Lessons from 15 Years of Listening to Chinese Pop/Rock Music

[Nathan Mao]

I saw a couple of different posts asking about Chinese music...how to find music you like based on US bands, or what the most popular rock band/musician is, or who to look for if you like rock, etc. Rather than address those individually, I thought an overall explanation post might be helpful.

 

First thing to understand: The Chinese pop music industry is individual-focused, not band-focused. There are a few bands, but they are rarely as popular as individual singers. Very few singers write their own songs. Even when singers write their own songs, they often do songs written by others. They usually use studio musicians, and the lineup will change from song to song, much less album to album. Because of these (and perhaps other elements I haven't noticed or figured out), any individual pop singer's catalog will be extremely eclectic.

 

For instance, 许茹芸 is a talented pianist who writes lots of her own music. She is known for slow, emotional ballads. But then she also does an extremely interesting funk/rock song 一直. If you heard that song and decided you liked her because of that song, you would be sorely disappointed. Then she also does a song that is just her and a funk bass. Nothing else. The song is called 透气.

 

Over the last 15 years, I've built up 13 GB of Chinese music. There are multiple GB I will never listen to again. But from all that, I have culled about 2.7 GB of what I consider truly awesome and interesting music. From that I've tagged the songs with genre designations, and put songs together into listening lists based on genre. There are dozen different artists with "blues" songs. But the blues will only be 2 songs from their entire career. Or jazz songs, from 20 different artists, some with only 1 jazz song their entire career. There are hundred different artists with at least one good hard rock song. But even someone known for rocking is going to have 3-5 love ballads* on almost every CD (except for 伍佰, who substitutes a flat-out depressing song, not necessarily about love).

 

That being said, there are a few artists who do have some predictability:

 

张宇 Half his stuff is good guitar-based rock, the rest is piano-based. Writes his own songs. Heavily focused on relationship insight.

伍佰 Guitar based rock. Does blues, funk, rock, and even some mild jazz sometimes. He works with his own band (China Blue), which adds to consistent flavor of his songs.

蓝心湄 Best at what I call "character" songs: some songs are impossible to assign a genre to, but still fun because of her personality. Lots of crap in her early career, tho. Try to find "文字“ ”青春的猫“ and "狂奔“

林晓培 Great music, hard to exactly define style, but I'd call it vintage-influenced alternative heavy rock, mostly. Like a female, Chinese Lenny Kravitz. She clearly works with a consistent band.

动力火车 80s-style guitar rock and blues. But perhaps too many ballads, in light of their guitar proficiency.

万芳 Maybe the most eclectic: blues, jazz, rock, pop, surf, but especially lots of ethnic flavor

那英 Eclectic career when taken as a whole. She tends to like light jazz and acoustic numbers. Lots of ballads, but often good lyrics. Early career is hit-and-miss, tho.

赵传 Got lots of good guitar based rock. Maybe similar to Journey in mix of ballads to rockers?

许美静 One of the best for alternative music. But plenty of bubble-gum pop throughout her career.

刘纯如 She only has one album I've been able to get .mp3s from. But she has one of the best guitar-based albums I've ever heard from the Chinese pop scene. Mostly hard rock, but a couple songs drift into blues.

 

But probably a better way to look at it is that prior to 1995 or so, most Chinese music was either in Cantonese or was 邓丽君 (only a slight exaggeration). From 1995 to about 2002, there was a lot of great rock and roll, pop, funk, surf, blues, hard rock, jazz, alternative, etc. Starting in around 2000, most new artists were doing hip-hop, R&B, or boy-band/girl-band synth pop. By 2002, the industry had fully embraced that.

 

That's just a starting point. There are plenty of aspects I haven't covered, lots of good singers I've left off the list. If anyone is interested, I'll continue posting about artists, and perhaps post some of my favorite songs from each for you to look for. *When I say "love ballad", 90% of the time it is about breaking up, or heartbreak, or discovering infidelity, or complaining about treatment. They don't have many happy love songs.

[ChTTay]

This was very interesting. Anything you continue to put out about Chinese music, I will read...

I haven't really tried very hard to get into Chinese music but its something I feel I should do. What I hear on a day to day basis (in the street, shops, friends) usually does not make me want to hear more.

The only song I've heard out and about that I then went to find what it was turned out to be cantonese (光辉岁月 - Beyond). This was when I'd just arrived in China.

I will check out your recommendations

[gato]

It may be helpful to note when the artists were active and where they are from.  The first four artists mentioned above (张宇, 伍佰, 蓝心湄, and 林晓培) were all in their 40's or late 30's and from Taiwan.  

 

Do you have recommendations on more current musicians from mainland China?  

[Kelby]

Awesome stuff. I've never realized that Chinese people don't really listen to 'bands' as we do in the west until you pointed it out. The penchant to cover each others work is also something I've noticed a lot.

Out of curiosity, who does the song writing if not the singers themselves? I ask out of genuine curiosity for how the Chinese music industry works.

[gato]

If you are talking about rock, Chinese people do listen to bands.

But for pop, the focus is much more on individual performers, just like it is in the West.

[Kelby]

I suppose I've never sought out rock music in China, so I shouldn't 坐井观天. My experience with Chinese music comes from KTV and my girlfriend so my viewpoint would be more skewed toward the pop music side of things.

[Nathan Mao]

Sure, there are bands in China.  I didn't mean to imply they don't exist or people don't listen to them (which is pretty much the same notion, if you think about it).

Some have had some hits.

Obviously, there's Beyond. 五月天， 动力火车 (which is a "band" in the same manner of "America" or "Hall & Oates": a duo with a backing band of session musicians), 零点乐队， 黑豹，唐朝带，China Blue (伍佰's band), etc.

 

My point was that none have had the sustained widespread success that an individual singer has in China.

 

In the Chinese world, I don't think there is anyone you can find that can compare to even, say, Styx...much less the Rolling Stones, Metallica, Led Zeppelin, the Beatles, Journey, etc.  It's all Elvis, Britney Spears, Tina Turner, etc. 

 

It is harder to find .mp3s of bands to download, and they have smaller catalogs.  That doesn't mean you should ignore them, and it doesn't mean they aren't any good.  It just means that if you want to talk music with someone from a Chinese-speaking culture, you will have an easier time if you focus on learning about the top singers.

[gato]

Yeah, the Chinese government is not fond of rock music -- it worries that kids might get too out of control -- and actively tries to curb its growth.

(By the way, Cui Jian is going to perform on 春晚 this year, according to the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/mobile/china/2014/01/140107_china_cuijian.shtml )

See this article from the way back machine:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/25/world/asia/25shanghai.html?_r=0

The Sound, Not of Music, but of Control

By HOWARD W. FRENCH

Published: October 25, 2007

Zhang Zhuyi, an official of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, said he doubted that a radio station dedicated to rock 'n' roll would be allowed in China.

"New radio stations need approval, and regulators would consider whether the content fits with social trends and national policy," Mr. Zhang said.

[Nathan Mao]

Now, I have to clarify: I've never lived in Mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, or Malaysia.

 

But from my impression, to the extent that there are rock bands, most of them are from mainland China.  It's Canto-Pop that established the individual singer as the prime mover of the music industry (especially a singer/dancer/actor like 刘德化， 张国容，陈惠临，谢挺逢 (I probably got some of the characters wrong...my apologies, I'm working from pronunciation), and Taiwan continued with it. 

唐朝乐队，零点乐队，催健， 黑豹，are all from mainland China, and I think all are from Beijing.

 

But I haven't lived in Taiwan, so maybe there is a better rock band situation there than I know.  After all, 伍佰 started off as part of the band China Blue (which has a caucasian drummer) before the industry pushed him to label himself as a solo artist.  Yet always with the same band. No idea how they do royalties for their music.

 

So granted that the mainland government discourages the rebelliousness of the rock band culture, why would there be fewer rock bands in Hong Kong (pre-return) and Taiwan?

[gato]

Culture certainly is another factor.

Rock bands might be an Anglo-American phenomenon. Are there any mainstream/popular French or Italian rock bands? I don't think there are any mainstream rock bands in Latin America, either.

And in the US, it's widely reported that rock has been in a steady decline for the last decade.

[Nathan Mao]

As far as who writes the music, I think the music companies have staff writers. Or maybe freelance writers?  I would hazard a guess that prolific Taiwan singer/songwriters like 周华健 and 张宇 and maybe even 张雨声 got their start just writing music and then parlayed it into a "try it and see" recording contract, because the last two especially don't have very good singing voices.

 

I do know that 刘若英 "wrote" a few of her songs by remaking Japanese pop hits with her own lyrics.

徐若瑄 also gets some of her music from the Japanese pop scene.

 

江建民 wrote a bunch of my favorite songs, performed by dozens of different Taiwan pop artists in the late 90s.　I think he was 齐亲's guitarist on at least a few albums, but he was a session guitarist extroadinaire.  I'm working with 15-year-old memories here, but as I recall, he wrote songs and played lead guitar for 李翊君， 万芳， 李度，赵传，动力火车，and I can't remember who else. I just remember it was noteworthy that he didn't play on ANY of 那英's songs.

Great guitarist. Clearly very good at hard rock, awesome tone, perfect technique, could play ANYTHING, ANY style.  But never did a solo album, alas!

[gato]

How come all the artists you mention are those that were active in the 1990's?

By "15 years" in the thread title, do you mean 15 years ago?

Just a little confused.

[Nathan Mao]

My music story:

In 1998, I obtained my first opportunity to travel to China.  We were sent to study in Beijing for 6 weeks.  I had already studied the language for about 4 years at that point, and I was functionally fluent, if limited (I could talk about what I felt, thought, wanted, etc, on a wide variety of topics, especially concrete issues and politics.  Complex social/cultural interactions, slang, religion, music, etc, were still well beyond my grasp.  I couldn't understand a movie without subtitles. If I missed a single word in a sentence, I was often at a loss what that they were trying to say. I could read a newspaper without a dictionary).

 

Prior to going, I had received 2 tapes from my brother in law that he didn't like or didn't want.  One was 齐亲's 狼'97. The other was a mix tape.  Too many songs/artists to list.

So after arriving in China, I was shocked/excited to learn that tapes cost something $1.25 each.  I went out looking for CDs (and VCDs, something that hadn't really caught on in the US) and would buy something on sale, usually a mix.  I would go home and watch/listen 2-3 times, making note of which songs I liked.  If I noticed that I liked at least 3 of one persons songs, I would go out and buy everything I could from that singer.

 

I ended up with 80 tapes, 2 CDs, and 15 VCDs.  The VCDs were awesome for language practice, because the characters were right there, keeping pace with the singer.  I could pause and look them up in the dictionary, too.

From that time on, I pretty much stopped listening to western music.  I had a 30-40 minute commute to work, and listened to song after song...when I had to wait somewhere (like to pick up my wife from her class), I would read lyrics while listening, or look up characters I had encountered.

When I got to the point that I knew all the characters in the lyrics, I was able to sing along and that constituted excellent grammar and vocabuarly practice. 

 

Next up, I had a co-worker who had a wife from Taiwan.  I learned she had a few CDs, so I borrowed and copied them all.

 

Then I was sent overseas for a few months.  When I wasn't on duty, I would download .mp3s from chinamp3.com.  I just started with the "l"s and downloaded everyone. Then the "x"s, then the "w"s, then the "z"s.  Why?  No particular reason for that order.

But then I would listen to the songs, sometimes just sampling a few parts of the song.  I would delete anything I didn't really like.

That got me up to about 3.5 GB (about 6 CDs of .mp3s).

 

Every time I or my wife went back to China, we'd pick up a few more .mp3 discs, until they stopped selling any.  The last two times I've been back, I've used Baidu to seek out some songs I had on tape but never found on .mp3, or additional albums from artists I like.  This last time, I found out that based on an artist you like, Baidu will recommend other artists.  I've found several that I had never heard of before, but I can't remember the names to list...some of them extremely good rock/pop.

 

I will write this elsewhere, but firmly believe that every day you don't do at least 5 minutes of Chinese practice, your ability declines a little.  Every day you do at least 20 minutes, you improve a little...even if just solidifying what you already know.  Well, music is a great way to get in DAILY practice without feeling like work.  You feel like you are just listening to music you like, but you are actually getting vocubarly, grammar, pronunciation, and context practice.  It helps fill in the blanks.

[Nathan Mao]

@gato,

15 years because I started listening to Chinese music exclusively in 1998: 15 years ago (will become 16 years this July).

All the singers I list are from the 90s because:

1) that's when I started listening, so they were the most popular ones

2) that's the style of music that I like the best.  I like a wide range, but it doesn't really include the pre-1985 stuff like 邓丽君, because that just sounded too much like bad 70s music, and it doesn't include the boy/girl-band synthpop and R&B that became popular between 2000 and 2002 and then pretty much took over the music industry.

 

I like blues, jazz, surf, pop, funk, rock, vintage, alternative, acoustic, etc, but I like it to have a guitar in their somewhere. I also like some depth to my music, something interesting in the music itself, some display of talent in the musicians and the chord changes.

Personally, I feel like that was all lost with the rise of F4, S.H.E., FIR, Jay Chou (周杰倫), et al.

 

To me, and this is my opinion only, the Chinese-culture music businesses has become sterile, formulaic. There is very little in any of the more modern songs that grabs me at all.  Nothing that gets me excited, nothing that moves me.  It's just a few chords played by bored musicians and an acceptable melody sung by someone chosen more for their looks than for their passion for performance.

 

I'd love to be proven wrong, but that's why I like the artists that became big in the 90s. To me, that was the golden age for Chinese rock-pop.  And to tell the truth, I think many Chinese would say the same if they thought about it, because 2/3 of the songs I hear in the department stores are from the 90s, and their reality singing shows all feature singers from that golden era as legends.

 

But I know I'm bringing a certain perspective to the discussion. Someone who lives in China or Taiwan might be able to set me straight on any number of points.
 

[Lu]

Some interesting and helpful insights, but I'm glad you explain how you came by them, because from my own (also limited) perspective, there are some gaps in your overview. Rock music is mostly underground in China, but there is a lot of it, starting from 崔健 et al but it's still happening, in Beijing and elsewhere. I think that perhaps most of this never makes it to downloadable mp3, because even in China there are relatively very few people who like it, but there is a lot out there and some of it is really good.

 

I can understand if you're not interested in 五月天, SHE etc, but if one's aim is to talk to Chinese people about music, I think one really needs to know this stuff. And do you know 陶喆, 张震岳, MC Hotdog, etc? Granted I know about as much about music as I do about wine (namely, I can usually tell whether I like it or not), but all this imo is not necessarily bad.

[Nathan Mao]

I am familiar with 五月天. But they started in 1997...

 

Maybe the best way to explain my view is I use language to make connections.  I use music for language practice and enjoyment.  Songs from the "golden" age of Chinese music are still well-known enough that I have things I can sing at KTV and every time I mention the singers/songs I like, the Chinese people I'm talking to know of them and generally have favorite songs by them.  So at this point, I haven't felt any need or reason to expand beyond the music I actually enjoy into the music I don't enjoy, just for conversation.

 

That also doesn't mean I automatically reject anything written after 2001 or anything.  I really like the theme song from 奋斗 and I like a few of her other songs (her voice and song styles remind me a little of 那英), but I can't remember her name. 香水有毒 by 胡楊林 is also fine (and what do you know?!?  The arranger is my old favorite guitarist, 編曲：江建民!!!)

 

I'm also in my 40s, so there may be an element of "kids these days...hey, get off my lawn!" going on here.

[gato]

Most of the musicians you list are Taiwanese singers from the 1990s. If you are willing to try some other musicians, since you like rock and alternative, I would recommend 许巍, 张楚, 老狼. 苏打绿, and 张悬. I also love 陈奕迅, who sings in more of a traditional pop/r&b style.

If you are interested more alternative stuff in the style of bands like Sonic Youth, take a look at this earlier discussion:

http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/36303-chinese-rock

[gato]

I wouldn't say that the music scene has become necessarily worse in China since the 1990s. It's become a lot more diverse, with more live shows (since you can't make money selling albums), more small venues, more reach into smaller cities, less Beijing-centric. Jazz has also become popular, at least in Shanghai, with a number of good local performers as well as expat musicians.

[Nathan Mao]

Cool, I'll check them out.

Thanks.

[Demonic_Duck]

All I can say is, Beijing at least has a thriving underground rock music scene. From what I've heard, the scene in Shanghai is more centered on electronic music. I'm not so sure on what the music scenes are like in other cities, though.

 

Anyway, my recs:

二手玫瑰 - alternative rock with influences from Chinese folk music, interesting linguistically as well as musically due to their use of wordplay, slang, literary references, and interesting "speak-singing" style incorporating tones.

脑浊 - pop-punk, catchy tunes, good fun and easy to learn.

窒息 - great headbanging thrash metal, nothing particularly "unique" but they do what they do very well.

冥界 - death metal - I haven't actually listened to much of their studio stuff but I was impressed when I saw them live a few days ago

王峰 - mainstream rock - to be honest I don't know any of his stuff very well apart from 北京北京, but that song in particular is great and has a lovely Pink Floyd-esque guitar solo at the end.

SUBS (杀不死) - crazy kinda avant-gardey punk rock. I think all/most of their stuff is in English though.

 

These are all Beijing-based and still active.