Whenever Taiwanese popular music of the 1980s, Taiwanese singer-songwriters or indeed the history of Mandopop (i.e., Mandarin language popular music) in general is being discussed, one name that's almost sure to come up is Luo Dayou (羅大佑; his name is also spelled Lo Tayu). Luo came from a relatively well-off family (his father was a doctor). He began learning piano at six, and later also picked up guitar. Like his father and his older siblings he studied medicine, but his true love was music. In the early 1970s he was the keyboardist in a band which played covers of songs by Western groups like Santana. In late 1977, he got his first job as a songwriter, composing songs for the movie Golden Days (閃亮的日子) starring popular singer Liu Wenzheng (劉文正) and actress/singer Zhang Aijia (張艾嘉), also known as Sylvia Chang. Both the title song and "Song" (歌), the lyrics of which were famed Chinese poet Xu Zhimo (徐志摩)’s translation of a poem by Christina Rossetti, have been covered many times since, as has "The Wind Blows Softly" (風兒輕輕吹), a song Luo wrote for a 1979 film also starring Liu Wenzheng. Luo also wrote more songs for Zhang Aijia, who eventually became his lover. The best known of his songs for her was "Childhood" (童年), a hugely popular track with appeared on Zhang's 1981 album of the same name, which Luo produced. Almost as popular was another track from the same album, "The Story of Time" (光陰的故事).
Even before Zhang Aijia's Childhood had been released, Luo had essentially completed work on his own solo album, but he was having trouble finding a record company that would agree to release it. However, having had great success with Childhood, Rock Records finally agreed to take a chance on Luo's music. Therefore, in 1982, the album Pedantry (之乎者也) was released. Musically, the album was a mix of styles like rock, folk and reggae, and lyrically many of the songs took a critical look at Taiwanese society. The lead track, "Little Town of Lugang" (鹿港小鎮), spoke for the many Taiwanese who had migrated to the big city of Taipei with its expressions of nostalgia for small town life and disillusionment with the modern urban environment. The ironic "Love Song 1980" (戀曲1980) was also a big hit. The title track employed language reminiscent of the Confucian classics in taking a sarcastic look at modern life, though it did not become as well known to the general public since it was banned from the radio. The album sold over a hundred thousand copies, a substantial amount for that time, and is rated by many as the most influential Taiwanese albums of all time.
Luo Dayou followed up his debut with 1983's Masters of the Future (未來的主人翁). Both the title track and another key track, "Phenomena 72" (現象七十二變), were more rock-influenced songs which took a critical look at Taiwanese society, the former looking at a damaged world through the eyes of the children who will inherit it and the second featuring an irony-filled recitation of various features of contemporary Taiwan. Perhaps the best known track from the album, however, was "The Orphan of Asia" (亞細亞的孤兒). The song featured a dedication to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but this was added to mislead the censors, as the song was actually about Taiwan's political isolation. Luo's arrangement for the song was based on his folk rock-style acoustic guitar, but also included a children's choir and most notably a suona, a traditional trumpet-like instrument. In this same period several of Luo's compositions were hits for other artists, including "Is It True" (是否), sung by Su Rui (蘇芮), and "Springtime for the Wild Lily" (野白合也有春天) and "Maxims of Love" (愛的箴言), both performed by Pan Yueyun (潘越雲); "Maxims of Love" was also performed by Deng Lijun (鄧麗君; Teresa Teng).
Luo closed what many fans still regard as his classic period with 1984's Home (家) and one of Taiwan's first live albums, 1985’s Youth Dance (青春舞曲), which commemorated his successive New Year's Eve concerts in 1983 and 1984. Though the more nostalgic and subdued Home contained fan favorites such as the opening track "Impressions of My Hometown" (吾鄉印象), featuring Asian instruments such as guzheng, erhu and yueqin, the gentle title track and the banned "Super Citizens" (超級市民), it did not sell as well as his previous two studio albums. Luo had also finally broken up with his long-time lover Zhang Aijia. Exhausted by the constant media attention, Luo used his live album to announce that he was taking a sabbatical from music. He went to the US, where most of his family had already immigrated, and eventually settled in Hong Kong. He had little involvement with music in this period, though he did write the music for "Tomorrow Will Be Better" (明天會更好), Taiwan's answer to "Do They Know It's Christmas" and "We Are the World", as well as writing a few hits for individual artists, such as "A Flower on the Ocean" (海上花) for Zhenni (甄妮).
In 1988, Luo Dayou returned to the music scene with the album Comrade Lover (愛人同志). A departure from his earlier work, this album featured drum machines, more oblique lyrics and less social commentary. Though the changes displeased some of his fans, the album was a big success, selling over half a million copies and spawning hits such as the massively popular "Love Song 1990" (戀曲1990), "The Way You Are" (妳的樣子) and the title track. Luo showed that he had not completely abandoned sociopolitical commentary with "The Song of the Dwarf" (侏儒之歌), a track on his 1989 Hong Kong re-release of the album attacking Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping for the massacre in Tiananmen Square. Also in 1989 he released a pair of albums in which he sang songs that he had originally given to other artists. In 1991, under his new Hong Kong-based music label Music Factory, he released a Cantonese album entitled Queen's Road East (皇后大道東), featuring a variety of Hong Kong singers performing his songs (Luo himself only sang on the title track and the album's sole Mandarin song, "Pearl of the East" [東方之珠]). The album was a huge hit in Hong Kong. In Taiwan later that same year he released Homeland (原鄉), his first album to mainly feature songs in Hoklo (also known as Taiwanese), though it also included several songs in Mandarin. This album, which included hits like "The Train" (火車) and "Don't Be Afraid, Everyone" (大家免著驚), also featured guest singers on several tracks, and some of the songs were in fact alternate versions of tracks on Queen's Road East. The last of this trio of albums was the Cantonese album Capital (首都), featuring Hong Kong singers and a title track recorded in Beijing.
In 1994, Luo released what proved to be his last solo album for a long time, Love Song 2000 (戀曲2000). The album featured ambitious production and arrangements on tracks like "Red Rose of Taipei" (台北紅玫瑰) and "A Night in Shanghai" (上海之夜) but proved less popular with a public tuned to karaoke-friendly Mandopop. Though he wrote a few songs for other artists in 1995, such as the Hoklo hit "Kite in the Wind" (風吹風吹), and released a pair of Hoklo albums in 1995 and 1996 with a singing group called the OK Chorus (ＯＫ男女合唱團), the first made up of new versions of previous releases and the second mainly of new compositions with lyrics by his collaborator Buhiong (武雄), he basically stopped writing for the following few years, spending most of his time in Hong Kong and New York. He performed a very successful series of concerts in China beginning in 2000, and in 2004 he released his first album in many years, Beautiful Island (美麗島), as well as performing his first concerts in Taiwan in decades. Though the political views he has expressed in recent years have alienated some of his old fans in Taiwan, he remains very popular in China and is still viewed with nostalgia by many in Taiwan. His albums from the 1980s have been frequently cited by many later songwriters as a big source of inspiration. Not only are his songs still heard on the radio today, his influence is also still heard in the songs of many of Taiwan's current talents.
No comments:
Post a Comment