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NEW JAY CHOU ALBUM COMING IN JULY: Mandopop star Jay Chou, who has been teasing his long-awaited new album for months, has finally announced that it will be released on July 15.

The highly anticipated project is his first studio album in six years, since 2016's Jay Chou's Bedtime Stories.

The singer, 43, gave a glimpse of what fans can expect in a video on his YouTube channel on Sunday night, which featured behind-the-scenes footage of him filming in Paris for the upcoming record.

Accompanied by a group of his frequent collaborators, Chou started off at the famous antique market at Saint Ouen.

He gave hints of what to expect in his 15th album in a career spanning more than 20 years.

While browsing a record stall, he joked that he did not need these old songs, as he could write his own. At another stall, he picked up a microphone from the 1950s and said: "I want to write an old song, so I need an old microphone."

He insisted that while technology can make a song sound old, the ambience captured on a vintage microphone is unique.

At another stop, he composed a short tune on a grand piano from 1872, which he said had inspired him to write something very old-sounding, but did not buy the instrument as it cost more than €1 million (S$1.5 million).

Later, he also played a public piano at the busy Gare du Nord train station.

The last stop in the 11-minute video showed him visiting the city's famous Palais Garnier opera house.

There, he took out the microphone and sang on the grand staircase in the deserted opera house.

Chou has an affinity for the French capital, having filmed music videos there in the past, as well as an episode of his Netflix travel show, J-Style Trip (2020).

He is the patron of the Paris Saint-Germain football club's endowment fund. He has also launched a metaverse art project with the French football club, teaming up with footballers such as Neymar, Lionel Messi and Gianluigi Donnarumma to shoot a commercial.