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Spaceman (太空人, Tài Kōng Rén) is Taiwanese singer-songwriter Qing-Feng Wu's debut solo studio album, co-produced by Qing-Feng Wu and Showy Hsu, released officially on September 6, 2019, containing twelve songs. The overall production of the album follows the core concept of “communication/ dis-communication" that is well resonated with the contents of the lyrics, music, packaging, music videos, marketing campaign and the following concert.[1] Before Spaceman was officially released, it already made 70 thousand pre-order sales. After the album was released officially, it was successively ranked the best-selling album of the year in Taiwan's album sales charts.
| Spaceman | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | September 6, 2019 | |||
| Genre | Mandopop | |||
| Length | 56:09 | |||
| Label | Universal Music Taiwan | |||
| Producer | Qing-Feng Wu, Showy Hsu | |||
| Wu Qing-feng chronology | ||||
| ||||
Background
editSpaceman is the debut solo studio album released by Qing-Feng Wu after Sodagreen disbanded. Qing-Feng Wu intentionally took a break from creating any music from 2016 to 2017. He didn't start to write any songs until the beginning of 2018, and he has also started to learn music arrangement since then. As Qing-Feng Wu organized his old works while creating the new ones, he gradually came up with the entire concept of the album.[2] Spaceman collects twelve songs; six of them are his recent works and the earliest work traces back to 2002. The collected pieces are all inspired by Qing-Feng Wu's life experience; many of them were written due to his realization of the darkness in the human nature.[3]
Production
editConcept and Composition
editThe background narrative of the album is "the illusionary world in the mind's eye of a spaceman". Qing-Feng noted "The image of the hero of the album I have in my mind is a man lying in sickbed, seemingly unconscious, as no one can tell whether a paralyzed man like him really has another world inside of his head and whether or not he himself knows that he isn't awake at all."[4] The themes of the songs present several contrastive pairs referring to "communication and responses", "consciousness and memories", "self and others", "dreams and awakeness", "sanity and insanity" and "illusion and reality". The 12 songs resemble 12 chapters that are well coherent, but each of them also stands for an independent piece, while remaining an exquisite narrative as a whole.
Visual Concept and Album Packaging Design
editQing-Feng Wu had examined the concept of paradox and ambiguity greatly in his lyrics, which inspired the designer to translate the conception into the album packaging to imply that the audience have to juxtapose the design back and forth to figure out the true and the false.[5] Malaysian photographer Lin Zhong and stylist Yii Ooi, through the theatrical arrangement of the images, collaborated to bring out two sides of the singer - sometimes crazy and bizarre and sometimes childlike.
Music Production
editThe music arrangement of the works collected in Spaceman contains elements of electronic, psychedelic, theatrical, world music, folk, rock, post-rock, avant-garde, classical, R&B, Hip Pop and so on.
Background of collected tracks
edit“The Carnival in Babel” (巴別塔慶典, Bā Bié Tǎ Qìng Diǎn) discusses the Biblical story of the Tower of Babel that explains the origins of the multiplicity of languages which led to all sorts of disputes while satirizing the miscommunication among people in a humorous manner.[6] The title track “Spaceman” (太空人, Tài Kōng Rén) depicts the sentiments that may be "unremarkable to the casual eye, but unforgettable in some people's mind", as the song was inspired by an ambiguous relationship the singer once had in the past. The music is arranged with simple guitar chords to bring up the ordinary texture of life.[3] Qing-Feng Wu said that the lyrics of this very song are his favorite among all the lyrics he has written so far.
“Influenza” (傷風, Shāng Fēng) talks about the phenomenon "when people hurting each other has become common practice". The term “傷風”, generally known as "cold", can be interpreted as "Po Shang Feng” (破傷風, Tetanus) as well as the abbreviation of the idiom “傷風敗俗” (shāng fēng bài sú, morally corrupt).[7] From a first-person narrative, with the style of magic realism, “The Forgotten Town” (失憶鎮, Shī Yì Zhèn) depicts the state of consciousness of amnesia (失憶症 Shī Yì Zhèng, pronounced almost the same as the song title “失憶鎮” in Chinese), insanity and nonsensical babbling. The audio mixing presents the multi-track mixed vocal that drifts back and forth, far and close, creating a sense of temporal and spatial isolation and an impression of displacement.[8] “Story~lines” (線的記憶, Xiàn De Jì Yì) adopts the relevant concept and terminology of "lines" in Geometry to portray the emotional condition of human beings, from existing in isolation to gradually bonding with others.[9]
“Outsider”, about 10 minutes and a half long, is the final chapter of "Autobiography of A Madman". Producer Showy Hsu (徐千秀) added a 4-minute long, post-rock instrumental piece when he was arranging the music. Qing-Feng Wu was therefore inspired to write a monologue to go with it, and also had it serve as the annotation of the entire album.[10]“The Echo Collector” (回音收集員,Huí Yīn Shōu Jí Yuán) is only instrumentalized with drums, Marimba and the layered vocal. The vocal shifts between left and right channel to imitate the echo effect auditorily.[11] The word choice of the lyrics comes from the other 11 songs; structurally, if “Dream Translator”(譯夢機, Yì Mèng Jī) is the "Prologue" of the album, “The Echo Collector” would be the "Table of Contents". “The Echo Collector” depicts that "the present moment" of every individual is interwoven and accumulated by countless echoes in the past, as "echoes" refer to the words, allusions and messages that come from families, schools and societies. Qing-Feng Wu once noted that the song also speaks for his opinion about work creation; in other others, no creation is a purely original invention of one's self.[12]
Critical reception
editSpaceman has received mainly positive reviews. By August 12, 2020, Spaceman received User Rating of 8.1 (reviewed by 2,016 users) and 8.0 (reviewed by 9,908 users) on Douban Music (豆瓣音樂).[13]
The host Momoko from Hit FM (radio station in Taiwan) gave recognition to the album, noting that Spaceman shows a different side of Qing-Feng Wu; aside from enjoying music of various genres, audience can also sense the diversity in Qing-Feng's vocal.[14] The Beijing News (新京報) praised the album for being well executed and delicate in details.[15]
Track listing
editAll tracks are written by Qing-Feng Wu (Except for "Story~lines" and "Outsider", the composer is Kay Liu)） Producers of the album: Qing-Feng Wu and Showy Hsu
| No. | Title | Length |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | "譯夢機" (Dream Translator) | 7:23 |
| 2. | "回音收集員" (The Echo Collector) | 3:48 |
| 3. | "巴別塔慶典" (The Carnival in Babel) | 3:29 |
| 4. | "太空人" (Spaceman) | 5:18 |
| 5. | "傷風" (Influenza) | 3:55 |
| 6. | "失憶鎮" (The Forgotten Town) | 3:51 |
| 7. | "太空" (Space) | 3:46 |
| 8. | "水仙花之死" (Death of Narcissus) | 3:47 |
| 9. | "男孩莊周" (Boy Zhuangzi) | 3:26 |
| 10. | "太空船" (Spaceship) | 3:06 |
| 11. | "線的記憶" (Story~lines) | 4:02 |
| 12. | "Outsider" | 10:18 |
| Total length: | 56:09 | |
Music videos
editEvery song in the album has its own music video that was released on YouTube in the form of “The Project of Spaceman Film Festival" (太空人影展計畫, Tài Kōng Rén Yǐng Zhǎn Jì Huà) .[16] The contents of the 12 videos resonate and connect with one another. The imageries and objects displayed in the end of each video serve as the opening of the following video; the 12 pieces therefore are connected together to create a cycle to be in consistent with the track arrangement as the beginning track echoes the ending one.
| Title | Director | Premier Date | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Carnival in Babel (巴別塔慶典) | Wonmo Seong (DIGIPEDI) | July 10, 2019 | |
| Space (太空) | Shih-Ting Hung (洪詩婷) | August 10, 2019 | |
| Spaceman (太空人) | Muh Chen (陳奕仁) | September 13, 2019 | Starring: Janine Chang (張鈞甯) and Austin Lin (林柏宏). |
| Story~lines (線的記憶) | Jude Chen (陳映之) | October 18, 2019 | |
| The Forgotten Town (失憶鎮) | JungPing Huang
(黃中平) |
November 1, 2019 |
|
| Spaceship (太空船) | Masashi Kawamura
(川村真司) |
January 18, 2020 | Collaborated with Japanese director Masashi Kawamura and Japanese illustrator Hiroshi Abe (阿部弘士). |
| Dream Translator (譯夢機) | Smoky Tu (涂皓欽) | April 1, 2020 | |
| The Echo Collector回音收集員 | |||
| Death of Narcissus水仙花之死 | Tsung-Fan TAN
(談宗藩) |
April 15, 2020 | Style Director: Sandee Chan (陳珊妮). |
| Boy Zhuangzi (男孩莊周) | A co-creation project, collecting video materials through Instagram filters from the fans, co-created the content of the music video. Nearly 80 thousand videos were received for the project. | ||
| Influenza (傷風) | Philip Yung (翁子光) | May 15, 2020 | Special Starring: Ke-Xi Wu (吳可熙). |
| Outsider | Jude Chen (陳映之) |
|
Charts
editAlso see Wikipedia entry "2019 The Best-Selling Albums of The Year" under "List of Best-Selling Albums in Taiwan"
| Chart | Date | Rank | Details |
|---|---|---|---|
| Five Music Top Ranking (Mandarin category)
(五大年度華語金榜) |
2019 | #1 | Spaceman, the pre-ordered edition
(note: In the first week of the official release of the album, the sales per share of Spaceman was 88% at Five Music, the highest record since 2004.) |
| The Best-Selling Album of the Year - Chia Chia Record
(佳佳唱片 年度銷售排行榜) |
2019 | #1 | Spaceman, the pre-ordered edition |
| The Best-Selling Mandarin Album of the Year - Kuang Nan Fashion Shop
(光南 年度熱銷 華語排行榜) |
2019 | #5 | Spaceman (note: all editions) |
| The Best-Selling Album of The Month - Books.com.tw
(博客來 每月暢銷排行) |
2019 | #1 | Spaceman, the pre-ordered edition. |
| #3 | Spaceman, the official edition.
(note: The album rank remained top 30 from October 2019 to March 2020.) | ||
| 2019 | #1 | Spaceman (note: all editions) | |
| May 2019 | #5 | Spaceman 2LPs | |
| Eslite Music TOP100 of The Year
(誠品音樂 年度推薦榜 TOP100) |
2019 | #1 | Spaceman (note: all editions) |
| Weekly charts (2019) | Peak Position | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Five Music Top Ranking (Mandarin category)
台灣華語榜（5大金榜） |
1 | [17] |
Awards and nominations
edit| 年份 | 獎項名稱 | 提名獎項 | 提名作品 | 頒獎結果 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019 | Hit FM | Hit FM Top 10 Albums of The Year | Spaceman(Album) | Won |
| QQ Music Year-End Chart | Top 10 Mandarin Album | Won | ||
| 2020 | HITO Music Awards | HITO Top 10 Chinese Songs of The Year | Spaceman(single) | Won |
| HITO Best Composer | Boy Zhuangzi | Won | ||
| Hit Fm Singer of The Year | Spaceman(Album) | Won | ||
| HITO Best Male Singer | Won | |||
| The 31st Golden Melody Award | Best Male Mandarin Singer | Nominated | ||
| Best Mandarin Album | Nominated | |||
| The Best Composer | Won | |||
| Album of the Year | Spaceman(single) | Nominated | ||
| The 13th Freshmusic Awards | Best Male Mandarin Singer | Spaceman(Album) | Won | |
| Top 10 Albums of The Year | Won | |||
| Top 10 Singles of The Year | Death of Narcissus | Won | ||
| The Telly Awards 2020 | Television General-Music Video /
Gold Telly Winner |
Spaceman Music Video | Won | |
| Television Craft-Directing / Gold Telly Winner | Won |
References
edit- ^ "吴青峰新专辑打破林俊杰实体销售比纪录，荣登五大唱片榜史上最高_市场". www.sohu.com. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
- ^ 馬世芳 (2020-10-04). "9/30 耳朵借我：專訪吳青峰談不只是《太空人》". 耳目江湖. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
- ^ a b "吳青峰新專輯《太空人》，「我這輩子寫過最好、也最喜歡的詞」". VOGUE TAIWAN. 6 August 2019. Archived from the original on 2020-11-27. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
- ^ "Log into Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ 菌. "作《太空人》專輯，最開心的是被了解－吳青峰 | 樂手巢 YSOLIFE". ysolife.com. Archived from the original on 2019-12-18. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
- ^ "醞釀17年的創作能量，吳青峰新專《太空人》帶你窺探他內心最深層的黑暗面 | 影劇星聞". 妞新聞 niusnews (in Chinese (Taiwan)). Retrieved 2023-02-04.
- ^ "Log into Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ 吳青峰〈失憶鎮 The Forgotten Town〉Official MV, retrieved 2023-02-04
- ^ "Log into Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ "Log into Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ 馬世芳. 20190930【馬世芳 耳朵借我】專訪吳青峰談不只是《太空人》. 耳朵借我. 2019-09-30. 原住民族廣播電台
- ^ "Log into Facebook". Facebook. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite uses generic title (help) - ^ Wu, 吴青峰 Greeny, 太空人（正式版） (in Chinese (China)), retrieved 2023-02-04
- ^ "Hitoradio‧Hit Fm --華人音樂入口指標". www.hitoradio.com. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
- ^ "新京报 - 好新闻，无止境". www.bjnews.com.cn. Retrieved 2023-02-04.
- ^ "吳青峰《太空人線上影展》，音樂無限，藝術能療癒，帶給人們力量！". VOGUE TAIWAN. 31 March 2020. Retrieved 2020-08-08.
- ^ "2019年第37週 Five Music" (in Chinese). 五大唱片. Archived from the original on 2013-09-25. Retrieved 2019-12-18.