Wu Qing-feng
Wu Qing-feng, also known as Wu Tsing-fong or Greeny Wu, is a Taiwanese singer-songwriter and the lead vocalist of Oaeen. In addition to being the group’s principal creative force, he has written songs for numerous other artists. He won the 18th Golden Melody Award for Best Composer in 2007 and the 27th Golden Melody Award for Best Lyricist in 2016. He began a solo career in 2018 and released his debut studio album, Spaceman, the following year.
Early life and career beginnings
Wu was born in Taipei, Taiwan and is the youngest son in the family. He went to The Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University and joined the school magazine club as the president and the art editor. He applied to study in the Department of Chinese Literature of National Chengchi University in 2000, double-majoring in the Department of Advertising and minoring in the Department of Business Administration and in the Department of Education.Influences: music
Without receiving any formal training, Wu taught himself piano and music theory out of interest. As Wu's elder sister started to learn to play the piano when he was an elementary school student, he used to observe her playing and practiced secretly when no one else was home. Wu enjoyed going to record shops and only listened to classical music, such as the works of Claude Debussy, Erik Satie along with several of his favorite composers.When he was in junior high school, he listened to Faye Wong's album Sky given by his elder sister, and since then, he "has started to listen to all kinds of genres". He talked about it in an interview:
"Retrospectively, that was the time when music was truly beautiful...from 1994 to 2000. To me, the songs of those years are the most impressive. It probably has something to do with my adolescence. Many of the songs from that time are even more trendy and edgier than those now".Wu is deeply inspired by the following music artists: Faye Wong, A-Mei, Faith Yang, Jeff Buckley, Tori Amos, Björk, Ringo Sheena, Radiohead, Chyi Yu and Ai Jing. Wu has often covered the works of the above artists in his performance.
Influences: writing
Wu has always been highly sensitive to words. At the age of 3 or 4, he was taught to write Chinese characters by his grandfather. Whenever there were visitors coming, his grandfather would have him recognize words and recite newspaper aloud as a performance. Wu therefore was able to recognize a great number of words at a very young age. When he was an elementary school boy, he even edited a personal dictionary by comparing several dictionaries. When in college, Wu admired contemporary poets Hsia-Yu and Li Chen. Qing-Feng's lyrics style has partially inherited the experimentalism and the deconstructive method linguistically and syntactically from the two poets. He also mentioned that the foundation of his lyrics writing may have been built along the process of word-recognition and his habit of reading Chinese dictionaries as a child.Early works
Wu first tried to create music when he was in the third year of senior high school after participating in the school music competition Tien-Yun Award. Although he signed up for the competition without having any works ready, he soon wrote his first song Peeping and more than a dozen songs were composed one after another in the same month. In the end, he won the championship in the Composition Category with his work Peeping and another championship in the Solo Singing Category by performing Tanya Chua's Ji Nian . Wu once mentioned that if he had not won first prize at Tien-Yun Award for Composition Category, he would not have realized that he was able to write songs and might have never thought about writing any other songs.In order to sign up for NCCU Golden Melody in 2001, he started the band Sodagreen with Claire Hsieh, Jyun-Wei Shih and his high school friend Xin-Ge. By covering Stefanie Sun's My Desired Happiness , he entered the Solo Singing Final and the Composition Final at NCCU Golden Melody Award with his work Be Late For One Thousand Years . In 2002 Sodagreen participated in NCCU Golden Melody Award again and not only did they win the championship in the Team Category with the work Audiovisual And Illusion In The Air, but also won three more prizes, including the championship, Best Lyrics and Best Composition in Composition Category with the work Flying Fish . From2001 to 2004, Wu completed more than 100 songs. About half of them became the works for Sodagreen and the rest of the songs were successively used by other artists.
Career
2004 – Present: Sodagreen
On May 30, 2004, Sodagreen had the concert School Rock at NCCU and released the single Audiovisual And Illusion In The Air '''' as their official debut. Since then, Wu has participated in various music collaborations as an individual aside from performing and releasing works with Sodagreen. The collaborations include:- In 2004, "Ms. Pheromone " in the stage play Touching Skin is Wu's first music composition for the lyrics.
- In 2004, Faith Yang's song "Nu Jue " is Wu's first custom-made work for an artist.
- In 2005, Wu featured in Makiyo Kawashima 's studio album Makiyo and Rene Liu's studio album Heard.
2018 – present: Solo work
- In June 2018, Wu took part in the talent show The Coming One 2 produced by Tencent Video. He was a "Xing Tui Guan ", an advisor as well as a judge, in the "Du Xiu Sai Dao" of the show, leading participants including Wei-Ze Cai, Lumi Xu, Yi-Hao Zhang and Yu-Ming Ceng.
- In January 2019, Wu attended the talent show Singer 2019 produced by Hunan Television as a "Chuan Jiang Ren" and also joined the competition in the show.
- In September 2019, Wu released his debut solo album Spaceman and started his Space In Space Concert Tour which was unfortunately cancelled in 2020 due to the outbreak of COVID-19.
- On November 14 and 15 2020, at Cloud Gate Theater in Tamsui, Wu had Recto and Verso Concert, combining music performance with theatrical elements to create a brand new show experience.
Artistry
Lyrics
Wu's lyrics have introduced the art of literacy to Mandopop. The topics range from the gazes at personal life experiences to the social depiction and its allegory. In 2009, Qing-Feng's Be Late For One Thousand Years was selected to be a rhetoric material in the Chinese textbook for the second-year junior high school students.Vocals
Wu is good at singing with mixed voice, and with his nasal resonance, he can transit between true voice and falsetto seamlessly. His singing technique has forged a genderless voice. Wu's way of singing also has something to do with his deviated nasal septum. His vocal range lies between A2 to C6, stretching over 26 intervals and owning more than 3 octaves, making him a singer with a very wide vocal range in Mandopop.Personal life
Wu does not celebrate his birthday in any form, let alone receive gifts. He is used to taking his birthday light because he sees the day of his birth as the day of his mother's suffering. Having his birthday mentioned by others agonizes him. He mentioned that his friends do know about his disinterest in celebrating his birthday.Solo discography
Extended plays
Studio albums
Singles
Songwriting and collaboration
Qing-Feng wrote his first song "Peeping" in 2000 and won the championship at HSNU Tien-Yun Award when he was in the third year of senior high school. Since then, Qing-Feng has been very productive as his accumulated works, both published and unpublished, are over hundreds. 90 percent of the songs in Sodagreen are written by Qing-Feng. He also writes songs and lyrics for his fellow artist friends from Hong Kong and Taiwan, such as A-mei, S.H.E, Kay Tse, Alan Tam, Mr., Jolin Tsai, Coco Lee, Angela Zhang, Sandy Lam, Rainie Yang, JJ Lin, Yoga Lin, Jeff Chang, Eason Chan, Paige Su, Denise Ho, Mavis Fan, Waa Wei, Yolanda Yuan, Wan Fang, Jam Hsiao, Gigi Leung, Joey Yung, Aska Yang, Tanya Chua, Cyndi Wang, Stefanie Sun, Valen Hsu, Karen Mok, Ricky Hsiao, Terence Lam, Lala Hsu, Rene Liu and others.Other contributions
Concerts
- Space In Space Concert Tour
- 16 Leaves Concert
- ''Recto and Verso Concert''
Host