Countless

Countless is the twelfth album by Chinese singer-songwriter Joker Xue. It was released on September 20, 2022, by Xue's own label Chaoshi Music.

Background
Of the ten tracks on the album, Xue composed music for five tracks and wrote lyrics for seven tracks. The title track, "Countless", was written and composed by Xue. The arrangement builds up from low piano notes integrated with percussion, culminating in a powerful and unyielding atmosphere where one rushes forward fearlessly and uncompromisingly despite the countless obstacles in pursuit of countless possibilities. All songs on the album peaked within the top ten spots on Tencent Music UNI chart, with the exception of "City of Luo", which peaked at 11.

"Waiting" is a cover of the song by Xue's good friend Zhao Yingjun, who passed away in February 2021. Zhao had expressed the wish of having an album of cover songs to hear his music through other artists' interpretation; Xue launched the project in August 2020 and the album A Song, a Story was released on September 17, 2020. "Waiting" is included on the album A Song, a Story where thirteen of Zhao's songs are each covered by a different artist (Jane Zhang, Eason Chan, Jeff Chang, Hu Haiquan, Roy Wang, Lu Hu, Xue, Huang Yali, Dong Chengpeng, Jam Hsiao, Jason Zhang, Jin Zhiwen, and Han Hong) and Xue's own album Countless. It is the seventh track on both albums; the placement is significant because Xue had previously said the seventh track has the purpose of measuring the quality of the album and holds a special meaning for him.

The songs "You Are Not Alone" and "But" are collaborations with Jeff Chang and Jane Zhang, respectively. Zhang performed "But" with Xue as a special guest at Xue's Douyin Online Concert: Ke in February 2023 and at Xue's Extraterrestrial World Tour's third Beijing show in August 2023. "About You" is dedicated to Xue's mother, who passed away when he was 4, and released on his birthday.

Countless was number 2 on Tencent Music's 2022 Year-End Chart which ranks the albums based on the sum of the five highest scored songs on each album, and "But" was named one of the Top 10 Hits of the Year. Xue was among the Top 20 Artists of the Year. On KuGou Music's year-end chart, Countless was among Top 10 Popular Albums and Xue was named one of Top 10 Artists of the Year and the Favorite Artist of Post-00s Generation.