Jay Chou’s Latest Single is Not Meeting Expectations… But It’s Still a Hit

It’s been over a year since Jay Chou (周杰倫) released his last single, and when the Taiwanese pop king dropped the long-awaited “Won’t Cry” <說好不哭> on September 16th, fans were ecstatic. The surprise featuring of Mayday’s (五月天) Ashin (阿信) in the music video also shot the single to the top of the charts.

Within 12 hours of its release, the music video reached over 2.64 million views on YouTube. Two days after its release, “Won’t Cry” reached over 8.18 million views and trended #1 in the United States and Canada.

But despite the video’s success, the song is met with divided opinions online, especially among the critics on Douban, one of China’s largest review sites in film, TV, and music.

Currently, “Won’t Cry” has a 5.8 rating on Douban, based on over 26,000 reviews. It is making rounds as one of Jay Chou’s lowest-rated singles.

A message titled “What do you think about the quality of his new song?” on Douban trended, with the netizen saying that the song “sounds bad.” Replies in the thread were also mixed, with one netizen commenting, “It sounds so bad. Can’t even cry to it.” Many netizens agreed that the song is unoriginal, but one netizen said, “Objectively speaking, it’s not as good as his older songs, but I won’t say it sounds bad.”

With lyrics helmed by Jay Chou’s old friend and frequent collaborator Vincent Fang (方文山), “Won’t Cry” is a ballad about love at its core—that no matter what happens, true love is having someone who will never stop waiting for you.

The music video was shot in Tokyo, and stars Japanese actors Ayaka Miyoshi (三吉彩花) and Keisuke Watanabe (渡邊圭祐).

Sources: Ettoday, Douban

This article is written by Addy for JayneStars.com.