Jay Chou announces new album with behind-the-scenes video in Paris

TAIPEI — Mandopop star Jay Chou, who has been teasing his long-awaited album for months, has finally announced that it will be released on July 15.

The highly anticipated album is his first studio album in six years, since 2016's Jay Chou's Bedtime Stories.

He gave a glimpse of what fans can expect in a video on his YouTube channel on Sunday night (June 19), which featured behind-the-scenes footage of him filming in Paris for the upcoming album.

Accompanied by a group of his frequent collaborators, Chou, 43, started off at the famous antique market at Saint Ouen.

He gave hints of what to expect in the new album, which will be his 15th in a career spanning more than 20 years.

While browsing a record stall, he joked that he did not need these old songs as he could write his own old song.

At another stall, he picked up a microphone from the 1950s and said: "I want to write an old song, so I need an old microphone."

He insisted that while technology can make a song sound old, the ambiance that is captured on an old microphone is unique.

At another stop, he composed a short tune on a grand piano from 1872, which he said inspired him to write something very old, but did not buy it as it cost over €1 million (S$1.5 million).

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Later, he also played a public piano in the busy Gare du Nord train station.

The last stop on the 11-minute video showed him visiting the city's famous Palais Garnier opera house.

There, he took out the microphone and sang on the grand staircase in the deserted opera house.

Chou has an affinity for Paris, having filmed music videos there in the past, as well as an episode of his Netflix travel show, J-Style Trip (2020).

He is the patron of the Paris Saint-Germain football club's endowment fund. He recently launched a metaverse art project with the French football club, teaming up with footballers such as Neymar, Lionel Messi and Gianluigi Donnarumma to shoot a commercial.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.