Comments on: Oldies but Goodies…Not in China

By: claire

claire — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 07:11:47 +0000

for my part, chinese pop music nowadays is rather disappointing. listening to them is much the same as drinking pure water, no taste…;( earlier music is worth-listening yet china is undergoing a sea change and most of their music is already out of young generation’s favour.

btw, i like wubai for his exotic voice.. haha

By: Micah Sittig

Micah Sittig — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 12:50:28 +0000

“Do people here watch only the latest movies? So that they don’t feel out on a lunch table?”

They’re not talking about movies over lunch, they’re talking… real estate.

And seeing Kenny G perform in China is one of my all-time greatest musical memories. No joke. On par with the SUBS.

By: boyce

boyce — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 04:51:43 +0000

Teresa Deng,

I know lots of Chinese people who still love her pop music. There are tons of her releases in music shops and my co-workers sing her songs at KTV. And her stuff is “old.”

Cheers, Boyce

By the way, ifyou want to feel old, read Beloit College’s recent mindset list:

http://www.beloit.edu/~pubaff/mindset/2011.php

By: canrun

canrun — Sat, 08 Dec 2007 14:54:51 +0000

Never got an “Atta Boy” from Ben for my musical insights. Humph. Poor me.

Ok, then from now on I’ll suggest Celine Dion, Captain & Tennille, Zamfir and…nose flautist extraodinaire…Kenny G (my college voice teacher’s brother-Brian Gorelick. Really. Can’t make that up…)

By: canrun

canrun — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:24:02 +0000

Oh…glad I kept my copy of the ONLY edition of Chinese Rolling Stone!

http://www.freemuse.org/sw12876.asp

…and…

http://www.freemuse.org/sw10712.asp

Ben…another place to look for “different” music:

http://www.danwei.org/trends_and_buzz/songs_you_cant_play_on_beijing.php?

By: canrun

canrun — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 07:18:13 +0000

I recently downloaded (what I thought to be ) Cui Jian’s version of 一块红布, but it turned out to be a very, very sweet melody be a singer who sounded somewhat like Lin Yi Lian (Sandy Lam.) I wonder if anyone knows who did this cover version? I would say that the lyrics of ‘A Piece of Red Cloth” are just about as moving as anything I have ever heard to describe the way the government…and society in general…treats ‘the people’ here in the Middle Kingdom.

http://www.geocities.com/Tokyo/Harbor/6080/music/Lyrics/CJ-Redcloth.htm?

By: Benjamin Ross

Benjamin Ross — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 18:51:08 +0000

Can canrun or anybody else recommend some good cui jian tunes? I have downloaded a few from baidu, but they were not the groundbreaking Chinese rock I had anticipated, and please note my liberal use of the word “groundbreaking.”

By: canrun

canrun — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 06:53:55 +0000

“Personally, the thing that worries me most about Chinese pop is the general lack of political agency, but I don’t think Anita Mui had that either.”

The 18-23 year-olds in my class literally had never heard of Cui Jian (崔健). No wonder they also have NO idea what I’m talking about when I vaguely make reference to “1989.”

By: Rene

Rene — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 20:23:01 +0000

While I agree that there might be a lot of junk in China nowadays, I do think you are being a little unfair discounting all Chinese pop.

“Many observers would argue that the greatest mass improvement in living standards in human history has also come at the expense of one of the world’s longest lasting cultures.”

I’m not so sure I agree. I think a lot of artists are trying to meld traditional Chinese sounds with Western pop styles (e.g., Jay Zhou, Wang Leehom, and S.H.E.–who seem to be despised by everyone who has commented). In fact people are saying the same thing about the decline of so-called American cultural values. But change is not necessarily a bad thing. The more important thing is what is being changed.

Personally, the thing that worries me most about Chinese pop is the general lack of political agency, but I don’t think Anita Mui had that either.

By: Handan

Handan — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 11:23:53 +0000

Good observation. Rings true to me and makes me think of the difficulty of getting DVDs of older movies here down in Shenzhen, which, as the Icelandic President curiosly put it while he was sitting side by side with Shenzhen mayor, is the place to go to feel how fast the world is changing.

Well, I don’t know what benefits rapid changes bring, but it sure leaves the street vendors here utterly uninterested in selling any movie older than like two months. When I asked, sometimes furiously, why? Why only the latest ones? The answer was always, older ones don’t sell!

Well, this makes economic sense but points to an absurd buyer mentality. I don’t get it. Do people here watch only the latest movies? So that they don’t feel out on a lunch table?

Oh, and if I ask specifically for something 2, 3 years old, the vendor’d say, “That’s old. How come you didn’t watch it when it came out?” If it’s something dated way back, they’d just know nothing about it.

Looks like movie and music in today’s China are just that latest Gucci bag.