Gangle is not dead, but is no longer cared for.
It is not easy to create a topical music synthesis in the current market environment, but the "Sound and Endless Hong Kong Music Season" with the sentiment card is on fire.
This is a Hong Kong music complex jointly organized by TVB and Mango TV on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of Hong Kong's return to The Motherland. In the list of 16 groups of singers, there are not only "Hong Kong music symbols" in the public memory such as Lin Zixiang, Ye Qianwen, Li Keqin, etc., but also new generation singers such as Shan Yichun, Yan Mingxi, and Zeng Bit.
As a sound synthesis, it handed over a good answer: Cool Cloud data shows that the attention of the premiere live broadcast of "Sound and Endless" ranks first in the satellite TV golden file variety show, and the popularity of the whole network exceeded 20,000. On Weibo, the video of female singers singing "Sea and Sky" at the end of the first issue received more than 40,000 retweets.
The Douban score of "Sound and Endless" is 7.8 points, which is in the forefront of this year's variety show. Audiences are still willing to pay for their feelings, and Hong Kong at the turn of the century is the distribution center of feelings.
Previously, Mango Station's "Brother With Thorns" set off a wave of Greater Bay Area feelings, and also produced a derivative variety show "Night in Greater Bay Tsai". As early as 2020, when "Kiss Everywhere" became popular, Hong Kong Music has already triggered a wave of discussion, and the broadcast of "Sound and Endless" has brought a new round of Hong Kong music golden song "nostalgia tide".
Nostalgia is the traffic password and the reason for the criticism. In the Douban comment area, a high-praise comment wrote: "The selection of songs is still choosing the old classics of the last century. ”
In an era when Eason Chan was considered the last king of Hong Kong and the "Hong Kong music is dead" argument was rampant, the audience still fondly missed the afterglow of the last century. The music market has changed its days, short video fast food hits are rampant, people cheer for the wind of Coachella, and the singing of Victoria Harbour does not seem to be so worthy of attention.
"Sound and Endless" is a bridge for the public to see back to Hong Kong Music again, and after the show, whether Hong Kong Music can do it without stopping seems to still have to be marked with a question mark.
"Traffic passwords" and their golden age
The wind of the resurgence of the "Port Circle" has been particularly lively in the past two years.
Last year's music biography film "Mei Yanfang" broke through 100 million at the box office, and the number of douyin topics played exceeded 1.6 billion. Tencent's "Director Please Advise" found Hong Kong director Guan Jinpeng, and the first work was to adapt his classic work "Rouge Buckle".
The brothers in the Greater Bay Area are on fire, the sisters are not idle, "Sister Please Eat" and "Because I Am a Friend" two programs have been launched one after another, the former invited Well-known Hong Kong actresses such as Cai Shaofen, Zhu Yin, Chen Farong, Hong Xin, and the main coffee of the latter is Joey Yung, Sa, and Ah Jiao's "Sugar Triangle Sister Flower".
No matter what kind of Hong Kong elements, in fact, it carries the precious memory of the public for that golden time.
In the 1980s, the total output value of Hong Kong films in the world was second only to the United States sitting on Hollywood, with an annual output of about 100 films, and martial arts films, police films and action comedies became the main symbols of Hong Kong films, which were exported to Southeast Asia, Japan and South Korea, and even released in North America.
At the same time, the Hong Kong music Hong Kong music scene also ushered in Mui Yanfang, who was praised as "Oriental Madonna", Chen Baiqiang, who sang "How Precious Tonight", and the "Gemini Stars" Tam Wing Lin and Zhang Guorong. Ye Qianwen, who now wears a red dress and sings "Blessings" on the stage of "Sound and Life", set a record of 12 awards for three units in 1988 with this song.
Ye Qianwen, who sang "Blessings" in 1988
It was also during this period that Hong Kong's entertainment circle entered the attention of mainland audiences.
At that time, the cultural market in the mainland had just been liberalized, the cultural and entertainment products were relatively single, the construction of the entertainment industry was not perfect, the film production was controlled by the studio, Yu Dong had not yet obtained the first film distribution license issued by the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, and the record industry was almost impossible to talk about.
In contrast, the development of Hong Kong's entertainment market is really ahead of its time. Whether it is the sword and light sword shadow of the martial arts movie, the nonsensical jokes of the little people in the comedy film, or the love songs that are like crying, it is enough fresh and colorful entertainment for the mainland audience at that time.
In 1984, Zhang Mingmin took the stage of the Spring Festival Gala and sang "My Chinese Heart" composed by Wang Fuling and lyrics by Huang Xia, and the song immediately became popular in the mainland and was sung throughout the country. After that, mainland TELEVISION stations have introduced Hong Kong TV dramas, "Hui Wenqiang" Zhou Runfa, who combs his oily hair, has become an idol of young boys and girls in their youth, street girls have begun to imitate the costumes of the beautiful people of Xiangjiang, and "Waves and Waves" has also become the Cantonese song memory of a generation.
At the end of the last century, in order to fill the vacancy after Tam Wing Lin and Zhang Guorong withdrew from the music scene, the Hong Kong media hyped up the concept of the "Four Heavenly Kings", pushing the four new stars Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Dawn to the tide, becoming the most popular film and television singers in Asia in that era, and even directly triggering the "star chasing tide" in Hong Kong.
The emergence of the "Four Heavenly Kings" has achieved the final peak of the Hong Kong music scene, but the doomed decline will still come.
The "Downhill Road" of Gangle
In his doctoral dissertation, Huang pointed out that the music market in Hong Kong has always been sick in the narrow market.
This ill has long been a hidden concern, and in the era of Hong Kong's record industry booming, there has been a serious shortage of high-quality songwriters. "The quantity cannot be said to be too much, but in terms of quality, it is really difficult to maintain the standard... The polarization of the product, the difference between good and bad, is so big that it is too big to shake the head. ”
At that time, Hong Kong had already seen a very fanatical fan ecology, whether it was the "Tan Zhang Battle" era or the later "Four Heavenly Kings", there were often war of words between each other's fans, and they would also compete for record sales and awards.
Tan Yonglin and Zhang Guorong, who sat together at the award ceremony
In the commercial operation mode, the exposure and popularity of stars were the first, so many singers at that time would produce 2-3 albums per year. Too fast the frequency of release, will inevitably lead to each album will not be carefully crafted, either buy copyright cover, or produce not enough quality "licensed goods", anyway, the fans of the superstars will pay one by one.
The aura of superstars temporarily masked the shortage of creative talent: the beautiful commercial value created by fans made record companies put talent development on the back of their minds. Nicholas Tse once said bluntly in an interview: "Our music scene, our film world, are not willing to invest time and money, people's trainees can practice for eight or nine years before debuting, we practice for nine months and feel that he is going to come out to make money." ”
The arrival of karaoke in Hong Kong in the 1980s on the one hand contributed to the spread of Hong Kong music, and on the other hand, it also had an impact on the production of songs in the Hong Kong music scene - former composers wrote songs for singers to sing, and after karaoke became popular, composers needed to move to the general public who had no musical training, and the scope of creation was directly narrowed.
In 1995, commercial radio stations launched the "Original Song Movement", which no longer played adapted and cover songs. This move was controversial at the time, on the surface, this ban pushed record companies to reduce the number of adaptations of songs, giving local creators more room for development, but some insiders believe that in the case of the same frequency of release, only broadcasting original songs has intensified the phenomenon of only looking at quantity and not looking at quality.
Looking at the jump out of the Hong Kong music scene, the external pressure should not be underestimated. The spread of many Hong Kong music is inseparable from Hong Kong films and Hong Kong dramas, but Taiwan, South Korea and other regions that have introduced a large number of Hong Kong films have begun to introduce policies to reduce the market's dependence on Hong Kong films. Taking Taiwan as an example, the market share of Hong Kong films in Taiwan was as high as 47% in 1992, but after Taiwan liberalized the introduction of Hollywood blockbusters, the market share of Hong Kong films fell to less than 4% at the end of the 1990s. (Click here to read: "Goodbye, Hong Kong Movies")
The outbreak of the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and the sharp increase in unemployment rates were naturally a heavy blow to the entertainment industry: many entertainment companies began to shrink their businesses, and the public's enthusiasm for movies and music also decreased with the sluggish economic situation.
The so-called "house leaks are partial to the overnight rain" may be a description of the Hong Kong music scene at that time: the rampant piracy further promoted the decline of Hong Kong music.
In a Hong Kong newspaper in 1999, a reporter once described the "booming business" of pirated record stores: "Citizens who go inside and walk around always go out with three or more pirated discs in their hands, which is a big gap with the doors of genuine shops." ”
In the past, the record companies rushed to create albums, and finally reaped the bad consequences: for an album with only 2-3 high-quality songs, listeners are naturally more willing to buy pirated copies or download directly on the Internet than to spend the entire album money. The downturn in the industry also makes it difficult for singing companies to spend more on music production and new talent training, which has formed a vicious circle.
In the early 21st century, Hong Kong singers such as Jacky Cheung publicly called for rejection of piracy, and record companies also sued Internet users for illegally downloading copyrighted songs. But these efforts had little success, with the International Record Association even lowering the standard of platinum and double platinum sales in 2006.
The mainland and Taiwan, which once accepted Hong Kong's entertainment products, also gave birth to their own newcomers.
The year the veteran Hong Kong record company PolyGram was sold to the French company WestGram, a young girl in Taiwan released her first solo album. Her name is Jolin Tsai, and she will become the new generation of divas throughout Asia.
In the mainland, the popularity of the Internet and telephone ringtones has brought the sinking market to the front of the stage, the "Divine Comedy" born on the Internet has spread throughout the country, and the emergence of songs such as "Rat Loves Rice" and "Two Butterflies" has made the mainstream music scene smell the signal of change. Wang Feng once pointed out the popularity of "The First Snow of 2002" as "a sad performance of Chinese pop music", but he also wrote a song "Fly Higher" - this song is indeed more popular among the public than his previous rock and roll.
At the same time, the popularity of "Super Girl" also made a drastic change in the star-making mode of the mainland. The music scene still needs to meet new challenges, and naturally there is little time to pay attention to Hong Kong's embarrassment.
By the beginning of the 21st century, the media gradually commented on the "new four kings" of the Chinese music scene, but this title, which initially represented the prosperity of the Hong Kong music scene, did not have a Hong Kong singer selected this time.
"Cyber Hong Kong" composed of nostalgia
In the first issue of "Sound and Endless", the first person who won the first place in the most popular golden song in the whole scene was an explosive head boy named Zeng Bit.
Image source: Weibo @ Shengsheng Endless Official Micro
For people who pay attention to the Hong Kong music scene, he has been well known to the public since the talent show "All the People Make Stars 2", was favored by Guo Weiliang, signed Universal Records, and was regarded as the successor of Eason Chan along with MC Zhang Tiancai, who is also a contestant of "All Stars". Another Hong Kong music newcomer in the show, Yan Mingxi, who combs Qi Bangs, is the three-material champion of TVB's own talent show "Legend of Sound Dreams".
But for most mainland audiences, the name of this potential newcomer from Hong Kong was first heard on the stage of "Sound and Endless".
Mainland audiences who miss the days of the King of Heaven and chant "Hong Kong music is dead" do not seem to care about today's Hong Kong entertainment industry – they have always loved the prosperous and flashy "Cyber Hong Kong" that stayed at the turn of the century.
The mainland's acceptance of Hong Kong culture is related to the degree to which Hong Kong's entertainment industry has gone north. Taking the "Four Heavenly Kings" who were once extremely popular as an example, among them, Dawn's Chinese song masterpieces are the least, and the popularity of the mainland is slightly weaker, resulting in some voices in the mainland that he has been merged into the ranks of the "Four Heavenly Kings" somewhat unworthy of the name.
What's more, Hong Kong's entertainment industry has been stuck in place for too long, while the mainland seems to have gone too far.
Zeng Bit's debut of "All the People Make Stars", the first season of the program champion is now Hong Kong's top Jiang Tao. At the 2020 Awards Ceremony, he won the "My Favorite Male Singer" award from the hands of Mak Junlong and Eason Chan, becoming the youngest winner in history.
Jiang Tao, who was surprised after winning the grand prize
What does he rely on? Be a fan.
"My Favorite Male Singer" is a popularity award, jointly selected by live music fans and listeners, and like Jiang Tao's debut "All the People Make Stars", it can win the honorary laurels by the power of fan voting. Jiang Tao and his group MIRROR are the most popular idol groups in Hong Kong at the moment, and there are billboards in the streets and alleys, even if people who don't pay attention to the draft do not know his name at all.
Jiang Tao in the show
This logic is almost impossible for mainland audiences: fans use social media data traffic and real money to gain attention for idols, which is ultimately translated into commercial value.
In the era of the "four major flows" in which the mainland has already experienced the baptism of the Korean Wave, when the bubble of the traffic economy began to reflect on the bursting, Hong Kong gave birth to the first idol born through the fan economy model. Even Jiang Tao himself, who became the top stream in Hong Kong, was only one of the top 30 in the country of Hunan Satellite TV's "Happy Male Voice 2017" before winning the championship of "All the People Making Stars".
When Zhou Bichang and Liu Xijun entered, "Sound and Life" played a post-harvest clip of the wish: "'Supergirl' was very popular in Hong Kong that year. This confirms the success of the "Supergirl" series, and also shows that the fans in the mainland at that time already had more choices than the older generation of Hong Kong singers: excellent mainland musicians appeared through the TV draft and became the new idols of young people.
The mainland entertainment industry has developed too fast and too fast, whether it is movies, dramas or variety shows, after combining European and American reality shows, Japanese and Korean fan economies, internal entertainment has formed its own industrial logic.
Stars who want to enter this field to share a piece of the pie need to first abide by the rules of the game of internal entertainment: Chen Weiting participated in the costume IP drama, Deng Ziqi participated in the national music roundup, Angelababy, who once developed in Hong Kong, became popular by outdoor reality shows, and although Wang Jiaer, who has made a small improvement in recent years, has ridden the east wind of the Korean Wave, it is also indispensable to brush his face and accumulate popularity on many variety shows such as "Star Detective" and "Please Please the Refrigerator".
In recent years, the Hong Kong music scene has been trying to catch up with the pace of the times: Xu Jingyun, a subsidiary of the Emperor, came to the mainland to catch up with "Creation 101" in the first year of the draft after singing songs on the Internet without showing his face for a year; Andy Lau released a large album in 2020, which was launched as a digital album for the first time. Whether the Hong Kong entertainment industry, which is a big hit with MIRROR and a fierce fan economy, can still be loved by mainland audiences seems to be marked with a question mark.
The nostalgia of mainland audiences for Hong Kong is a nostalgia for the dedicated actors and high-quality songs of the past after eating the bitter fruit of traffic and experiencing "Miss Digital" and "Saliva Song Divine Comedy".
Perhaps people miss not Hong Kong, but the entertainment industry before the traffic bubble hit.
Text | Long Chengfei
Edit | Zhao Ordinary
Resources:
1. Huang Xia, The Development and Rise and Fall of Cantonese Pop: A Study of Hong Kong Pop Music (1949-1997)
2, very musical, "Reasonable, the decline of Hong Kong music has nothing to do with music"
3. You Wei, "Hong Kong's record industry has been up and down for a hundred years, can PolyGram regain its strength to revitalize Cantonese songs?" 》
4. Adventure Movie, "The Death of Hong Kong Music"