BETTER LATE THAN NEVER
After she put it on hold nine years ago, Ding Wei’s fourth album finally sees the light of day
NIt’s great to introduce Chinese pop music to Western listeners.” Ding Wei, singer and songwriter
ine years after she recorded it, and 13 years after the release of her previous album, Ding Wei’s fourth album titled Untied, was finally released on June 23.
“Now when I hear the album again, it feels like am collaborating with myself from 10 years ago,” says Ding, now in her mid 40s. “I never intended not to release the album. I was waiting for the right moment.”
In 2015, she traveled to London to redo the production on the album, working with veteran musicians, including guitarist Dominic Miller, who has played with Sting for decades, and drummer Ian Thomas, who has played with Eric Clapton.
She also signed a contract with the London-based independent record company, Cooking Vinyl, and the album has been released worldwide.
“It’s great to introduce Chinese pop music to Western listeners.” says Ding. “I don’t have to use traditional Chinese instrument and folk music elements to prove where I come from. They will know it when they listen to my songs because it’s in my blood.”
For the domestic market, she adds that she hopes to introduce a different type of pop music to the listeners, “something not so mainstream and commercial”.
“We discussed replacing some of the songs with new material but we gave up that idea. All the songs captured the feelings I had when I wrote them. I want to have those songs heard even though those moments have already passed,” says Ding.
The songs cover a wide range of genres, such as trip-hop and electronic music, and the lyrics are the singer-songwriter observations on the world and reflections on her life.
Stardom
Ding, who was born in Nanjing, Jiangsu province, found stardom at the age of 20, when she was still a student at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music majoring in composition. She became one of the best known pop stars of the 1990s, producing chart-topping songs and performing sellout shows.
As well as many hits of her own, including The Butterfly With Broken Wings, she also wrote compositions for big-named stars, including Beijing-based pop diva Na Ying and Hong Kong singer-actor Andy Lau.
The most remarkable things about the music scene two decades ago, Ding says, are the singer-songwriters’ loyalty to their music and how healthy the music environment was. However, with the rampant piracy in China during the 2000s, she said the market became unfriendly to original singer-songwriters like her.
“I didn’t think it was the right time to release the album due to the bad market. I was also not satisfied with the production we did,” recalls Ding, who with the support of the album’s producer, Lin Chaoyang, a schoolmate at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music, put the album aside.
Lin, who is also known as Salt, graduated from the Moscow P. I. Tchaikovsky Conservatory and is a classically trained violinist.
In 1996, Lin was invited to teach at the Beijing-based Central Conservatory of Music, which enabled him to reconnect with Ding in the capital.
Besides Ding’s new album, the two have also collaborated on music compositions for more than 40 movies and TV dramas since 2007, such as the series Dwelling Narrowness in 2009, and a 2011 Chinese romantic comedy, Love is Not Blind.
“We’ve known each other for decades and she is a singer-songwriter with a distinctive style, which is rare in China,” says Lin. “I am confident about this new album, even though we’ve waited for such a long time to release it. Like Ding’s early music, this album proves that she has always been ahead of the curve.”
Songwriter
Ding was introduced to music by her father, who let Ding learn to play the erhu at 7 years old.
At 10, Ding was admitted to study at the primary school affiliated to the Shanghai Conservatory of Music and she was expected to become an erhu player for a national orchestra when she grew up.
However, like many of her peers, Ding listened to Western pop music when she was a teenager, and it was Tori Amos’ Little Earthquakes and Rickie Lee Jones’ Pop Pop that made Ding decide to become a singersongwriter.
“Writing songs to me is a very private and emotional process, which I enjoy very much,” she says.
She also notes that what makes the music special is the singer-songwriter’s personal style.
“I don’t want to follow any trend, though I am fully aware that some of the music types are easy to sell and can become popular overnight. It would be very boring if all the songs you hear have the similar beats,” she says.
For example, one of her bestknown songs, Girl and Quartet, was born out of an image in Ding’s mind, in which she saw a girl standing onstage, just like Ding herself, with two violinists, a violist and a cellist playing behind her.
The song was released in 1999 on Ding’s second album, Begin, and its combination of pop and classical music gained Ding critical and commercial success.
The album also had a song, called Winter is Coming, which portrays Ding spending winter alone in Beijing and hearing her father has been diagnosed with cancer.
“Melody always comes first to me. I don’t want to tell stories with my lyrics. What I aim to do is create an atmosphere via music,” Ding says.
After releasing Untied, she says she can now finally move on to her next album. She will perform at some outdoor music festivals in China and will tour nationally from 2017 to 2018 in support of this new album.