Zhang Liyin’s new management agency NewStyle Media Group surprised fans on January 25, 2022, with a teaser release of a brand new original song called “Light of Life”. The full song was released the next day.
Dedicated to Liyin’s hometown of Chengdu, Sichuan, it is only her second original non-soundtrack single. The other original song is “Moving On”, released back in 2009. The majority of Liyin’s single releases have been covers of other artists’ songs.
It’s been two months since Zhang Liyin joined her new company NewStyle Media Group (NSMG). And it’s been a quiet two months, but it seems like Liyin has been busy in these two months. She recorded a TV appearance on Shanghai TV and she did a product endorsement photoshoot for Li-Ning.
The music show Liyin appeared on is Shanghai TV’s Sing All The Way (一路唱响) and the fashion label she endorsed is Li-Ning. For the former, NSMG even released a behind-the-scenes vlog of her appearing on the show.
It’s incredibly exciting to see Liyin so busy all of a sudden!
Zhang Liyin and Chinese entertainment company NewStyle Media Group surprised fans on September 16, 2021 by announcing their new partnership as Liyin’s new management agency.
After just a year, it seems Liyin had departed Beijing S.W. Culture Media and joined NewStyle Media Group as a new artist. When Liyin first joined BSW, there were rumours that she had started her own “studio” management company, but with this news, it seems like those efforts have ended.
In August 2021, Zhang Liyin surprised fans by releasing a song to the soundtrack for the Chinese TV drama, Once Given, Never Forgotten. The TV show began airing July 26, 2021, and Liyin’s song was teased on Weibo on that date with song previews in the show the day after. The song, called “For Dear You” (给亲爱的你), is a duet between Liyin and artist Reno Wang, and is inserted in the show during scenes with light or happier moments.
There’s been a flurry of news and tidbits the past couple of weeks in the fandom. The most surprising part of it all was Zhang Liyin winning an award for her soundtrack on the film Sword and Fire.
On November 9, it was announced on Weibo that “Ashes of Time” won third-place at the 5th Annual VIP Music Chart Awards in the “VIP Hot Original Song” category. This is the first award Liyin has won since leaving SM Entertainment back in 2017.
It has been a quiet year for Zhang Liyin. After releasing two new soundtrack songs earlier this year – “Answer” and “Ashes of Time” respectively – it went quiet in terms of new content. But on September 15, it was announced on Weibo that Liyin had recently signed with Chinese artist management agency Beijing S.W. Culture Media.
There was a flurry of excitement amongst fans on Weibo after it was announced on the company’s Weibo. The news was a pleasant surprise after many months of silence. We mentioned previously that there was fan speculation that Liyin had actually left her previous company, Show City Times, last year, but there had been no proof.
While we do not know the full extent of Liyin’s new contract with Beijing S.W. Culture Media, the future does look promising.
Today is September 9th, 2020, and it’s officially been 14 years since Zhang Liyin debuted to the world as a singer. Time flies.
As Zhang Liyin’s foremost international fansite, we have shifted most of our updates onto Twitter as that is where most of the fanbase is, but we haven’t forgotten about the benefit of updating this website either!
Just a month after the release of “Answer”, Zhang Liyin released another soundtrack song. “Ashes of Time” (时间的灰) is a theme song for the Tencent movie, Sword and Fire. The movie was released on the same theme song release date as the theme song, January 10, 2020.
Like “Answer”, “Ashes of Time” was recorded and filmed in late April 2019. You can see photos from her time in the recording studio here in our photo gallery. Similar to “Answer”, “The Ashes of Time” was produced by Chen Qinyang and Perfect Youth OST.
After over a year of silence on the music front, Zhang Liyin surprised fans with new music yesterday. Our female soloist dropped a short music video for the song “Answer” (答案) on Weibo early on the morning of December 4, 2019. The song is an interlude for the Chinese television drama, The Remedy (漫长的告别), currently streaming on Youku.
As is typical of most music videos for Asian drama soundtracks, the music video features scenes from The Remedy as well as footage of Liyin singing in the recording studio. From her Chinese fans’ social media posts, we know that Liyin filmed the music studio scenes back in April 2019.
Over a year after the release of her duet with Henry Huo, “Answer” (答案) is the interlude song for Chinese television drama, The Remedy (漫长的告别). The song and the music video was recorded and filmed in late April 2019, but was not released to the public until December 4, 2019.
The music producer on this single, Chen Qinyang, reposted a comment on Liyin’s Weibo that Liyin helped produce this song. However, she is not credited as a producer, so we can assume it was as an assistant only.