孟庭苇
Meng, Tingwei (孟庭苇), born on 22 December 1969 in Zhanghua (彰化), Taiwan, China, is one of the most important female singers in the early 90's Mandarin pop scene. With her constant high register, crystal-clear articulation, and the subtle support from the easy-listening arrangements and productions, her unique singing style has often been commented as being "ethereal", "spacey", "immaculate", "untarnished", and rather difficult to reproduce till today. She had received an unofficial nickname "Moon Princess" for her hit single "Look! Look! The Face of the Moon"("你看你看月亮的脸").
Originally named Chen, Xiumei (陈秀玫), Meng received her artist name from her initial record label Shangge(上格) through fortune-telling, with an idyllic touch in the chosen Chinese characters (庭苇 means "the flower in the courtyard"). Her hardcore fans often prefer using her nickname Yaya (亚亚).
Her first two albums (<其实我还是有些在乎>), (<成长>), released in May and November, 1990, fell into the typical 80's Soft-Rock routines and failed to draw much attention.
Her third album (<你看你看月亮的脸>), released September, 1991, introduced to the audience in the region a refreshing style characterized by her high-pitched and minor-key-dominant vocal melody-line, well articulated and emotionally rich vocal narratives, in contrast with the slow tempo and the relaxed analog synths and acoustic guitars in the background, all of which are wrapped into strong artificial reverbs, creating a gradually built-up atmosphere around the lyrics that frequently refer to natural phenomena as a kind of metaphors for loss of love. This style was distinct compared to the Disco and New-Wave oriented Mandarin/Cantonese pop tradition in Hongkong, Taiwan, and Mainland China from the late 80's till early 90's. The album sold 500,000 copies in Taiwan and 5,000,000 throughout Asia, which established her fame as one of the most popular Taiwanese female singers at the time.
The following three albums (<冬季到台北来看雨>, released May, 1992), (<谁的眼泪在飞>, February, 1993), (<风中有朵雨做的云>, November, 1993) were essentially the continuations of the same style and achieved consistent commercial successes in Asia. Many of these songs were well fitted into the aesthetics of the Taiwanese romantic TV dramas from the early 90's (she did perform a couple of such themes). Around the releasing time of her sixth album, she was rated as the best "Dream Lover in the Military" ("军中情人") in Taiwan. On the other hand, her success in the Mainland Chinese market also gained her a lot of invited professional appearances in both commercial and governmental events in Mainland China, which was rarely seen among all the Taiwanese artists at that time considering the well-known political tension between the two entities.
(<纯真年代>, August, 1994) saw Meng and her production group’s attempts to exploit more traditional Chinese folk flavors, lusher arrangements and productions, marked by richer analog synth overdubs and a little digital ones, more ethnic instruments, and more foreground-oriented instrument mixing. These were further emphasized in the next two albums (<真的还是假的>, March, 1995) and (<心言手语>, March, 1996), with the immediately standing-out pieces such as "Telepathy" ("心电感应"), "My Heart is Broken for Breaking Yours" ("伤了你的心的我伤心"), "Placed into Heart" ("放在心里面").
Entering the mid-90’s, influenced by the trendy Alternative Pop/Rock and Electronica scene at the time, along with the flourishing digital production technology, Meng's next few albums were a complete departure from her most-remembered style. Lots of dynamic elements such as Bossanova were adopted, resulting in songs that are faster and rhythmically more complex; her voice was heavily compressed and the reverbs over her voice were considerably reduced for an enhanced presence; the bass and mid-range of her voice became more emphasized with EQ, creating a “whispering” quality; digital effects such as delay, flanger, chorus, and stereo imaging were piled upon her natural performances; the old analog reverbs and synths were replaced with the fuller and broader digital ones. These albums are (<第二道彩虹>, March, 1997), (<恋人>, November, 1997), and the southern-Fujian-dialect(Min-nan) album (<爱到史艳文>, October, 2000); the latter two albums were made under her new label the Friendly Dog (友善的狗). Two months after the releasing of , Meng announced the end of her professional singing career for the first time.
According to some other artists in the circle and herself, Meng realized that her straightforward personality and her exclusive focus on music were incompatible with the climate of the circle, which much contributed to her leaving.
Before her leave, she had become obsessed with Buddhist music. Soon, she released a Buddhist music album (<阿弥陀佛>, November, 2001) and also appeared in a number of charity concerts in Mainland China. Another Buddhist album (<心经>) was released in January, 2003.
Five months after her marriage with her high-school classmate, Meng finally decided to return to her career and signed to her current record label Jingwen (京文). The first album after her return was (<红花>, January, 2005), which consists of new compositions and the remastering of a few of her early classics. In this and her latest album (<幸福感>, September, 2006, released after her first pregnancy), not only the Electronica-dominant arrangements and refined productions, but her singing (such as the staccato feel) showed certain influences from another super star in the 90-00's Mandarin/Cantonese pop scene, Wang, Faye (王菲).
One of the unique features of Meng's singing style compared to the contemporary Chinese female pop singers is her zero usage of falsetto even at rather high registers.
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