Jolin Tsai (Chinese: ???; pinyin: Cài Yilín) (born in September 15, 1980 in Sinjhuang City, Taipei County, Taiwan) is a Taiwanese Mandopop singer and is one of the most popular stars in Asia. She holds a bachelor degree in English Literature from Fu Jen Catholic University. Jolin was an introverted and shy child when she was young. Knowing that Jolin is of scholarly material, her mother brought her to attend Japanese-style Mathematics lessons, and she completed the course more quickly than expected. In addition, she did not fail to get into the top3 positions of her class during her primary school years, other than once when she was positioned at tenth, and her mother caned her as a result for being too complacent for the tests. True enough, her scholarly material brought her to the top-ranked schools in Taiwan, such as Jingmei Girls High School, and Fu-Jen catholic University. The latter is well known for its English and English Literature courses, which Jolin majored in. Jolin's mother once brought her to a jewellery store in United States of America. Jolin wanted to purchase a jewellery piece for her mother, but sadly, she could not speak in proper English and broke down as a result. However, that spurred her on, and she self-studied English during her primary school years. Her interests in English are reflected when she chose to do English Literature in Fun-Jen Catholic University, a Taiwanese University popular for its English culture and foundation. She has also developed interest towards singing, as she experimented with different vocal singing techniques after listening to various popular female singers such as Teresa Tseng and Faye Wong. Jolin first started out by taking part in a MTV singing competition at the age of 18. She won the top prize at the competition with her rendition of Whitney Houston's 1 hit "Greatest Love of All". She was then signed by Universal Music. On July 1999, her first single "Living With the World" was released. It was sold in convenience stores and was a tremendous success, which led to the release of her first album, Jolin 1019, on September 1999. At that time, she was packaged as "The Girl Next Door," and was an instant hit with teenagers, earning her the title "Teenage Boy Killer". Jolin 1019 ended up selling more than 400,000 copies in Asia. With the success of her first album, she released her anticipated second album in May 2000, Don't Stop. Many of the hits from that album were well known throughout Asia. This album was also a tremendous success. She also released her first photobook with pictures mainly taken in Hawaii. Her image changed for her third album, Show Your Love. Nearing the age of 21, she released an album that was much more mature and soothing. However, the album did not sell as well as her last two albums. Her fourth album, Lucky Number, was unable to bring her back to the same level of popularity either. The following year, due to conflicts with her record company, she did not release any albums. She did, however, release her second photobook, with photos taken in Thailand. Finally, Jolin managed to sign with Sony Music that year and got the biggest break of her career.
The first single released was the track "The Smell of Popcorn", which became a big hit and led to the highly anticipated release of her album Magic. The album turned out to be a smashing success, topping the Taiwan album charts for three full months and selling more than 300,000 copies in Taiwan alone. The album boasted many of her most well-known singles, including the the main song "See My 72 Changes" and the extremely popular "Say Love You". The latter song and several others, including the hit "Prague Square" were penned by fellow Taiwan mega star Jay Chou. The new image she presented for this album was more playful and sexy than before and her music became more dance-oriented. This transformation gave her what she needed to make a comeback to the music scene after being gone for almost a year. Jolin's sixth album, Castle, was just as popular as its predecessor and became a top album in many Asian countries. Just as with Magic, many songs on this album were written by Jay, her rumored boyfriend at that time. This album also featured many hit songs, including "Pirates" (which featured one of the most expensive music videos ever made in Chinese music history), the first single and upbeat dance track "36 Tricks of Love", the cute and playful "It's Love", the love ballads "The Smell of Lemon Grass" and "Disappearing Castle", and the moving rock ballad "Rewind." The album also included the song "Love Love Love", a Chinese cover of the Nu Virgos hit "Stop Stop Stop". Between Castle and her next studio album, Jolin released a CD of remixes called J9 New + Party Collection. This remix album featured two new songs including the hit song "Signature Pose" and remixes of Jolin's most popular dance songs. A medley of her dance hits was also included on the album. On April 25, 2005, her seventh album J-Game was released, also topping charts throughout Asia and making her extremely popular in Hong Kong, Mainland China, Malaysia, and Singapore. The album featured many more hip-hop influenced tracks than before, though it retained the dance pop and love ballads that made her famous. Though she supposedly broke up with Jay around the time the album was recorded, Jolin was able to find many other writers and producers for this album, including another huge Taiwanese pop star, Lee-Hom Wang. One of the songs he penned for Jolin, "Exclusive Myth", was included on the album. The first single of the album "Barbaric Game" was a huge hit across Asia and it was followed by several other strong singles including "The Greek Girl at the Wishing Well", "Sky", "Repeat Signs", "I Really Miss You" and "Eyes Half Shut". The music video of the latter song presented a much sexier image of Jolin than ever seen before. It was announced in early 2006 that Jolin would be leaving Sony BMG, the record company that helped elevate her to superstar status, and joining EMI Capitol. Since her debut and through her years at Sony, Jolin progressed very quickly in becoming an excellent dancer and performer. To prepare for her new album, Jolin worked very hard to perfect her dancing and change up her style yet again. This was evident at the 2006 MTV Asia Awards where she performed her hot new single "Dancing Diva" with elements of yoga and using various props including a ball and a ribbon. She also won the Style Award during the ceremony, demonstrating the influence she has in Asia. In May, Jolin's final album with Sony was released, a greatest hits compilation called J-Top, which included 2 CDs and a DVD with new and previously unreleased music videos and a 70 minute documentary on Jolin's time at Sony. The compilation featured many of the best songs from the albums she released under Sony. There were two new songs included on the album, one of which featured a music video where Jolin looks back on all her old music videos. After the release of J-Top, her first album with Capitol, Dancing Diva was released on May 12, 2006. This album became Jolin's biggest album yet, selling over 2 million copies in Asia. So far, it is the biggest selling album of the year in Taiwan. The album featured some of her most popular and sexiest dance songs ever, including the aforementioned title track, "Pulchritude", "Mr.Q" (the music video for this song shows a very sexy Jolin getting intimate with Hong Kong pop star Edison Chen), and the bonus track "Attraction of Sexy Lips" (a song she did as part of an endorsement deal with MaxFactor). The album also featured the fun and upbeat "A Wonder in Madrid" and the touching love ballad "Pretence", both of which were extremely popular with fans in Asia. She also helped write a song on the album titled "The Prologue", which many speculate was written about Jay. The album was re-released in July as the "Perfect Celebration Edition" with a DVD featuring music videos of all eleven of the songs on the album. She has done the same thing for Magic, Castle, and J-Game as well. During the fall of 2006, Jolin performed many concerts to sellout crowds in Asia, including a huge concert in Hong Kong with special guests like Hong Kong mega star Eason Chan and Taiwan's rising pop princess Rainie Yang. She also made guest appearances at her friend Stefanie Sun's concerts. Throughout the year, Jolin also won many awards for her work on Dancing Diva, sharing popularity awards with the likes of Hong Kong singing superstar Andy Lau and Taiwanese supergroup S.H.E Jolin released another album, Dancing Forever in October 2006. It features 2 CDs and a DVD. The first disc is comprised of all-new material, including the title track and theme for her tour: "Dancing Forever". Covers of songs by Chinese divas Sandy Lam and Faye Wong and the duet with David Tao are also included. Furthermore, she experiments with two other dialects - Taiwanese and Cantonese (the Canto version of "Pretence" is on the album). Up to this point, she has only released music in Mandarin. The second disc features remixes of three dance hits from Dancing Diva, while the DVD features the LUX sponsored mini-concert she performed in the summer in Kaohsiung. It features Stanley Huang and Taiwanese guy group Energy. Contrary to her daring stage performances, Jolin is actually a normal girl who enjoys gossiping and chatting online off-stage. Her innocent image, and her hardworking attitude are probably factors which have earned her popularity and loyalty among her fans throughout her years, despite being harshly targeted by the media especially during her Universal years
Jolin Tsai Bravo Lover MV
Jolin Tsai Agent J MV
