“Advisors” (梦想导师) for the Voice of China Season 4 Announced

NOTE: The Voice of China officially announced the actual advisors. I’m so sorry if you really thought these were the actual ones . . . 😥

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“Advisors”, so to speak, are the singers invited by either the show or the coaches themselves to advise the coaches during the elimination rounds. Though not all the Blind Auditions were broadcast yet, rumors, and, quickly, confirmations were made as to who will be the said advisors for Season 4.

With the inclusion of Jay Chou as one of the coaches, do note that these individuals are all going to be fairly 大牌.

So, who are they?

Harlem Yu, Jay Chou, Na Ying, Wang Feng

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Harlem Yu . . . and G.E.M. Tang?!

And so the age difference is . . . 30 years! (Harlem Yu coaches on “The Voice of China”, G.E.M. takes a selfie in Amsterdam)

Seeing this I was just completely and utterly surprised. Dang, 哈林, but just WOW. Already I KNEW the other coaches were going to have to get some really popular friends of theirs because WOW but OH MY GOODNESS.

For those of you who don’t know, Harlem Yu is a veteran singer whose career is longer than G.E.M.‘s entire life thus far. He’s the first artist to have experimented with R&B and rap in Chinese music, and, despite his weaker voice, I am a big fan of his music.

Some of his more famous works include 《春泥》，《情非得已》，and, more recently, 《等一个咖啡》.

He’s still going strong, too — his latest album, 《关不掉的月光》, which was released in 2013, is generally on par with JJ Lin’s 2013 album “Stories Untold”. 《指甲油》(Nail Polish . . . *giggles*) is actually one of my favorite songs.

Aside from music, he’s generally a more renown TV Show host, having hosted shows such a “Million Dollar Singer” or awards ceremonies such as the GMAs (he won “Best Male Singer” at the 13th GMA, too).

G.E.M., on the other hand, rose to great prominence last year through her performance in “I Am A Singer”, and is now HUGE in Asia. She’s in the second season of the variety show “Amazing Race” (still preferred Season 1 :'() and is currently releasing singles off her upcoming album. I’m still pissed at how bad “Heartbeat” sounds. But, the general consensus is that she’s gorgeous and talented and we’re all looking forward to see her on The Voice of China. Maybe she’ll become the next youngest coach. Who knows?

AS A TEAM 

This sort of pairing was totally unexpected, but I think it’ll work out just fine. Harlem can focus on his team’s musical versatility while G.E.M. judges their vocal ability, etc. If anything G.E.M. still has one of the more powerful voices in the industry, and more than likely has many techniques up her sleeve. Then she can do her G.E.M. thing and attract more views than how many Jay Chou already did.

Did you know? G.E.M. actually planned to go on Season 1 of The Voice of China. Look at where she is now.

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Eason Chan with Jay Chou

I expected Jacky Cheung . . . but Eason Chan is somewhat close. They’re both extremely huge in not only Hong Kong but also Greater China in general. I guess they all figured something out at this year’s GMAs. As Eason Chan is this year’s “Best Male Singer” (having succeeded JJ Lin), this is a smart move on Jay Chou‘s part. In addition, as Jacky Cheung is sort of half-retired right now, I guess he’s not really interested in this sort of thing. Eason Chan, on the other hand, is still enjoying lots of popularity (so is Jacky Cheung but you know) — if you recall the Finals round of “I Am A Singer” Season 3, he didn’t even have to really try to boot Han Hong all the way to first place. Or, if you need a mental image, do you remember those screaming fans?

In addition, with JJ Lin producing his latest Mandarin album, he’s definitely increased his Mainland and Taiwan fanbase.

Jay Chou you sort of HAVE TO know. He’s easily the most popular of the Four Heavenly Kings of Mandopop, many news outlets report on him as “the King of C-pop”, has a ton of classic songs you HAVE TO have heard before, etc., though it wasn’t easy for him at the start. While I’m not a big fan of his music, I still have to grudgingly admire his songwriting skills and perseverance. For me, however, I’m sort of getting the feeling that right now, he’s sort of living off of the legacy he’s previously built up. I think it’s just his most recent album that was really bland and mediocre in quality.

But, whatever — Jay Chou’s entertaining enough on The Voice of China, and with someone like Eason Chan, he can focus on musical versatility while Eason Chan judges the team’s vocal ability (sound familiar?).

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Li Jian serves as Na Ying’s advisor? Confirmed. 

On August 6, 2015, Li Jian’s working partners confirmed the rumor. Yay?

Li Jian hails from the band 水木年华, from the prestigious Tsinghua University, which guest performed in a concert I attended several years ago, though at the time I didn’t care for any of its members. Fast forward to the beginning of this year and Li Jian is one of the most popular contenders on I Am A Singer; he came in second place.

However, ever since news of I Am A Singer Season 3 has but died down, news of Li Jian has but died down, too. Until now. As he is a Mainland singer, however, unless there were HUGE news regarding Li Jian I probably would’ve been clueless, anyway.

Both Li Jian and Na Ying excel at the love song aspect and at guiding the team into bringing out the emotion within the song to touch the audience, so they’ll likely do fine. But when I first heard this, the only thing I could think of was Na Ying fangirling over Li Jian while Li Jian was serious in advising the team. -_-

Girl, but if you just controlled your hormones . . .

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A-Mei rejoins The Voice of China as Wang Feng’s advisor 

Don’t know who to pick? That’s ok — there are plenty of former coaches you can invite (dude but your very own wife Zhang Ziyi judged that one season of China’s X-Factor).

While Wang Feng, the famous rocker, came to be a coach on The Voice through being Na Ying’s advisor on Season 1, this marks the first time a previous coach will have been an advisor, too.

Unfortunately, it just completely escaped me what A-Mei was like when she coached. She definitely has experience, though, so I guess Wang Feng made a plausible choice.

To be honest here — I haven’t been listening to A-Mei or Amit at all (I did see the music video with the headless pianist, though), though I quite like her classics. You know them. Cut Love? Listen Sea? Remember? 开门见山? Fallen? There’s one that goes “我想哭但是哭不出来/ I want to cry but I can’t cry out” that I quite like, too.

Unfortunately, her performance on the Golden Melody Awards quickly had me pressing the mute button — aside from it being just really noisy and headache-inducing, she freaking screamed, “BULLSH*T!” at the audience — and basically shattered whatever good thoughts I might have had about her music.

Oh yeah, and she also won “Best Female Singer”, too. That is, for the third time.

Wang Feng’s music sounds nice, though. I suppose they’ll make a nice team.

— moon148