Seven Castles

Zhou Bichang

                                      

June 22, 2008

Zhou Bichang (also known as Bibi) is a Chinese singer and songwriter. She was the first runner-up in the 2005 Super Girl Competition. Her voice has been appropriated as a female version of David Tao and Leehom Wang, as she covered some of their songs during the contest.

 

She was born on July 26, 1985 in Changsha, Hunan Province, to a government employee and a teacher in Chinese folk music. When she was six, her family moved to Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, on the southeast coast of China in close vicinity of Hong Kong.

 

She has been brought up in a family where music permeates everyday life. Her mother, being a music teacher and singer herself, is an avid fan of Chinese folk music. When she was a child, her grandmother taught her to play the piano.

 

While she was in junior high school, pop music from the adjacent Hong Kong and Taiwan was ubiquitous in Shenzhen, a far cry from the music her mother's generation was accustomed and attracted to. She started collecting music CDs and listening to them non-stop. Soon in high school, she started to become known for her vocal talent and her ability to imitate the style of several popular R&B and Pop singers. In her late senior high school years, as her interest in music escalated she was determined to pursue a career in music later in her life. In 2002, with an enviably high score of 681 on the College Entrance Exam she was admitted into the four-year undergraduate program in non-classical music at the prestigious Xinghai Conservatory of Music in Guangzhou.

 

In March 2002, she released a single named "How I Miss You" on the web, which received limited popularity. During the period of 2001 to 2003, she had entered herself into a variety of youth singing contests and had won a few awards. But before long she grew tired of competing in singing contests and despondent about her prospects in the music industry as she came to realize that her musical style as well as her look - hip-hop and tomboyish - was too unconventional for the industry where bubble-gum sweet-faced girl pop idols were prevalent. She then retreated to college life until an accidental entry on her part into the 2005 Super Girl Competition that later in the year swept the whole nation.

 

In the spring of 2005, one of her friends at Xinghai entered her without her knowledge into the 2005 Super Girl auditions held in Guangzhou, the only city picked in south China for audition purposes by the contest organizer. The then 19-year-old showed up the day of the audition in her father's old oversize jacket without a trace of makeup. In her own words, she just rolled out of bed before going to the audition and did not even get a chance to wash her face. Her boyish attire almost made the security guard stop her at the entrance because the contest was supposed to be for girls only. But her talent had no problem shining through despite her slightly unkempt appearance at the audition, as she impressed the judges by singing segments from "Regular Friend" by David Tao and "Forever Love" by Leehom Wang. In the following weeks, she coasted through the subsequent elimination rounds and soon found herself among the top ten finalists for the Guangzhou Audition Region (only the top three from each region qualify for the national finals). Her fan base had also grown exponentially as she progressed through the contest.

 

The sincere emotions in her vocal and her interpretation of others' works was a breath of fresh air into the competition; on one particular occasion she brought one of the judges to tears during her singing and all five judges to a standing ovation when she finished the song ("Extricate"). Her voice is sultry yet extremely powerful, a rarity among Chinese female singers. She also possesses a special talent of turning everything she sings into undeniably her own signature style. Without any suspense, she was voted by viewers all the way through to the top in Guangzhou Audition Region.

 

In July the national finals kicked off in Changsha, where the top three contestants from each of the five regions got together and went through a series of eliminations. In these rounds, she went on delivering a wide spectrum of songs, mostly by male singers she has long admired such as David Tao, Eason Chan, Jay Chow and Leehom Wang. She successfully showcased her skills in mastering hip-hop, R&B and pop songs. She was one of the judges' favorites; they never voted to put her in PK (the bottom two up for elimination) and she was the only one throughout the entire competition that had never been through a PK. When the finale was aired, some 400 million people tuned in to find out who garnered the most SMS votes from viewers. With 3,270,840 SMS votes, she ended up in the second place, only a thin margin away from winning the competition. But she was content with the result and was grateful towards the millions who had supported and voted for her.

 

Soon after the finale ended, she quietly withdrew herself from the frenzy of the contest and went back to college where she just turned a sophomore. Unlike many others who arose to fame overnight, she was not thrilled about her newly gained stardom. At times she was even annoyed when media and fans followed her around on campus as she did not want to draw attention to herself and cause inconvenience to her fellow students.

 

On December 30, 2005, she made an announcement through a video clip she posted online that she officially broke off her contractual obligations with Shanghai E.E. Media. She thanked graciously the organizer of the Super Girl Competition for giving her the opportunity to sing in front of millions. She did not go into the specifics about the breakup. As a result of the breakup, she was said to be held liable for a penalty of five million yuan (approximately US$ 714,000).

 

In March 2006, she signed a recording contract with Yuelin Music. Under the arrangement of Yuelin, she started taking violin lessons. At the same time she was making time for schoolwork at Xinghai to the best of her ability. Upon signing the contract, she released her first studio single named "Swan" in a not-for-sale limited edition CD shaped like a flying swan. The gothic rock song, a shock to many, met with mixed fan reception and critical reviews, since most people have gotten to know the singer through her signature R&B and hip-hop style. The song was wrongfully accused by some of plagiarism. The plagiarism controversy helped to inspire a rap song named "Uh", which was later included in her first EP, where she vented her anger and frustration over people who helped fuel the unfounded accusation.

 

In June 2006, she released her first EP, entitled "Bibi's 1st EP", a collection of four songs. Her debut album, "Who Touched My Violin String", was released in August 2006. In Spring 2007, she attended the Encore Program at the Musicians Institute in Hollywood, California, with a concentration in R&B vocal performance. In December 2007, she released her twin albums, named "Now" and "Wow", each containing ten songs. "Now" features her iconic R&B style, and "Wow" showcases her versatility in music genre as she forays into rock, ballad, britpop, dance, etc.

 

My favorite is Bibi's Notes.

 

She also started her acting career in 2006 as she starred in the films McDull, the Alumni and The 601st Phone Call.

【作者: zhangliping】【访问统计:】【2008年06月22日 星期日 04:50】【注册】【打印】