This week’s artist feature is Jane Zhang 張靚穎 the international star originally from Sichuan! She is known for her versatile voice that has an enormous range including the whistler register. I have immense respect for her as an artist as she has always been pushing and exposing herself to variety. Jane never limits herself to a genre or language, having performed songs in Chinese, English, as well as Italian. While she doesn’t necessarily top mainstream music charts, her name is huge in the music world and she is very active internationally and participated in numerous large projects such as the Beijing Olympics, Victoria Secrets Show Shanghai, etc. and has sang for many award winning films.
She carried the burden to support her family as a teenager singing at local bars and had her breakthrough after winning the singing competition Super Girl in 2005. Her first album was released the year after as a success. She has studied English as well which really boosts her English performances as well as her songwriting and expression.
The first song I ever heard from Jane was I Belong to Myself 我是我的. I loved watching the music video and the cheerful tones of the song as well as the message of the song.
I had originally thought she was just a very talented idol until I came across this and did more research to find just how big she was. This an opera from the Fifth Element. Listen until the very end. Her range and skills are impeccable and I loved how much she was enjoying it herself.
Jane has some very beautifully crafted music videos that are very nice on the eyes with mini surprises. Dust My Shoulders Off is one of my favorites. I love the whimsy creativity and the fact that she used famous artworks and put so much expression and story into them. The song actually has rather minimal background music which in my opinion always speaks volumes about true singing ability. There is no need for extra background music to make up for anything because her voice is enough to hold up the song and message.
And here’s for some variety. As mentioned before, Jane is never afraid to try out other genres and kinds of music. This is an EDM song she released in collaboration with dj, Jack Novak.
You can also watch Jane’s many performances on the singing show I Am a Singer 3 我是歌手 3. Here is one of them.
MISOE MUSIC HOUSE 