Beijing Olympics 2008

Pop music and movie star Jay Chou from Taiwan struggled to produce a song for the Beijing Games because neither he nor long-time collaborator Vincent Fang had attempted writing this kind of music before.
The pair worked on the song A Long Journey for five months and finished a demo in Taipei on March 9. Chou told the Shanghai-based Oriental Daily he rushed to complete the song and ended up e-mailing it to Beijing Olympic officials at night just before the deadline.
BOCOG will reveal the songs for the Olympics and Paralympics 100 days before the respective Games start.
Chou, known for his roles in the Zhang Yimou-directed Curse of the Golden Flower and Initial D, said the song marked a new departure for him.
“I think the feeling of the electric guitars is a little stronger than just using the piano,” Chou said. “If listeners from Europe and America hear this kind of music, I hope it can make them jump back a little!”
The song blends Chou’s traditional Chinese sounds with other genres like rock and electro.
Some of Fang’s lyrics, written in Mandarin, have already been leaked on the Internet: “A long journey, countless nights, waiting for a clear moon, on the border of dreams, the wind blows ceaselessly, never feeling tired, the East is worthy, who is number one, let us pursue perfection.”
March 10 was the closing date for the fourth round of Olympic song solicitations. Organizers said they were looking for 25 songs for the Olympic Games, 10 songs for the Paralympics, one theme song each for the Olympic and Paralympic torch relays, theme songs for the volunteers and a piece of music for the award ceremonies.
Light the Passion, Share the Dream, composed by Hong Kong musician Chris Babida, has already been named for the Olympic torch relay, which got underway March 24. I am a Star, by Emil Chau, will be used for Olympic volunteers.

Giorgio Moroder and Kong Xiangdong’s Forever Friends is considered a leading candidate for the Olympic theme tune. This would be Moroder’s third Olympic theme song.
“National characteristics should be reflected in the song,” he said. “For example, Korean musical elements were used in Hand in Hand. This time, we have used Chinese music from Liu Yang River instead of Jasmine, because the latter has been overused.”

BOCOG started song hunting in 2003 and collected over 300 in 2005 alone, including Wishing Star by another Taiwan artist, Huang Dawei. Over 4,000 songs have been submitted over the last four years, including at least 30 for the theme song.
Canadian singer Celine Dion, who will perform on April 13 at Beijing Workers’ Stadium, has also sent a candidate theme song to BOCOG. The multiple Grammy Award winner sang The Power of the Dream at the opening ceremony of the 1996 Atlanta Games. Four years ago in Athens, Icelandic artist Bjork took the honor, performing Oceania in a towering white and purple dress.
Former Olympic gold medalist Yang Ling penned the lyrics to one offering entitled I stand on the Olympic Winner’s Podium.
Beijing Satellite TV (BTV1) launched the program Olympic Songfest on Jan 5 last year so viewers could vote for their favorites.

from: chinadaily.com.cn

With Giorgio Moroder’s “Forever Friends” other 50,000 songs try to be selected

Over 50,000 songs have reached the organizers of the campaign to seek best songs for the Beijing Olympic Games in August this year, the Beijing Evening News reported.
The Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad (BOCOG) started soliciting the songs on April 15, 2003.
The responders include ordinary citizens, students, professional composers, overseas Chinese, people with disabilities, and many others.
Among the entries, many praise the rise of China, athletes’ striving for the title, triumph of bid victory etc. However, the Olympic songs have their audiences not only in China, but the world over. “We expect more entries which embody the common aspirations and ideals of mankind,” said Jiang Xiaoyu, executive vice-president of BOCOG.
“Only a song advocating the splendor of humanity as encouraged by the Olympic spirit, can surmount the cultural differences and become a good Olympic song,” he said.
The world audiences would like to sing songs that integrate the nationality and internationality, he added.
The melody of “Hand in Hand” composed by Giorgio Moroder (he also competes for the Beijing Olympic theme) for the Seoul Olympic Games did not mention any word like “Korean”, but it perfectly expressed the spirit of the people of the Republic of Korea promoting unity, development and progress, Jiang said.
With the Olympic Games less than 200 days away, BOCOG has started to promote part of the entries through television and mobile phone schemes.

Taiwan pop star Chang Hui-mei, once banned from performing in China, is hoping she will be chosen to sing at the opening ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympics, her past political problems forgiven and forgotten.
Chang has recorded a song in English called “Forever Friends” which, if chosen, she will perform in front of a global audience of billions on the night of Aug. 8, when the Olympics open.
It would mark an amazing comeback for a singer, affectionately known as A-Mei, who in 2000 sang the Taiwan anthem for anti-China President Chen Shui-bian’s inauguration.
China was incensed and stopped her from performing there until the summer of 2001. Though later allowed to return, in 2004 she cancelled a performance in Hangzhou after a protest by nearly 100 people accusing her of supporting Taiwan independence.
Chang, 35, declined to talk directly about those incidents in a recent interview with Reuters at a Beijing recording studio.
“I cannot say that my 10-year career path has been very smooth,” the petite singer said.
“But at least in the past 10 years, I have had highs and lows and I am glad to have walked safely through it all,” she added.
China views self-ruled, democratic Taiwan as part of its territory. The island has been ruled separately since defeated Nationalist forces fled there at the end of a civil war in 1949.
Beijing has threatened to take Taiwan, by force if necessary, but over the past few years has sought favour with Taiwanese people by promoting cultural exchanges.
Taiwanese and Hong Kong singers are hugely popular in China, despite its own growing pop scene, with many fans seeing those singers as more glamorous and fashionable.

“SMALL MISTAKE”
Chang, who grew up singing for fun in her native Puyuma village, stands out because of her strong voice on light rock tracks covering matters such as love and race.
Mandarin songs like “Can I hold you?”, “Bad Boy” and “When I started secretly to miss you” were big hits not just in Taiwan and China, but across Southeast Asia.
The singer’s top priority now is to rehearse and record “Forever Friends”, composed by Chinese musician Kong Xiangdong and Italian Giorgio Moroder, producer of the Seoul Olympic theme song “Hand in Hand”.
“A-Mei made a small mistake,” Kong said of Chang’s previous political problems. “But the audience did not forget her after all these years.”
The song has already won recognition with the Beijing Olympic organisers, who have praised it as one of their top five candidates, despite Chang’s checkered past in China.
“The Olympics and music are beyond borders and beyond politics,” said Wang Pingjiu, a senior official who is in charge of Olympic song selection.
“Personally, I like this song very much. But as for the future of the song — whether it is able to make it as the Olympic theme song — you might need to wait until the Aug 8. Olympic opening ceremony to find out the answer,” he added.
Previous Olympics have seen performances by Celine Dion, Bjork and Kylie Minogue. (Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Katie Nguyen)

from: guardian.co.uk 

The Dream Team of Giorgio Moroder witch include top star Coco Lee and Sun Nan, producer Kong Xiangdong and Yang Dongsheng and german lyricist Michael Kunze produced what should become the Beijing 2008 Olympic Theme.
Here the lyrics to the song:

Forever Friends

You’ve tasted bitter defeat and the sweet success.
You want it all and you settle for nothing less.
You’ve tried harder than the rest.
You’ve become one of the best.
This is the time you’ll remember for
All your life.

Forever friends
In harmony
As the whole world joins and sees
Days of unity and peace.
Forever through the years
We’ll hear the cheers.
Joy and laughter everywhere!
We’re together here to share
Forever friends

You’ll meet all races, see faces you’ve never seen.
People from parts of the world where you’ve never been.
And you’ll feel it in your heart
We spent too much time apart
This is the time when all dreams of man come alive.
No matter where we are or go
No matter what we hope for or know
No matter how we word our prayer
There is one dream we share
One world One Dream
Forever friends
In Harmony!
Forever Friends
One dream we dream,
One world we share.

RobLadin.com