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'I felt like I just started my career again': British Elvis revivalist finds his voice in China_我的网站

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Elliot James Reay sings on stage at a Chinese live show. Photo: Courtesy of UMG
Elliot James Reay could have copied every other Western act and sung a Taylor Swift cover. Instead, he took 1950s rock'n'roll to a live TV show where autotune is switched off and discovered a version of fame that Britain has forgotten.
Elliot James Reay was traveling in the US, trying to finish a song, when his manager called. There was an invitation to join Singer 2026, a prime-time live music show in China. Reay didn't hesitate. He had traveled the world before he was a full-time musician, but had run out of money before reaching China. "I went everywhere but China," he said while sitting for an interview with the Global Times, sitting in the office of his label in Beijing, from which the Palace Museum can be seen not far away.
Reay is, in the West, a very 2020s kind of artist. He began posting short covers on short video platform TikTok in 2019; during the UK Covid lockdown, he chose to focus on growing his fan base. He now has millions of followers across platforms, and his debut single notched 10 million views before it was even released. In the British industry, this is both a leg-up and a trap. "You can have all the followers," he says, "but they don't guarantee people will buy tickets."
In China, that equation flipped.
Elliot James Reay sings on stage at a Chinese live show. Photo: Courtesy of UMG

Elliot James Reay sings on stage Photo: Courtesy of UMG
Nervous again
The Chinese show, Singer 2026 is broadcast completely live, with no pitch correction. For Reay, who had played enough small gigs to feel comfortable in his own skin, it was a shock. "I haven't felt nerves in a long time," he says. "But I've never been in a competition before. To have my singing judged against other people made me really nervous."
He watched Week One's performances from the wings and saw why. "The standard was terrifying," he says.
But the format, he admits, is something the UK no longer has: a televised singing contest that treats vocal ability as a public event, not a pre-packaged product. "It made me feel like I just started my career again."
Reay's lane is retro. Not as pastiche, but as lineage. He wears the silhouette of Elvis Presley, sings in the grain of 1950s pop, and writes songs that sound like they were cut from a Sun Records demo. He could have sanded it down for Chinese audiences, but he didn't.
"Someone has to start the wave before you can see it," he says. Among the songs he performed were "Unchained Melody" and his original track "I Think They Call This Love," which he co-wrote with his girlfriend. He points out that the Beatles still sit next to Taylor Swift on the radio, and that pop started in the 50s. "It's the foundations of pop," he says.
Learning to feel the words
In the final, Reay performed a bilingual version of the Chinese song "Hou Hui Wu Qi" (The End of the World). It was his first time singing in another language. He spent five days learning the Chinese lyrics, listening to the original on loop.
"There are sounds in Chinese we just don't have in English," he says. "I couldn't hear the difference at first. I'd say it, and Helen (his translator) would say, 'No.' I thought I was saying the same thing." Eventually, he stopped trying to hear it and started trying to feel it. "It became more about how it felt to say it. How I place my tongue in my mouth," he says.
He didn't understand the meaning until day three. "Helen gave me a card with the Chinese characters and the English translation. It's very poetic," he says. The performance received a strong reaction, with it being called an attempt at "cultural fusion."
He had saved his own original, "I Think They Call This Love," co-written with his girlfriend, for the same final. He had held the song back deliberately. "I knew that any week was my last week," he says, "but I knew that if I made it to the grand final that I had to do it then." He had no idea it would become the last song of the entire show.
When he finished, he walked straight off stage, took his girlfriend's hand, and the two of them left together, a moment that trended on Chinese social media that night.
The song is about the exact point they realized they were in love; it was also the first track of his career he fully believed in and pushed into the world. Having her there to watch it live, after weeks of her only seeing performances on a phone in a hotel room, "tied the whole thing in a bow at the end."
A touring musician, not a TikToker
Reay is open about the tension between his origin story and his ambition. "I don't want to be a TikTok celebrity," he says. "I'm a musician. I want to tour."
The platform gave him an audience, but it also boxed him in. He remembers friends who wrote incredible songs during lockdown, while he chose to build a fan base. Now, he says, some of those friends have had to stop writing and make TikTok videos instead.
China, he says, gave him permission to be both an online creator and a live performer. Universal Music, his label, didn't push him to chase trends. "They never said, 'Do this, do that,'" he says. "They supported what I wanted to sing, and then they made it the best version they could."
Before Reay, a string of international artists had already found warm receptions and career-shifting opportunities in China. Kazakhstani singer Dimash Kudaibergen, Malaysian star Shila Amzah, US country artist Mickey Guyton, British vocalist Jessie J, and French singer-songwriter Joyce Jonathan all won large Chinese audiences through high-profile television appearances and live performances, each using the platform to open a new chapter in their careers.
He's already planning a return. He wants to bring a tour. He wants to buy the traditional instruments he saw on set and take them home to England. "I'm going to learn how to play them," he says, "and maybe put them into my music."
The advice he'd give other Western artists looking East is to stay loyal to yourself. "Be yourself," he says. "It's very easy to want to change yourself to fit into a market, but at the end of the day, if you stay true to yourself, you'll be happy."
"In the UK, I felt like I needed to do other things to make other people happy," he says.
"If I hadn't stopped doing that, I wouldn't be sitting here. I wouldn't have done the show. My whole journey would be different," he says.
。齐鲁晚报·齐鲁壹点怀晓扫描中国体坛，时下各运动项目的热度，国乒当居榜首。1月1日，2024中国乒乓球俱乐部超级联赛总决赛女子团体决赛落下帷幕，由王曼昱领衔的山东鲁能队苦战5盘，以3:2击败了孙颖莎率领的深圳大学队，如愿捧得“凤杯”。本赛季，乒超联赛总决赛女团队伍呈现出百花齐放的局面，竞争格局异常激烈且充满看点。作为过去几届联赛的冠军常客，山东鲁能能一直保持着强大的竞争力，得益于俱乐部多年来坚持走职业化运营道路。去年的乒超女团决赛，也是山东鲁能和深圳大学争夺桂冠，彼时王曼昱虽然先后击败孙颖莎和蒯曼独得两分，但独木难支，拥有陈梦和孙颖莎两名奥运冠军的深圳大学最终还是3:2获胜，赢得女团冠军。

二 | 今年，山东鲁能队之所以能够“复仇”夺冠，离不开股东的稳定投入，为球队训练参赛提供了有力保障。据山东鲁能乒乓球俱乐部董事长亓庆博介绍，“我们的教练团队具有丰富的执教经验，能够根据队员的特点和对手的情况，制定科学合理的训练计划，为球队夺冠提供了重要的技术支持和战术指导。乒超第一阶段结束后，女队主教练于国鹏专程赴北京国家队训练基地跟踪指导队员训练，确保了总决赛阶段队员良好的竞技状态。”为了让队员们在比赛中保持最佳状态，俱乐部在后勤保障方面也做足了功夫。“首先，我们会根据队员的身体状况和训练比赛需求，制定科学合理的饮食计划，确保队员摄入充足的营养。其次，我们配备了专业的医疗团队，包括队医、康复师等，在比赛和训练期间随时为队员提供医疗服务和康复治疗。我们还与联赛主办方保持密切联系，及时了解赛事的相关信息和要求，以便做好参赛报名、赛程安排、比赛规则解读等工作。”亓庆博说道。这是山东鲁能四年内第三次夺得女团冠军，也是第九次夺冠。本次夺冠，是山东鲁能女队全体队员及教练组团结协作、顽强拼搏的结果，也是俱乐部职业化运营、科学训练的体现。不过，山东鲁能最值得说道的，是“三位一体”的青训体系。亓庆博表示，“我们具有完善的人才培养机制和青训体系”。首先，俱乐部拥有济南本部、青岛训练基地和潍坊乒乓球学校“三位一体”的青训体系，为人才培养提供了全面而系统的平台，从全国范围内选拔和培养有潜力的青少年选手。其次，俱乐部利用广泛的人才选拔网络，在全国范围内选拔有潜力的乒乓球苗子，包括从鲁能乒乓球学校的学员中选拔，以及与其他乒乓球培训机构、学校合作选拔等。并依托“蒲公英计划”举办鲁能乒乓球俱乐部精英选拔赛，挖掘具有天赋和潜力的年轻队员，作为俱乐部后备人才储备。就目前来看，不论是职业化还是青训，山东鲁能乒乓球俱乐部都走在了全国前列。