Li Yuchun

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Li Yuchun
Background information
Birth name Li Yuchun
Born March 10，1984
Chengdu, Sichuan, China
Genre(s) Pop
Pop rock
Years active 2005–present
Label(s) Taihe Rye Music
Website http://lyc.trmusic.com.cn/

Li Yuchun (Chinese: 李宇春), born on 10 March 1984, is a Chinese pop singer, who suddenly became the most famous new face in 2005, by winning the championship in a nationwide singing contest Super Girl. She is now working with Taihe Rye Music, and is going to release her first album in September 2006.

Li Yuchun's fans have an interesting name - "corns". The two chinese characters that make up "corn" are "yu" and "mi". "Yu" stands for Yuchun -- Ms Li's first name, and "mi" has a homophone in Chinese for fans.

Contents

[edit] Biography

[edit] Early Years

Born into a moderate middle-class family in Chengdu, Sichuan Province, Li Yuchun was not encouraged to pursue a career in entertainment. Her father is a railway policeman. Her mother, a retired housewife, wished her to be a physician. As most of the Chinese children, she worked hard and got into a good middle school, where she prepared herself for the national university entrance exam, which is regarded by most of the Chinese parents as the critical point for their children's future.

She didn't receive any formal artistic training until she was 18. However, she had been a star student in the high school, known by her charming charisma, singing talent, and unique stage presence. At the age of 18, just before the national university entrance exam, she told her parents that she wanted to get into the Music conservatory. Though shocked by her ambition, her parents found a music tutor for her. They thought she would give up because her chance of getting through was very small. To their surprise, after one-month intensive training, she passed the artistic exam. Ecstatic with the admission offer, Ms Li carried out her first live concert "The Last Battle" in high school, before the graduation, as she had promised to her classmate. The little concert was a school-wide sensation. As described by some of the audiences, the school hall was filled with students, teachers and Ms Li's relatives. Boys and girls shrieked frantically as they were watching a real pop star show. They even chased her for autograph after the show was ended. Most of them, however, might not predict that their beloved alumni will become a real national icon several years later.

[edit] Super Girl

Before Li Yuchun won the 2005 run-away summer hit Super Girl season II which drew the largest audiences in Chinese TV history, she was a senior student in Sichuan Music Conservatory. Back then, she was not perceived as a student with great expectation by most faculties and classmates in the school, because she does not possess the qualities that were traditionally essential for female entertainers: pretty face, curvy figure, sweet and pitchy voice, powerful vocal skills, and tantalizing posture to males. On the contrary, the girl is 5 feet and 8 inches tall (rare height for southern Chinese females), lean and sharp, often dresses in loose jeans and male style T-shirt (she had difficulties to find suitable clothes in female style because most of them were too small for her). Her voice was not in favorable range for most Chinese, especially males. Therefore, one can imagine that how shocking it was when she appeared on the TV screen as a candidate in the singing competition of Super Girl, the Chinese version of "American Idol", which distinguished itself from the traditional singing competition by allowing the audiences to decide which candidate to succeed with voting through text messages. Previously such kinds of competitions were totally ruled by from music academia or veteran singers, who solely focus on vocal skills. It was even more shocking to both of the producers of the TV show and many of the audiences, that Ms Li won overwhelmingly more votes during the competition than other competitors, though many of them are perceived as more physically attractive or vocally proficient, according to traditional standards. The enthusiasm that Ms Li had stimulated was hard to explain to some people, however, it does not surprise those who had known Ms Li since middle school, where she had shown her X-factor to be a real star.

Super Girl is a singing competition held nationwide, beginning in five local areas. Li Yuchun auditioned at Chengdu, Sichuan, her hometown, and from he first moment she appeared on TV, people all around the country were impressed by this 21-year old. In the first few rounds of the competition, the judges had exclusive power over the advance or yielding of a contestant. After these rounds, the audience can participate in the decisions through sending text messages with their cell phones (each vote was around 1 Chinese yuan).

As soon as audience voting became a part of the competition, Li Yuchun's popularity was quantified. Each local competition produces three winners, ranked by their number of votes. While all the four other champions had approximately 40,000-50,000 votes, Li had a total of 200,000 votes within a week. Her popularity continued to grow exponentially, and won the contest with a total of 3.5 million votes, beating two other finalists Zhou Bichang and Zhang Liangying.

[edit] 2005-present

The very first song of her own is Sweetheart, I Love You, recorded during the time when she attended Super Girl. She joined Taihe Rye Music in October 2005, and released her single Happy Winter (Chinese: 冬天快乐), as a Christmas gift to her fans. In March 2006, she released Give Me Five, a latin-flavored dancing song. And lately, another new release Happy Wake Up is the song used in her Crest toothpaste ad, which will be included in her coming full album. All of these songs were released online by digital distribution, a new move in Chinese music world by Taihe Rye Music. She also released an EP Give Me Five.

Li Yuchun has held two unplugged concerts to date, the first in her hometown, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, on March 10, 2006 -- her 22nd birthday, and the second in Shanghai on May 22, 2006.

Her debut album titled 'Queen and Dream' (皇后与梦想) was released on September 15, 2006. It was sold 100,000 copies in the preselling and more than 430,000copies in the first month. She held a promotional concert in Beijing Exhibition Center on September 20, 2006 to present songs from her debut album.

[edit] Discography

[edit] Albums

  • 2006 The Queen And The Dreams (Chinese: 皇后与梦想)

[1]

[edit] Singles

  • 2005 Sweetheart, I Love You (Chinese: 甜蜜的, 我爱你)
  • 2005 Happy Winter (Chinese: 冬天快乐)
  • 2006 Give Me Five

[edit] Awards

The 6th Global Chinese Music Awards - Singapore, 2006

  • Top 5 most popular female artistes
  • Media Recommendation
  • Top 20 Hits of the Year: "Happy Winter"(冬天快乐)

See the complete list of awards and honors on her official site (Chinese) [2]

[edit] Charity Work

Li Yuchun has triggered the donation craze after she was chosen as the ambassador for the "Yu Mi Loving Fund" of the Chinese Red Cross Foundation (CRCF) to help children with leukemia since March 2005. She made it her mission to raise funds with giving her costumes worn in Super girl finale to charity auctions and donating entire income of her second unplugged concert in Shanghai. The CRCF has reported several website crashes after Li Yuchun spoke about the charity during recent public appearances. So far the foundation has received more than 6,000 donations from Li Yuchun fans throughout the world, amounted up to 560,000 RMB and helped 21 children. In her mission as Hewlett-Packard Ambassador from August to December 2006 to promote genuine printing supplies and accessaries, HP will donate part of sale incomes to the "Yu Mi Loving Fund" to help 30 children in poverty with Luekemia.

From December, 2006, Li Yuchun will be the ambassador for Viva Glam Lipstick of M.A.C. Aids Fund in China.

The girl still lives a very simple life exactly as she used to before becoming a national icon. Non-brandname t-shirts and jeans are her usual outfits, and unlike other celebrities, she doesn't mind at all to wear same outfits many times in front of media cameras.

[edit] Trivia

  • Li Yuchun made the cover story of Time Magazine Asia special issue, October 2005, named as one of the "Asia's Heroes". [1]
  • The China National Philatelic Corporation issues a postage stamp bearing her image in January in 2006 -- a first for a mainland Chinese pop star.


[edit] References

  1. ^ Li Yuchun Loved for Being Herself. TIME asia (October SPECIAL ISSUE, 2005). Retrieved on September 6, 2006.

[edit] External links

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