After 25 years in the industry, God of Song Jacky Cheung talks about his ups and downs

Recently, Jacky has been preparing for his world tour concert at the end of the year. Coincidentally, this year is also Jacky’s 25th anniversary in the music industry. Jacky’s music career was at its peak back in the mid-1990s, however in the past 10 years, with the many changes in the music industry, Jacky honestly feels that his ‘best years’ have already passed. Beginning in the year 2000, Jacky started to change direction – he started to become more involved with stage musicals as well as movies, which allowed him to ‘perform’ in a completely different realm and expand his experiences.

Jacky Cheung -- one of Hong Kong’s 4 Kings of Canto-pop and dubbed “God of Songs’ – has been in the industry 25 years! "Goodbye Kiss", "Love Web", "With You All My Life", "Blessings" -- each one of Jacky’s songs is known and universally appreciated, however do you know how many albums Jacky has released? The answer: 96 albums, 1,524 songs.

Jacky’s words: “I personally feel that my influence was greatest back during the time period of 1990 to 2000 because I was very active in the music industry at the time. In addition, at that time, the music industry (market) was flourishing – this is one area where I got lucky.”

The mid-1990s saw the peak of Jacky’s career; according to calculations by the International Album Sales Association during that time period, the number of albums Jacky sold was surpassed only by one musician – the late King of Pop Michael Jackson – which put Jacky #2 in the world in terms of highest album sales. It also gave him a spot in Time Magazine’s 50 Most Influential People in Asia’.

After the year 2000, Jacky changed the focus of his career to stage shows and films – especially of note is the film "July Rhapsody": not only did this film mark Jacky’s successful transformation from music to movies, it also brought him the ‘Best Actor’ (Movie King) title.

For the film "Golden Chicken 2", Jacky put aside his ‘image’ and took on a comedic role that required him to ridicule himself in order to make audiences laugh, which allowed his fans and all audiences to witness his exquisite acting skills.

With all the changes in the HK entertainment industry, Jacky, with his 25 years in the industry, admits that he does not miss his ‘Heavenly King’ days -- the tides rise and fall – Jacky very clearly understands that career ups and downs is something that every artist in the entertainment industry will experience and is necessary in order to grow.

Jacky’s words: “In the past 10 years, one of the most influential artists in the music industry was probably Jay Chou, and David Tao started to appear in the late 90s/early 2000s; therefore, in the past 10 years, R&B music influenced the direction of the music industry tremendously. Out of 10 artists, 8 of them would sing R&B and the remaining 2 would sing popular mainstream music of that era.”

In his 25 years in the industry, Jacky Cheung has experimented with different styles at different time periods – however, through all this, what has continued to remain the same is the great work ethic and attitude with which Jacky treats every single performance.

Source: TVBS news
Video Footage: http://www.youtube.c...h?v=9vhoPrdYkn4
Translated by: llwy12 @ AsianFanatics