Zhang Liangying

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a Chinese name; the family name is Zhang.

Zhang Liangying
Jane Zhang
Background information
Birth name	Zhāng Liàngyǐng
Also known as	Jane Zhang
Born	October 11, 1984 (age 22) Chengdu, Sichuan
Occupation(s)	singer
Years active	2005 —
Website	Official website

Zhang Liangying (also known as Jane Zhang, Simplified Chinese: 张靓颖; Traditional Chinese: 張靚穎; Pinyin: Zhāng Liàngyǐng) (born October 11, 1984) is a Chinese pop singer.

Zhang was placed third in the 2005 season of the Super Girl contest, a national all-female singing competition, held in People's Republic of China). Able to sing in English, Spanish and Cantonese besides Mandarin Chinese, she is regarded by many to be one of the best young singers of China.

Her vocal range ranges from at least the D below middle C, up to the F above soprano C (latter demonstrated in her rendition of Minnie Riperton's Loving You)^[1]

1 Humble Beginnings
2 Super Girl Competition
3 Performances in Super Girl Competition
4 The first E.P. "Jane.Love"
5 The first album "The One"
6 Influence
7 After Super Girl
8 Awards
9 References
10 External links

[edit] Humble Beginnings

Zhang was born to a modest household in Chengdu, Sichuan. Early on, she displayed a talent for singing and stage performance. She performed at her parents' work place on several occasions. Her parents were divorced when she was 13. Two years later, Zhang's father passed away and the worsening family financial situation forced her to work outside of school. She started to sing at a local public house, where her musician uncle played the accompaniments.

Exposed to a wide variety of music genres in the pub, Zhang developed a taste for Western singers such as Mariah Carey and Christina Aguilera as well as American country music. Unable to afford her own music players, she frequently borrowed a walkman and headphones from her classmates and skipped lunches to save enough to buy cassettes. Several years later, she started drawing attention from audiences and gained a small group of fans.

[edit] Super Girl Competition

Zhang entered the local Chengdu preliminaries of Super Girl contest in 2005. She became the first runner-up of the preliminary rounds and entered the national competition with Li Yuchun (Chinese: 李宇春) and He Jie (Simp. Chinese: 何洁; Trad. Chinese: 何潔).

Zhang is known for singing her favorite songs in foreign languages. Her style attracted wide support from the educated and college students influenced by the West. At the same time, her performances irritated a few critics and received negative reviews from them. These reactions may have been to an implicit comparison with Chinese music in view of her song choices. Her fans, outraged by the criticism, launched online protests and eventually forced two critics to resign from the board of reviews.

During the national competition, Zhang sang "Reflection", "I Still Believe", "What's Up", "Beautiful", and "Don't Cry for Me Argentina" and so on. Her outstanding performances of foreign languages lead some commentators to propose that she sing in the Beijing Olympics in 2008.

Although she received positive reviews from most critics and professional musicians, she was not the most popular contestant among young supporters. Her final number of votes (1.3 million) by messaging fell behind Li Yuchun and Zhou Bichang, placing her as the second runner-up.

[edit] Performances in Super Girl Competition

Date	Round	Track	Original artist
May 26, 2005	Preliminary Round	Contigo En La Distancia Each time When I Miss You (Chinese: 每一次想你)	Christina Aguilera; CoCo Lee (Chinese: 李玟)
June 4, 2005	Round I (eliminate 30 out of 50)	I Turn to You	Christina Aguilera
June 10, 2005	Round II (eliminate 10 out of 20)	Any Man of Mine; Mix of 3 songs in different languages; which includes French, Spanish and Japanese	Shania Twain; Multiple
June 17, 2005	Round III (eliminate 3 out of 10)	Simply the Best	Tina Turner
June 24, 2005	Round IV (eliminate 2 out of 7)	Country Love (Simp. Chinese: 乡恋; Trad. Chinese: 鄉戀); Passionate Desert (Simp. Chinese: 热情的沙漠; Trad. Chinese: 熱情的沙漠)	Guyi Li (Chinese: 李谷一); Feifei Auyeung (Simp. Chinese: 欧阳菲菲; Trad. Chinese: 歐陽菲菲)
July 1, 2005	Chengdu Final	I Still Believe; Writing a Song (Simp. Chinese: 写一首歌; Trad. Chinese: 寫一首歌)	Brenda K. Starr; Shun Zi (Simp. Chinese: 顺子; Trad. Chinese: 順子)
July 15, 2005	National Round I (eliminate 3 out of 15)	Long Live Journey (Chinese: 漫步人生路); Beautiful	Teresa Teng (Simp. Chinese: 邓丽君; Trad. Chinese: 鄧麗君); Christina Aguilera
July 22, 2005	National Round II (eliminate 2 out of 12)	Remember Me; You're the Most Precious (with Li Yuchun) (Simp. Chinese: 你最珍贵; Trad. Chinese: 你最珍貴)	Beverley Knight; Jacky Cheung and Francesca Gao (Simp. Chinese: 张学友/高慧君; Trad. Chinese: 張學友/高慧君)
July 29, 2005	National Round III (eliminate 2 out of 10)	Remember Me; How Can You Let Me Upset (Simp. Chinese: 你怎么舍得我难过; Trad. Chinese: 你怎麼捨得我難過) Vision of Love; Jambalaya (On the Bayou); Liu Yanghe(Simp. Chinese: 浏阳河; Trad. Chinese: 瀏陽河)	Beverley Knight; Huang Pinyuan; Mariah Carey; Hank Williams; Unknown
August 5, 2005	National Round IV (eliminate 2 out of 8)	Don't Cry for Me Argentina; Your Face (Simp. Chinese: 你的样子; Trad. Chinese: 你的樣子)	Madonna; Lotayu (Simp. Chinese: 罗大佑; Trad. Chinese: 羅大佑)
August 12, 2005	National Round V (eliminate 1 out of 6)	Nothing's Gonna Stop Us Now; Such a Big Tree (Simp. Chinese:好大一棵树; Trad. Chinese: 好大一棵樹)	Starship; 田震
August 19, 2005	National Round VI (eliminate 2 out of 5)	The Fisherman's song of Ussuri River (Simp. Chinese: 乌苏里船歌; Trad. Chinese: 烏蘇里船歌) Lovin' You; Old Straw Hat (This is an English song with an Japanese name "人间の证明のテーマ", and it's Chinese name is 草帽歌); Make the World Full of Love (Simp. Chinese: 让世界充满爱; Trad. Chinese: 讓世界充滿愛); Story about a Small City (Chinese: 小城故事)	Unknown; Minnie Riperton; Joe Yamanaka (Japanese: ジョー山中; Chinese: 山中明); Unknown; Teresa Teng (Simp. Chinese: 邓丽君; Trad. Chinese: 鄧麗君)
August 26, 2005	National Final	What's Up	4 Non Blondes

[edit] The first E.P. "Jane.Love"

The cover of Jane.Love

On January 9, 2006, her first Extended play, Jane.Love (Simp. Chinese: Jane 爱; Trad. Chinese: Jane 愛) was released. The E.P. contains three songs including "Radiance" (Chinese: 光芒), "Counterclockwise" (Simp Chinese: 逆时针; Trad. Chinese: 逆時針) and "To Be Loved". "Radiance" is a Mandarin song as well as "Counterclockwise" while "To Be Loved" is an English song. The E.P. contains the instrumental versions of these three tracks.

[edit] The first album "The One"

On October 11th, 2006, her first album, The One was released. The album contains ten songs, among those three are in English. The three English songs were produced in Chicago, IL and were produced by Craig Valentino Williams, best known for discovering the R&B singer R. Kelly and composer for the Oprah Winfrey Show.

Body Language (Simp. Chinese: 身体语言)
This Damned Thing Called Love (Simp. Chinese: 这该死的爱)
Take it like a Man (Produced by Craig Valentino Williams)
If we Love Indefinitely (Simp. Chinese: 如果爱下去)
Can't Take It Back (Produced by Craig Valentino Williams)
Private Matter (Simp. Chinese: 个人秘密)
Zero O' One, Missing You (Simp. Chinese: 想你，零点零一分)
Blockhead (Simp. Chinese: 木脑壳)
Girl of Your Dreams
Midnight，Goodnight

[edit] Influence

Although many of her followers could not comprehend the lyrics of her songs, she sparked language learning interests among her fans and appreciation of Western music.
Her fans called themselves "Liang Fen" (凉粉), the combination of the pronunciation of her name and the English word "fan". The same term has been used to define a particular type of bean jelly snack in central China. This usage came from Hong Kong years ago, but nowadays more people use it.
She has also sung many popular theme songs for various films and series, including the film The Banquet and and the TV series, The Return of the Condor Heroes. Both songs have reached high popularity and have reached the charts among China.

[edit] After Super Girl

Jane Zhang was invited to visit her alma mater in Sichuan University during its orientation week celebration in early September. She performed her version of Shania Twain's "Any Man of Mine".

On September 26, 2005, she became the first Super Girl contestant to hold a personal music show for her fans. Numerous celebrities attended the show. These guests included: Huang Jianxiang (one of CCTV's hosts on football shows), Zeng Zimo (Phoenix TV's famed host of commercial programme) and Wu Sikai(singer from Taiwan). She has also signed a contract with CCTV to play the supporting role in a stage music show "The Song of the Movie".

In February 2007, she was invited by World peace one (WP1) to join a hundred world-renowned singers and bands to record a song called "Give Your Love". This was aimed to bring attention to all cultures of the globe, to 'bring an end to war during our lifetime'.