Text | Ling Hu Boguang
February 14th is Valentine's Day, this couple watches movies, plays games, eats and drinks. The domestic pop culture industry has also given some cultural works for couples to consume, in addition to the released romance films, a popular band released a new album in the evening.
That's "Take You to Fly" for the five, let's look at the names of these songs, what "It's Dark Again", "I Can't Restrain Myself", "I Want to Occupy You". Wow, combined with Valentine's Day is really tailor-made for you.
Of course, if it's just the name, it's nothing, after all, how musicians write songs is people's freedom. The most critical problem is that the evaluation of this album is really too bad, all reaching the level of the short video divine comedy of erotic love.
I believe that many people may have only heard of a band in 2022, after all, several of their songs began to become popular last year. However, Bo Guangjun is a fan of a Chinese-speaking independent band, and the band has heard it as early as the first album in 2019. At the time, the evaluation was that this was a pop band with a chance to become popular, and the ceiling was probably limited, and I didn't expect it to be so soon.
Just about to "paste" on fire? Is it difficult to become a Mayday for five people? The answer is simpler than you think
From a musical point of view, a song is nothing more than songwriting, arranging, production and mixing, and so on. If you extend beyond the song, I think the most important thing is the exploration, definition and guidance of musical styles, what does it mean?
Why Western music is developed, people's music styles include classical, reggae, jazz, pop, rock, punk, metal, blues, Latin, country music, electronic dance music, new century, folk and so on. We all know that Western music styles are more than that, people can also integrate with each other.
The most important thing is that the modern music system is laid by people, and other countries around the world have lyrics in different languages in addition to the special pronunciation methods of special languages. They are all dojos on the Western music system, among which Western cousin Russia, the only developed country in Asia, Japan, and then the ancient civilization of Indian music, can be said to have a certain influence on the world's subculture music system.
Don't look at Korean kpop is very popular, it doesn't even have a dojo on the Western music system, it's completely soft that changes the skin color of yellow people and the pronunciation of black American hip-hop.
The overall thickness of Chinese music is still stronger than Korean music, but why is it not popular in the world?
Chinese pop music is basically defined by Hong Kong and Taiwan pop, and at its peak, Hong Kong and Taiwan learned European, American and Japanese music, especially Japanese music, and then inherited the reformist music of Shanghai in the Republic of China, and finally integrated with Chinese traditional music. It is mainly the Chinese pop laid down by Hong Kong and Taiwan popularity, and this musical style is relatively lacking.
Cantonese songs are natively speaking, the Cantonese ethnic group extended by Cantonese opera, and then to martial arts Chinese style songs. And then what rock, classical, reggae, jazz, punk, metal, blues, etc., we can't say no, is more as an embellishment of POP music elements.
The reason why Taiwan's popularity lasted 10 years longer than Hong Kong music is that it also inherits the native ethnic Hokkien folk songs, ethnic groups, and Taiwanese folk songs, urban folk songs, rock, etc. after the folk song movement, and the generation of King Taolin of Zhou is RB, rap, new Chinese style and so on. The development process will not be repeated here.
"Internet celebrity band" told the fifth to overturn on the third album? Not unexpected
You may not understand what the above content means? The reason why the Chinese pop music scene is declining so quickly is that the overly commercial Hong Kong and Taiwan pop accumulation is not enough, and the real economic level is declining too fast, resulting in the exploration of musical styles that can support the pop music scene, and the establishment is far from enough.
The Taiwanese music scene is better than the Hong Kong music scene, so it has lasted for 20 more years, which can be compared with Japanese music.
The song that has always dominated the Hong Kong and Taiwan music scene is POP with various musical style elements. There is nothing to it, and those musical styles that strictly define the West are also inherently popular. The biggest problem with Chinese music is the simple POP, that is, urban folk songs, urban love songs, and popular pop are too widespread, that is, the so-called ballet in the mouths of fans (at its peak, Japanese and foreign songs were covered and occupied a lot).
A song is mainly composed and sung, produced, instrumental and mixed.
Pop songs in the Chinese music scene usually rely on musicians\singers who are good-sound, have a magnetic voice (singing skills are not strictly required), good brainwashing melodies, and easy-to-understand lyrics. Many classic songs in the early days were usually arranged and instrumentally arranged, and then mixed and produced in post-production.
In this way, the exploration, establishment and establishment of Chinese pop music styles naturally has limited influence.
The godfather of the early Chinese music scene, music masters basically laid a foundation for musical styles, such as Xu Guanjie who laid down Cantonese songs, Luo Dayou of Taiwan, and then Cui Jian, the godfather of mainland rock, and then Jay Chou, Tao Zhe and so on. Others like Wang Feng of pop rock, Qi Qin of lyrical rock and so on.
Others including Li Zongsheng and Lin Junjie are urban POPs, their song chords are usually 4536251, of course, not their choice but the choice of the public, many songs that were popular in the early years are a basic chord, and a canon chord can play and sing dozens or hundreds of songs, including many classic pop songs in the early days.
Now the most popular songs, and at the same time the best songs, will definitely not escape these basic chords, so it sounds similar. Set a 4536215 chord, write a little bullshit lyrics with rhymes, and set a little effect instrument with unclear meaning, and an Internet celebrity divine comedy is born.
There are many reasons behind this, the immaturity of the Chinese music industry chain (especially in the mainland), because educating the public about the aesthetics of music culture is not good. Then to the rapid development of the Internet brought about short videos, online digital music to make the popular Divine Comedy more convenient to spread, and so on.
The first one is specialized, the second is not hot, and the third is scolding? Tell the five why they overturned
The five are because of the 2022 short video and music charts, their first album "I Must Have Said I Loved You Hundreds of Years Ago" was released in 2019, I believe it is a song on many people's playlists. Even if you can't remember the name, you've definitely heard it when you click on it.
I personally pay more attention to independent music, and I told the five that the first album was heard in 2020, and in my opinion, it is good in two points, one is that the melody brainwashing required by Chinese listeners is still okay. Second, the voice of the male and female double singers is very suitable and really silky to the ears.
(There may be a third point, the female lead singer Inu Qing is quite beautiful and has a good figure).
In the past, in addition to the Phoenix Legend and the Nine Moon Miracle, there seemed to be no such a good little bourgeois' male and female double lead pop band. This band is the kind of urban pop, which is nothing, after all, it is still good. And when you look at those songs now, they still do a lot in terms of musical style diversity.
Like "Lover Missed", "Starless at Night", "Wearing the Star and the Moon to Think of You", "Never Been to Barcelona" and so on.
From the perspective of musical style, it is an urban love song, because the chords may not be obtained, and it will be said that the sound is similar. But if you listen to it a few more times, there is still a big difference, the same urban love song, the same routine chords, there is also a talent aura, there is sincerity, and there is no talent aura, and to set the chord of commercial garbage, right.
If you really don't think these songs will work, you can listen to the song "Red", which is the same as the later song "The One". It is still very different from other songs, and it is written beautifully, and the song "Red" combined with the MV sees many people crying.
And this album also has two fast-paced songs, that "French Toast" and "Anonymous Flower", which are still a little interesting in terms of arrangement and production, especially the not very popular "Anonymous Flower", I think it is the most layered arrangement of this album, layer by layer, not so routine.
In the current pop music scene full of traffic idols and short video divine comedy, it is not surprising that they have become popular.
The production and arrangement of the second album "Luck Comes Like Nothing" has been fully upgraded, and the musical style is also a little richer, I think there are two or three songs that are still somewhat interesting, like a special kind of brainwashing pop songs are "The One" and "Princess Wendy's Bodyguard", so these two are also relatively popular.
Chinese-speaking listeners recognize this, so the songs that tell the five people to go out of the circle are still a collection of those songs.
The arrangement of the third album, the instrumental music and production is even more crude than the first album, perfunctory to the point of inconceivity. The lyrics of many songs are already very pulled: what did your mother tell you, bumping into people to say sorry.
The lyrics, theme, melody, and quality of the third album are indescribable, and I feel like uniting some capital to make money on Valentine's Day. Popularity is essentially fine, and there is certainly no problem with making money. The third album of the five has so much criticism, but it is still too unrestrained.
Valentine's Day, pop? What is noble in the Hong Kong and Taiwan music scene?
Mainland roller fans have a long-standing controversial topic, that is, comparing mainland rock bands with Mayday, and then criticizing Mayday for not rocking, not really rock or something.
The reason is that mainland rock and Hong Kong and Taiwan rock are two environmental ecology, mainland rock was born in Cui Jian's era of criticism, so the critical spirit has always been regarded as the rock spirit, Hong Kong has not had this realistic foundation, so the peak of rock except Huang Jiaju, the overall is not very good.
The basis of reality in Taiwan was before the folk song movement, so there was Luo Dayou's voice of the times.
After the 90s, Taiwan did not have this real environment, and the economy developed to the peak, so musicians writing songs is the love of little bourgeois. In addition to Zhou Wang Taolin, the bands of that generation of pop musicians were Mayday, Soda Green, and then to the disbanded Fei'er and the short-lived Xin Band.
You see Mayday is also pop rock after all, right, but people are popping and good, the arrangement and production pay attention to this, and it lasts until the eighth and even the ninth album is still improving.
The first album of the five people entered the Golden Melody Awards there, which shows that it has been affirmed by professional awards. But the second one is not a hit, and now this third album is -
Finally, to tell the five, this band I felt was an Internet celebrity band at the beginning, and the upper limit of no progress was not high. But what is outrageous is that mainland fans seem to be particularly sought after them, turning their heads to scold similar mainland bands as "Internet celebrity bands" (some people think they are Internet celebrity bands after last year's fire).
Now that the third album is pulled like this, if it is a mainland band who is afraid to criticize it, it is completely worthless.
But the five people don't seem to have been affected much, the Hong Kong and Taiwan music scene is so noble, the mainland music scene is just not, this is really worth thinking about, some people may say that you can still blow the mainland music scene how, in fact, on the Chinese band alone, Hong Kong and Taiwan bands have been hung and beaten by mainland bands in history, let alone now!