投稿類別：英文寫作類

篇名：

An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Their Success

作者：

林詩軒。市立大甲高中。資訊應用科高三 10 班。

郭思敏。市立大甲高中。資訊應用科高三 10 班。

陳玟靜。市立大甲高中。資訊應用科高三 10 班。

指導老師：

陳志國 老師

羅芯茹 老師

An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

Abstract

Mayday has been one of the most popular male bands in Taiwan. Their success overshadows other existing bands in many ways. Undoubtedly, Mayday plays an essential role in Taiwan’s music industry. The current paper intends to review the development of Mayday and to explore the factors in its success. We adopted literature review analysis to compile the latest information of all five band members, namely, Monster, Ashin, Matthew, Richard, and Ming. In addition, after reviewing the history of Mayday, we divided their development into four stages and illustrated them one by one. Finally, after digesting all the sources of information that we gathered, we also presented the top seven factors in Mayday’s success both in Taiwan and abroad.

Keywords: Mayday, band, pop music

I. Introduction I.1 Background

Music has been an indispensable part of many people’s daily life. Wherever you go, plenty of people can usually be seen wearing headphones listening to a variety of music. Taiwan, our homeland, is no exception.

Among all the music genres, group music is an essential part in the music industry. However, there are a great number of groups that encounter obstacles and due to some reasons, could hardly be fully developed. Some group members might want to terminate their partnership with the group and go their own ways to further build up their own career as individual performers or totally turn to different works of life. Take Xiao Hu Dui (小虎隊), a celebrated male group during the 1990s, for example. They ended their career as singers and turned to acting when their popularity plummeted.

Other group members might be at odds with one another simply because they pursue different things in life. A member of Energy, a male group, for instance, once had an argument with his agent about a contract because of their varied needs. For another example, the bandleader of Dream Girls, whose name was Emily, was verbally abused by her agent. As a result, she went to work in another company.

Still others take a break from the music industry and become full-time learners for some time. Take Sodagreen (蘇打綠) for example. They wanted to further their singing skills and also to accompany their family, which took much time and effort. That’s why they decided to completely get away from the music industry for a short period of time before they returned back to the spotlight.

Despite the above-mentioned challenges, some groups have indeed managed to make their career work. One of those groups in Taiwan is Mayday, which consists of five members, inclusive of Asian, Ming, Monster, Matthew, and Richard. Mayday is unique in many ways. First, they get along with one another very well. Probably because of this precious and mutual partnership, they have always been creating original pieces and working on the journey to realizing their dreams. They even call themselves the dream chasers. Furthermore, March 29th, 2017 had already been the 20th anniversary of Mayday. With all the extraordinary qualities that Mayday possesses, our group members think that Mayday is worth our attention and further research.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success I.2 Motivation

In fact, we thought of this topic since one of our group members was a fervent admirer of Mayday. Touched by Mayday’s passion for music, she always obtained inspirations and power to keep pursuing her dream by listening to Mayday’s music. After some discussion sessions, all three of us were eager to know more about Mayday. Therefore, we were determined to explore Mayday, which we were all interested in.

In the beginning, we were so excited that we thought of many subtopics regarding Mayday to discuss, but we soon realized that they were too broad for us to handle at once. Thus, we decided to narrow down our focus in reference to a Chinese essay on why Mayday could be so successful (易韋帆、孫尚廷、許弘儒，2016). However, as time went by, we noticed that much information in that study had been outdated. It was obvious that new works must be done to update the development of Mayday. Besides, by writing in English, we hope to further share our findings with foreigners around the globe.

Finally, we decided to find out the latest development of Mayday and also the core factors in their success. With those motivations in mind, we would like to investigate the factors behind the success of Mayday using the latest information we could obtain.

I.3 Research Questions

In this review-based study, we would try our every effort to fully respond to the following three research questions by compiling all the information we could get.

1. What are the latest personal profiles of Mayday’s members?

2. What is the development of Mayday up to August, 2017?

3. What are the major factors in Mayday’s success?

II. Methodology II.1 Data Collection Procedures

In an effort to explore the latest information and what the factors behind the success of Mayday are, we did the following things. First, we set up a public Google document page on which our members could immediately update the latest information wherever the Internet access was available, and our advisors could also revise the drafts that we typed on that page and informed us of the next step to take. It was not only effective but also convenient. Because this website was based on a cloud system that was reversible, we totally did not have to worry about losing our previous drafts and always had access to the latest version of draft. Secondly, we then searched for much related information not only from online sources but also from magazines and books.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

II.2 Data Analysis Procedures

We used content analysis to analyze our sources by following two steps. First, we read and digested the sources we found, and then we wrote down the key points of any single source of information on a piece of paper. Secondly, after reading all sources individually, we later pooled together all our notes to better depict the development of Mayday. Figure 1 showed the exact procedures and the time when we did those things.

Last, but certainly not least, we also regularly had one-hour appointments to discuss our essay with our advisors after school every Tuesday. After data analysis and paper drafting, we still continued to check our drafts for multiple times so as to make this essay as good as possible.

Chose the topic and research qeustions (November, 2016)

Started collecting related literature during the winter break (January~Feburary, 2017)

Digested literature and took notes (March, 2017)

Narrowed the focus down and pooled all notes together for analysis (April, 2017)

Wrote up the rough Chinese draft of this paper (May, 2017)

Translated the Chinese version into English (June, 2017)

Polished the draft to create the final draft (July~September, 2017)

Figure 1 The Procedures of the Current Study

III. Results and Discussion

Based on our findings of content analysis, we categorized the information into three parts respectively in response to the three research questions. The first section is the updated introductions to Mayday’s five members, chronologically starting from the earliest member to the latest one that joined the band. In response to the second research question, we would then depict four stages of Mayday’s development. Finally, we presented seven major factors in Mayday’s success and their admirable spirits in response to the third research question.

III.1 The Latest Profiles of Mayday’s Five Members III.1.1 Monster, the Bandleader

Monster, whose original Chinese name is Wen Shang-yi, is the bandleader and guitar player of Mayday. He greatly admired Takahiro Matsumoto, the bandleader and guitar player of a

Japanese band called B’z. Because of Tak, Monster started to enter the world of music. On the other hand, Monster’s academic performance was so good that his father hoped he could follow in his footsteps. Photo: Monster, the Bandleader Source: the official fans’ website 3

An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

However, when he studied in the Affiliated Senior High School of National Taiwan Normal University (HSNU), he met a group of nice friends with a great enthusiasm for music, so he buried himself in music and this was a road of no return.

In the college entrance exam, Monster got a full score in math and successfully entered the Department of Sociology in National Taiwan University. But since he was extremely absorbed in his music career, he flunked his physical education class for three times in a row; unfortunately, he was thus suspended from the university as a consequence. Despite his unsuccessful academic development, his music career got better and better when the rest of Mayday members joined him one by one.

III.1.2 Ashin, the Vocalist

The second member’s Chinese name is Chen, Shin-hong, who is known as Ashin. His position in Mayday is the vocalist. Chen graduated from the art program of HSNU, where he became acquainted with his lifelong friend, Monster. Ashin went through many obstacles on his way to becoming a singer for the following three reasons.

First, Ashin used to be the last person you might think of when it comes to performing. Going on stage, he could say nothing more than the introduction to his speech owing to his anxiety to talk in public. Secondly, he did not have the innate sensitivity of pitch and one of his singing performances in a high school music class was Photo: Ashin, the Vocalist once rejected by his music teacher right after he sang the very first Source: the official fans’ website note. Thirdly, his parents did not have high expectations of his talent for singing.

However, with much continuous effort and practice, he reached his full potential as a singer. He is an admirable main vocal of Mayday now. From his lyrics, you can feel that he puts all his emotions into them so that listeners are easily touched by his songs. Furthermore, people are proud of his persistence and the perfection of his works. He frequently writes hundreds of candidate lyric lines just to pick out less than ten of them for his final draft. In addition, he had been nominated three times for the Golden Melody Award for Best Lyrics, which he eventually won in 2017.

III.1.3 Matthew, the Bassist

Matthew, sometimes nicknamed Masa, or Tsai, Shen-Yen, is the bassist in Mayday. He also graduated from HSNU like Ashin and Monster. Moreover, he is the youngest member in this band.

Matthew once flew to New York to perform a magnificent music show. Going on the stage, Matthew wore the Scottish skirt which he resisted wearing fifteen years ago and then used his bass to skillfully play a song called Jump. The performance made the audience moved and impressed. In 2016, Matthew was awarded the Golden Photo: Matthew, the Bassist Source: the official fans’ website 4

An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

Melody Award for Best Composer.

III.1.4 Richard, the Guitar Player

Richard, occasionally nicknamed Stone, or Shih, Chin-hang, is a guitar player in Mayday. During Richard’s summer break as a ninth- grader, he got to know a college student who invited him to listen to Western music and to buy gramophone records together. This process enlightened Richard very much. The instant he heard the powerful electric guitar sounds from the Western gramophone records, he determined to learn how to play the guitar. After junior high school, Richard was admitted to HSNU, and then he met Ashin and Monster. His family, especially his grandma, really supported him because after learning to play the guitar, he no longer Photo: Stone, the Guitar Player had physical fights, which used to be one of his deep-rooted problems then as a student. Seeing the positive influence of music on her Source: the official fans’ website grandson, Richard’s grandma bought the first guitar for him with her own money.

III.1.5 Ming, the Drummer

Ming, or Liu, Kuan-yu, is the drummer of Mayday. He left his hometown, Miaoli, to study in National Taiwan College of Performing Arts. He was the only member not graduating from HSNU. Ming was the last one to join Mayday in 1999, when Mayday officially went public. In fact, Ming was not the very first drummer in Mayday. He was originally an owner of a musical instrument store. One day, the former drummer in Mayday decided to leave because of some personal issues. However, Mayday could not have Photo: Ming, the Drummer no drummer in their band. Therefore, they asked Ming, the owner of Source: the official fans’ website the instrument store, “Do you want to do us a favor?” Ming answered, “Yes!” very quickly. After that, Ming has been Mayday’s drummer until now. As a drummer, Ming often seems to be in the background of a performance, but Ashin, the main vocalist, frequently helps to give Ming more time under the spotlight.

III.2 Four Major Developmental Phases of Mayday

Based on our findings, we divided the development of Mayday into four phases. The first two phases are about its struggles and hard work at the fledgling stage of the band, while the last two phases are about the major awards and recognitions that it has received so far.

III.2.1 A Difficult Start Turning into a Good Beginning

Nowadays, it is common for thousands of Mayday concert tickets to be sold out in merely a few seconds once they are open for purchases in Taiwan. For example, the fifteen thousand tickets

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success for its concert at Kaohsiung World Games Stadium were sold out in three minutes (陳慧玲、陽昕 翰，2017). Nonetheless, its popularity didn’t come right from the beginning.

As a Mayday member once said, “Success comes from failures.” Mayday’s prosperity is indeed a story of perseverance. Before gaining recognition, as an underground band in a pub, Mayday used to have few people in the audience. The only listener they got then was the pub’s employer, who actually stayed to close the front door rather than to really appreciate their music. Also, eighteen years ago when Mayday held its debut concert in Ximending (西門町), only a few people stopped by to enjoy their performance. But the lack of success in the beginning did not dampen their enthusiasm for music. Instead, they stuck to their love for music.

Regardless of its initial setbacks, the band members persevered in spreading their love for music. “Although we are not extremely handsome guys that get people’s attention at first sight, our music is really great while we perform it live on the stage as a band. Therefore, no matter how small the venues were, we held as many shows and concerts as we could. As long as we work hard, people will hear our music,” said Monster (黃亞琪，2014). The more failures they encountered, the more diligently they worked to spread their music. They took many school concert cases to get close to teenagers regardless of the small number of listeners. In just four months after their debut show, they had already done 168 shows, accounting for roughly 1.4 concerts per day. It might sound exhausting, but it is clearly worth their time and effort. Through their effort, they made their third single Peter and Mary (志明與春嬌) a well-known hot track. It was not until then that they held their first large scale concert in Taipei Gymnasium, which involved tens of thousands of listeners. In 2016, Mayday returned to Ximending, where they had their debut performance eighteen years ago, this time, floods of people poured in to enjoy their music.

III.2.2 Setbacks in China

Despite Mayday’s success in Taiwan, in 2005, Mayday determined to expand their career into China, where they were hardly known then. In the beginning, the Chinese audience was not used to Mayday’s unique music style. In Taiwan, Mayday’s fan meet-ups usually last for over twenty hours with floods of passionate fans requesting autographs, while in China, only about ten people showed up in Mayday’s first fan meet-up activity.

However, the Mayday members were not defeated. Instead, they saw opportunities from this difficult situation. “What’s better with fewer fans showing up is that we could thank them one by one for their support and could have some personal chats with them,” said Monster (林楚捺、魏春亮，2014). With this positive attitude, Mayday became more and more well-known in China. Finally, in 2012, Mayday held two large-scale concerts attracting over two hundred thousand fans to attend in Beijing. With so many people showing up for their concerts, Ashin, the lead singer, felt so touched and said, “Some of you just spent minutes, hours, or even a couple of days arriving in Beijing; nevertheless, it took Mayday thirteen years to reach here.” Despite the difficulties Mayday encounter, they keep walking toward their goals step by step. All they want to do is to invite more people to enjoy their music.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

III.2.3 Acknowledgements from BBC, CNN, and Educational Institutions

With Mayday’s success in Taiwan and China, it soon came under the spotlight of international media. In 2013, Mayday became the first Chinese band which appeared on the cover of British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) magazines (CNN, 2017). In 2014, its lyrics were translated and included as teaching materials in the Netherlands and Taiwan. With its achievements, it might thus come as a shock to know that Mayday members were not top students at school, and only Ming received a bachelor’s degree. Asian, Matthew, and Richard were asked to retake a whole year of courses due to poor academic performance at HSNU. Ashin, Richard, and Monster were expelled by their universities, while Matthew put his study on hold for mandatory military service, but he never had time to complete his program. All Mayday members were certain that their goals in life extended beyond traditional school training and were all enthusiastic about following their hearts (胡婉玲，2013).

III.2.4 Major Awards as a Band and as Individual Members

Mayday’s accomplishments have been recognized by people in Taiwan and other countries alike and it has received numerous awards throughout its development. Table 1 illustrates the major Golden Melody Awards (金曲獎) received by Mayday from 2001 to 2017. We chose to present Mayday’s recent Golden Melody Awards records, because Golden Melody Awards are highly recognized in Taiwan and the music industry. Along with Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎) and Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎), they are usually called "the Triple Golden Awards in Taiwan."

Table 1 The List of Major Golden Melody Awards Received by Mayday

Award Work or Recipient Times Best Musical Group Mayday 1 Mayday Best Musical Band Mayday 3 Mayday Song of the Year Second Life Best Lyricist Almost Famous Best Composition Noah's Ark 1 Producer of the Year, Album Second Life Best Music Arrangement Noah's Ark Best Music Video Cheers 1 History of Tomorrow Best Album Mandarin 2 Second Life （Source: Golden Melody Awards, 2001-2017.） To show the impact of Mayday away from Taiwan, we chose Mayday’s award records in Migu Music Awards (無線音樂盛典咪咕匯), founded by China Mobile to recognize popular music artists and works based on the statistics of online digital music streaming on the website of Migu Music. Migu Music Awards are very authoritative and influential in mainland China.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

Table 2 The List of Major Migu Music Awards Received by Mayday

Award Work or Recepient Times Best Band of the Decade Mayday Top 10 Songs of the Year What If We Had Never Met Most Popular Band Mayday 1 Viewer's Choice Male Singer Mayday Most Appealing Singer Mayday （Source: Migu Music Awards, 2016.） III.3 Seven Major Factors Contributing to Mayday’s Success

With all the information we have gathered, we concluded that there are seven major factors that lead to Mayday’s success. It is possibly because of these seven unique qualities that Mayday makes itself stand among its peers.

III.3.1 An Action-Based Approach to Pursuing Dreams

When Mayday members pursue their dreams, they do more than just thinking or talking about them. They have always tried to fulfill the great concepts they come up with. This can be further corroborated by what Ashin said in a talk show called Voice on CCTV. “Fantastic chocolate doesn’t melt in your hands, but in your mouth. But that is quite different from pursuing dreams. You have to use both your hands to bring your dreams into this real world.” Ming once also encouraged his fans by saying, “As long as you think what you’re doing is good and it is not by any means against the law, then go ahead and give it a shot (馬岳琳，2014).” It is clear from the above two quotes that Mayday is practical in terms of pursuing dreams.

III.3.2 The Courage to Take Failures and Thrive Again

Although Mayday has failed here and there on its journey, what it never did is giving up. Ashin once shared how he created lyrics for Mayday. From his sharing, he mentioned that he usually went through about one hundred draft lyric lines before he chose one of them as the formal one. In other words, he went through nearly ninety-nine times of failures before creating the perfect line that he was satisfied with. Therefore, the bravery to take setbacks and keep on moving forward is another key quality of Mayday.

III.3.3 High Standards for Their Works

Besides the above-mentioned qualities, another key factor is Mayday’s high standards for their works to become better and better. In 2016, Mayday was asked about the Mayday songs that they liked the least on a show on TVBS. “Actually, I don’t like many of our songs at the moment because whenever I prepare for a concert, I can always find new ways to make our old songs better than the way they are,” Matthew replied (范丞元、林吳鐘、陳瑞祺，2016). Other members agreed with his response as well. Despite the fact that Mayday has received widespread acknowledgements, they are still continually trying to better themselves.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

III.3.4 Staying with the Original Dream

Mayday also keeps its original dream to create great pieces of music even after its success. In 2017, when Mayday was nominated for eight Golden Melody Awards, one of the judges called Kay Huang also commented that even twenty years after its debut, Mayday still sticks to its original dream and creates novel songs to touch people’s hearts (袁永興，2017). What she said can be further corroborated by what Mayday did in 2015. In 2015, Mayday decided to get rid of all the luxurious things that have come with its fame and success and go back to the old rehearsal room, where they lived on instant noodles and constantly practice playing and singing their works. They also try to think outside the box and to produce brand-new songs. Mayday doesn’t want to compromise their dreams by catering to the markets and making profits; instead, they insist on making great inspirational music, which is the goal they pursue when they set out as a band in the beginning.

III.3.5 Support from Families and Friends

The close relationships among family members and band members also play an essential role in Mayday’s success. Mayday members have not only collaborated in creating now works of music, but also supported one another to face all the challenges ahead. “When I think of my band members, I feel I am full of energy. No matter what challenges lie ahead of us, I believe if we work together, everything will be fine,” said Ashin (馬岳琳，2014). When Mayday won the Best Mandarin Album title in the Golden Melody Awards, Matthew was touched to tears while receiving it and said, “I want to thank all of our members. It is our twenty-year friendships that make this album possible (Golden Melody Awards, 2017).” Besides, family members also contribute to Mayday’s success. Several songs came to existence because of the interactions with their parents.

III.3.6 Devotion to the Career

No matter what happens in their life, Mayday members are constantly devoted to their music career. Even after two band members, Richard and Ming, have their own families, they still work as hard as before. If they go home due to family reasons, they would get up early to try to make it up.

Even when family members pass away, Mayday band members still put their career first. For example, when Ashin was promoting an album in Beijing in 2004, he got the message that his grandmother had passed away, but his grandfather encouraged him to stay in Beijing to finish the work there. “This would be what your grandmother had wanted you to do,” said his grandfather. For another example, when Monster’s mom passed away, he did not miss any practice sessions. It is obvious that most Mayday members do care much about their career (Monster, 2017).

III.3.7 Perseverance

Most importantly, Mayday keeps trying despite cases of failures. Ashin was not successful at school and was rejected by many people on his journey to have his own band. But he kept moving closer to his dreams despite difficulties. Finally, he found his true talent and things got better from there. They are firmly convinced that if they keep trying, they will get there someday.

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An Investigation into Mayday’s History of Development and the Factors in Its Success

IV. Conclusion

Nowadays, music plays an inseparable part in our life. Actually, Taiwan’s bands have already existed for a long time. Nevertheless, only Mayday can insist for twenty years long. Through this research, we’ve learned several things from our research on Mayday. First, we realized that pursuing our own dreams should be more than just lip service. All we should do is to make it a reality. And if we encounter some obstacles during the process, just go forward and resolve them.

Second, we know the factors in their success are not only persistence and efforts but also their high standards of their works. We also know that the reason why they can help one another and go through lots of challenges is because they can communicate peacefully with one another instead of arguing. Perhaps Mayday can be successful not because they are geniuses or are simply rich, but because they trust one another and are loyal to their dreams.

References

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