the title "Teenage Boy Killer"^{[citation needed]}. Jolin 1019 ended up selling more than 400,000 copies in Asia. With the success of her first album, she released her second album in May 2000, Don't Stop. Many of the hits from that album were well known throughout Asia as the album also became a tremendous success.^{[citation needed]} She also released her first photobook with pictures mainly taken in Hawaii.

Nearing the age of 21, Tsai changed her image in her third album, Show Your Love. The album was considered more mature and soothing.^{[citation needed]}, but it did not sell as well as her previous two albums. Her fourth album, Lucky Number, also failed to match the sales of her first two albums. Tsai's music career came to a halt when conflicts surfaced between her and her music company.^{[citation needed]} At the end of 2001, Tsai's contract with Universal Music ended and her first greatest hits compilation, Together was released. Tsai did not release any albums the following year, but she did release her second photo book, with photos taken in Thailand.

Sony Music Entertainment (Taiwan) (2002–2006)

Tsai signed with Sony Music Entertainment (Taiwan) that year and got the biggest break of her whole career. Her first single with Sony Music "Spirit Of The Knight" (騎士精神) became a big hit that led to the highly anticipated release of her fifth album Magic (看我72變). The album topped the Taiwan album charts for three months. More than 300,000 copies were sold in Taiwan alone, and over a million copies were sold in Asia. The album contained many of her most well-known singles, including the hit dance song "See My 72 Changes" (看我72變) that brought Tsai back to the top of the charts, a song which some suggested was named after The Monkey King's 72 transformations. Other songs from the album, such as "Say Love You" (說愛你) and "Prague Square" (布拉格廣場) were penned by fellow Taiwan star Jay Chou. Her more dance-oriented album marked her first release in two years following her hiatus in 2002.

Tsai's sixth album Castle (城堡), released in 2004, was just as popular as "Magic" and became a top album in many Asian countries.^{[citation needed]} Just as with Magic, many songs on this album were written by Chou, her rumored boyfriend at that time.^{[citation needed]} The playful song "It's Love" (就是愛) and the 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 Chou, at a mini-concert. She subsequently filmed one of the most expensive music videos in Taiwanese history for that song.^{[citation needed]}

Between Castle and her next studio album, Tsai released a remix album of her most popular dance songs called J9 New + Party Collection. Tsai featured two new songs in the CD, including the hit song "Signature Pose". Tsai sang the Mandarin version of "Mirage (Warriors In Peace)", the theme song for the film Warriors of Heaven and Earth.

On April 25, 2005, Tsai seventh album J-Game was released, become the longest running album on the Taiwanese album charts in 2005, with over 1 million copies sold throughout Asia in just a little over a month. The album featured many more hip-hop influenced tracks than before, though it retained the dance pop and love ballads in her previous albums. Tsai supposedly broke up with Chou around the time the album was recorded, but she was able to find other writers and producers, including Leehom Wang, another pop star who composed "Exclusive Myth" (獨佔神話). The first single of the album "Barbaric Game" (野蠻遊戲) was a huge hit across Asia^{[citation needed]} and it was followed by other 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), "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). During this time, Tsai rapped in the duet "真命天子" [Destined Guy] with fellow artist Show Luo, which was featured on his album Hypnosis Show. She performed that song with Show in his first solo concert at the Taipei Arena.

Late in 2005, Tsai released her J1 Live Concert DVD, presenting performances of hits from her albums Magic (看我72變) and Castle from a late-2004 concert in Taipei. Show Luo made a guest appearance in the performance of "Prove It". The DVD did not include Jay Chou's guest appearance in her concert, in which he danced together with Tsai. 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 Music Entertainment (Taiwan), to join Capitol Music Taiwan, which released under the name EMI Music Taiwan. To prepare for her new album, Tsai worked to perfect her dancing and change her style again.^{[citation needed]} She won the Style Award at the 2006 MTV Asia Awards, where she performed her new single "Dancing Diva" (舞孃) with elements of yoga and various props including a ball and a ribbon.

In May 2006, Sony released a greatest hits compilation album called J-Top, which included two CDs and a DVD with two previously unreleased music videos and a 70 minute documentary on Tsai's time at Sony. In one of the two music videos, Tsai looks back on all her previous music videos.

EMI Music Taiwan's label-Capitol Records (2006–2009)

In concert during 2007 in Singapore.

After the release of J-Top, her first album with EMI Music Taiwan 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 her released single "Dancing Diva" (舞孃) along with "Pulchritude" (玩美), "Mr.Q" (The music video for this song shows Tsai getting intimate with Hong Kong pop star Edison Chen.), and the bonus track "Attraction of Sexy Lips"(唇唇欲動) (a song she did as part of an endorsement deal with MaxFactor similar to Anita Mui's song "Hot Red Lips"). The album also featured two of the biggest hits in Asia during the year^{[citation needed]}: the upbeat "A Wonder in Madrid" (馬德里不思議) and the love ballad "Pretence" (假裝). She collaborated with friend and label partner Stanley Huang on the song "Nice Guy" (乖乖牌), which he also helped to write. Tsai had some writing duties on the album, writing the lyrics for the song "The Prologue" (開場白), which many speculated was written about Chou. The album was re-released in July as the "Perfect Celebration Edition" with a DVD featuring music videos of all eleven of the 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 and then to audiences in North America and Australia. 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, Taiwan's rising pop princess Rainie Yang, and Show Luo. Show and Huang also made surprise appearances in other stops of her tour. In the most shocking moment of her tour, she kissed fellow Taiwanese star Elva Hsiao on the lips during one of her concerts. Tsai made guest appearances at her friend Stefanie Sun's concerts, while she and Singaporean male artist JJ Lin took turns appearing at each other's concerts.^{[citation needed]}

Tsai released her third remix album, Dancing Forever (唯舞獨尊) in October 2006, which contained two CDs and a DVD. The first disc contained all new material, including the title track and theme for her tour "Dancing Forever", covers of songs by Chinese singers Sandy Lam and Faye Wong, and the duet "Marry Me Today" (今天你要嫁給我) that she recorded with her idol and mentor David Tao. In this album, she experimented with two other Chinese 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 included remixes of three dance hits from Dancing Diva, while the DVD featured the LUX-sponsored mini-concert she performed in the summer in Kaohsiung where Huang and Taiwanese boy band Energy also performed.

A month later, Sony released another two-CD compilation album called Jolin Favorite Live Concert Music Selection. This album consisted of remixes of popular songs Tsai recorded under Sony, as well as rare live tracks.

Tsai ended 2006 performing hits like "Mr.Q", "A Wonder in Madrid", "Pretence" and "Dancing Diva" at several New Year countdown parties in Taiwan. 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 accounted for 3.50%. Tsai's popular duet with Tao was considered by many lists to be the #1 song of the year in Taiwan^{[citation needed]}. Singles like "Dancing Diva," "Pretence," and "A Wonder in Madrid" also won many song awards between 2006 and 2007.^{[citation needed]}

On June 8, 2007, Tsai released her second DVD The Acquired Talent (地才), which featured performances from her latest world tour and documented her work in preparing for the tour. The DVD shows footage of her performing dance sequences with concert guests Luo, Huang, and Hsiao. The DVD opened at the top of the Taiwanese audio/video charts and stayed there for thirteen weeks.

On June 16, Tsai won the Most Favorite Female Artist and the Best Mandarin Female Singer Award for the first time at the 18th Golden Melody Awards. Her duet with David Tao won the Best Song Award. Tsai's win for Best Mandarin Female Singer drew criticism from netizens and industry critics, who believed her voice was not as strong as the other nominees (A-mei, Sandy, Angela Chang, and Penny Tai). However, many said that she won due to her all-round talent, hard work, and universal pop appeal. Regardless of the controversy surrounding this award, she won the Most Favorite Female Artist award following a fan vote conducted for a few months prior to the awards show, beating out many other artists such as A-mei, Fish Leong, Hsiao, Sun, Twins, and Yang.

Just a few days before the release of Tsai's new album at EMI Music Taiwan, Sony released another compilation album, Jolin's Final Wonderland (Jolin夢綺地精選). This collection featured almost all the songs Tsai released during her time at Sony in three CDs (The songs were separated into dance songs, cute songs, and love ballads.), as well as a DVD with 22 music videos and a 52-page photo book.

Jolin Tsai became the online game spokeswoman of "We Dancing Online" after the CD album release of "Dancing Forever".

Tsai's second album with EMI Music Taiwan, titled Agent J (特務J), was released on September 21, 2007. The album featured eleven new tracks - the title track "Agent J" (特務J), the ballads "Alone" (一個人) and "Fear Free" (怕什麼), the dance tracks "Bravo Lover" (愛無赦) (best known for its often-imitated dance steps^{[citation needed]}) and "Tacit Violence" (冷‧暴力), 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 contained a 3-part 70-minute music movie filmed in France, London, and Bangkok. The movie, which cost 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. She almost paralyzed her right arm and fainted in the process.

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 stayed at the number one position for two weeks. 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 with 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 premiere of Kylie's movie 'White Diamond', where Tsai presented Minogue with her newest album and a jade bracelet which Tsai 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. Tsai again 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 Top Song of the Year by over 340,000 voters.

In April 2008, Tsai incorporated newly learned skills such as flying rings and pole dance in addition to her usual multi-style dances in her concert in Beijing's Workers' Gymnasium.^{[citation needed]}

Tsai's first English album Love Exercise (愛的練習語) was released in November, marking her first full-fledged venture into English music. The album featured remakes of 10 popular English songs such as "I Won't Last A Day Without You" and "Lady Marmalade". However, the lack of promotion leading up to the release of the album and the postponement from its original release date in March contributed to lower-than-expected sales.

Because Tsai was not active in the Chinese music market during 2008, she 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 respectively.

Love Exercise would mark Tsai's last studio release with EMI Music Taiwan. Similar to how Sony released a J-Top when she left the label for EMI Music Taiwan, they also released a greatest hits compilation to mark the end of Tsai'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 number two on the album charts, while J-Top was number one back in 2006.

Warner Music Taiwan (2009–present)

Tsai released her new Mandarin album, Butterfly (花蝴蝶) on March 27, 2009, her first official album after joining Warner Music Taiwan. Early images that were released indicated that the album's image would be based on the concept of a "colorful butterfly". The image represented her view that the songs in the album sought to encourage her fans to follow their dreams and not allow anything to hold them back^{[citation needed]}. The production costs of Butterfly reached a new high – the 16 promotional outfits cost $2.5 million, six of which were ordered from the United States. 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 was announced as the 2nd and 3rd single respectively. The music video for "Butterfly" features Tsai'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 Monrose song called "Hot Summer," written by Thomas Troelsen, which later become the 6th and final single of the album.

After almost two years off the Chinese music charts, Tsai was back at the top of the charts: according to G-music Taiwan, the album accounted for 37% of all album sales in Taiwan and 68% of Chinese music sales in Taiwan in its first week. In 2009, Butterfly Jolin had the largest first-week sales of any artist. Its first week-sales were also greater than the first-week sales of the previous year's best-selling album, Poetry of the Day After... by Taiwanese band Mayday. The album 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.

Her single "Slow Life" (愈慢愈美麗) from "Butterfly" has been used by almost 3,000 schools in Taiwan as their recess song to replace the bell ring.

Tsai injured her waist while holding a "school tour" in Taiwan. Due to the injury, Warner Music Taiwan announced that she would be taking a two months break from her work. In May 2009, she was invited as one of the special guests of her friend Stefanie Sun's "The Answer Is.." world tour. She subsequently performed a duet of the song "First Day"(第一天) with Sun in the concert.

Tsai 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 each of the clothing sold under this brand are specially designed by Tsai herself. She also worked as a spokesperson for Shiatzy Chen.

In June 2010, Tsai made a surprise guest appearance in the third night of Jay Chou's concert, which shocked the audience and was the major highlight of the concert.

On July 11, Tsai attended the 2010 Head & Shoulders Chinese Show as the ambassador in Shanghai. She announced that her new album "Vogue" could be booked starting from early August, but the album name was later changed to "Myself". The music video features a style of house dance called Vogue. To make "Myself" more attractive, Tsai invited the vogue teacher Benny Ninja (teacher of "America's Next Top Model") and Ahn Hyung Suk (dance teacher of Dong Bang Shin Ki, also known as TVXQ) to teach her the dance.

The lead single of her album, "Honey Trap" (美人計), along with its music video, was leaked through the Internet as well as the fifth and sixth singles "Immediate Effect" (即時生效) and "Small Wound" (小傷口). Her album was stated to supposedly be released on 3 August 2010.^{[citation needed]} The album, titled Myself, was released on August 13, 2010. The music video of "Love Player"(玩愛之徒), the second single of the album, features Tsai naked in the bathtub while the third single, "Nothing Left to Say"(無言以對), featured her first dance in her ballad.

Myself topped the chart of G-Music for 3 consecutive weeks only to be overtaken by Hebe Tien's first solo album. The album rebound back to first during its 6th week when more copies were sold than in its debut week. The lead single, "Honey Trap"(美人計), managed to peak at number three of the Yes 93.3 Music Chart, while "Real Hurt"(小傷口) managed to top the Singapore Yes 93.3 Music Chart for two consecutive weeks. Tsai's December 2010 "Myself World Tour" sold out quickly. Benny Ninja choreographed the concert, which featured Tsai performing dangerous stunts in mid-air.

The 4th single, "Butterflies in my stomach"(七上八下) was also made into an MV. "Take Immediate Effect"(即時生效) video was also released in September 2010, featuring her dog in the video and "Real Hurt"(小傷口) video was released in the 2nd week of September 2010.

Tsai made an appearance in the China Got Talent final, in which she perform "Black-Haired Beautiful Girl" (黑髮尤物). The winner of the China Got Talent, Liu Wei, got to perform in Tsai's subsequent World Tour.

In 2011, Tsai continued her Myself World Tour across Asia in support of her album Myself, a tour in which she performed stunts and her songs.

Acting career

During the two years she faced conflicts with her recording company Universal Music before signing with Sony Music Entertainment (Taiwan), she pursued an acting career. She debuted in the soap series "HI,上班女郎" with actor Show Luo. The series about a female worker enduring the taboo of dating her own superior in the office became a huge hit that allowed Tsai's fans to follow her amid her time off singing. Since her acting debut, Tsai continues to pursue her acting career by filming music videos on the side. In an interview, she stated that after her music career is over, she hopes to make movies full time, learn more about filming, and act in movies.^{[citation needed]}

Fund-raising

After the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, Tsai was one of the first few artists to contribute 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.

External links

• (Chinese) Jolin@Warner Music Taiwan
• (Chinese) Jolin@Gold Typhoon formerly EMI Music Taiwan (2006–2009)
• (Chinese) Mars Entertainment Ltd Jolin's 'I Love Super' blog
• (Chinese) Jolin's Sina Blog
• (Chinese) Jolin's Sina Microblog WeiBo 微博