Yiqing | Wen Shi Can | edit
At the end of 2022, a variety show "We Folk Songs 2022" made the nostalgic party frantically brush the screen in the circle of friends.
Zhang Weiwei's "Rice Shop", Wan Xiaoli's "Gyro", Zhong Lifeng's "On the Roadside"... The once folk classics reappeared in front of the screen, allowing everyone to return to the era of white clothes and shabby bars, regain their attitude and feel youthful together.
The music complex is the best circle-breaking channel for circle music, and the broadcast of the program allows "folk" to enter the public's field of vision again.
And the topic of "what is a ballad" is also discussed from the beginning of the show to the end of the show. On social networks, a thousand netizens, there are a thousand interpretations of folklore, some people feel that folk is a kind of purity, some people feel that there is no difference between folk and rock ...
Ballads really don't have a strict definition, so much so that there have been some interesting confusions. Lu Zhongqiang, the founder of October Culture, joked with the Hedgehog Commune, and the musician Ma Tiao, who participated in the folk program, once won the best rock award for Chinese media.
Horse strip, picture source: Sina Weibo @iQiyiOur Folk Song 2022
On the night of the closing of "We Folk 2022", folk music critic Guo Xiaohan watched the show with everyone in the bar. She said at the scene that maybe we don't have to entangle the question of what the ballad is and whether the ballad is not popular, it has always existed in our lives and has never left.
In February 2023, Hedgehog Commune (ID: ciweigongshe) talked with Lu Zhongqiang, founder of 13th March Culture, music critic Guo Xiaohan, and musician Chen Hongyu, about the definition of folk songs, past and present lives, and vitality.
For practitioners in the folk music circle, folk songs have always flowed in thin water; For the public, understanding folk songs can better approach folk songs and feel its unique charm.
The emergence of "We Folk Songs 2022" is just an opportunity, Chinese folk songs have developed for thirty years, growing wantonly, and producing broken generations. At a time when circle music has become a hit, Chinese folk songs need to be understood more than ever.
Understand folk
"Folk" is a musical category that is difficult to define, and even Lu Zhongqiang, who has been immersed in this circle, can only answer this question with some confusion: "Until today, I don't know how to define 'folk'." ”
In the 90s, it was the era when campus folk songs flourished, when there were Ye Bei's "The Age of White Clothes Fluttering", Mizuki Nianhua's "Life with You", Pu Shu's "Those Flowers" and "NEW BOY", and Old Wolf's "You at the Same Table" and "Love Dust" and so on.
In the era when popular music swept the mainland, folk songs also took advantage of the situation, and the scenery was infinite, becoming the youthful past of many middle-aged people.
Lu Zhongqiang composed a song called "July" during the boom period of campus folk songs, the accompaniment of this song was completed by a guitar, and a folk-style music was done. Later, the song was classified as one of the representative songs of campus folk.
In the public's impression, folk songs seem to be nostalgic youth plucked by musicians on simple strings.
Lu Zhongqiang, source interviewee
In 1999, with his musical talent, Lu Zhongqiang joined Warner and participated in the album production of Old Wolf, Ye Bei and others, but his ideal "road to folk songs" has just begun.
From the 90s to the 2000s, Hong Kong and Taiwan music was prevalent, and Jay Chou, Sun Yanzi, and SHE became a popular on the streets. At that time, Xu Xiaofeng, the president of Warner, wanted to make a unique album, and he asked Lu Zhongqiang, "I want to hear something different." ”
What Xu Xiaofeng wants is non-pop melodies that he has never heard, which are not available in Hong Kong and Taiwan, and are unique to the mainland. Lu Zhongqiang searched for a long time, but he felt that it was not up to standard, and later he was told that some underground advertisements for independent performances could be seen in the middle seams of the Beijing Evening News, where there might be the new kind of music he wanted.
Indeed, in the following period, Lu Zhongqiang heard Zhou Yunpeng, Wan Xiaoli, Xiaohe, Mutuigua, Shanren Band and other musicians who were completely outside the aesthetic system of mainstream pop music on some occasions, full of surprises and strong recognition.
Zhou Yunpeng, source: Sina Weibo @iQiyiOur Folk Song 2022
Unfortunately, for various reasons, this compilation album was not completed in the end, and Lu Zhongqiang also made up his mind at that time to sign such a musician and produce such music in the future.
Compared to folk musicians, Lu Zhongqiang prefers to call these people independent musicians.
"The humanistic spirit, collection value and realistic criticism displayed in their musical works deeply attracted me, and they all have their own unique identification system in the arrangement, singing and lyric writing of music, among which some musicians have their national roots in their music, which particularly attracted me."
The first musician Lu Zhongqiang signed was Su Yang, who sang the flowers of the northwest in the form of blues; In the music creation of Ma Tiao, there are strong musical attributes of northwestern ethnic minorities; In addition, he also signed the Mountain Man Band, and they would use band-like music to play Yungui folk songs.
And the emergence of this group of musicians has also made folk songs more expansive, stepping out of the campus and into the region, conveying more ideas.
Unlike most stylized musical genres, folk seems to be changing all the time.
After 2010, the rise of the Internet, the development of Douban Group, QQ Music, Kugou Music, Shrimp Music, and NetEase Cloud have all boosted the fire of folk songs, and ordinary people can upload simple music demos and have more opportunities to be seen.
So Zhao Lei's "Chengdu", Ma Wei's "Nanshan Nan", Chen Grain's "Wonderful Ability Song", and Chen Hongyu's "Ideal Thirty Years" have all become classic songs after the 10s.
"At that time, there may have been a big trend, that is, many independent musicians would have a wandering temperament, such as holding an acoustic guitar and then arranging music in their own direction."
Musician Chen Hongyu recalled that before folk musicians gained a certain degree of popularity, the initial production conditions were often limited. But the form of playing and singing by himself expresses the most natural essence, which naturally has the temperament of folk songs.
Chen Hongyu, picture source Sina Weibo @Zhongle Ji Chen Hongyu
For Chen Hongyu, in addition to being easy to sing, the ballads in his cognition are closely related to the "personal complex" and are rooted.
Chen Hongyu is from the city of Erguna in Inner Mongolia, and he has been more influenced by local folk songs than folk songs since he was a child.
After growing up, Chen Hongyu carried a guitar on his back, walked out of his hometown, and came to the wider world, where his childhood, hometown, former playmates, and parents' instructions when he left home were all placed in the memory storage cabinet, accompanying him on his journey.
He thinks of himself as a museum, and then constantly excavates himself in this museum to complete his thinking about music.
"Ideal Thirty Years" is only a corner of this museum, and "Erguna", "Man on the Journey" and "Like a Boy" are also the music he found from his heart.
Music critic Guo Xiaohan pursued a career as a music journalist after graduating from university. He has picked Old Wolf, Ye Bei, Zhong Lifeng, and mingled with folk musicians. Perhaps because she wrote too many interviews to surpass, she was known as "folk yeast". Later, she moved from the journalist industry to the folk music industry, working as an agent for musicians and planning their performances.
With the changes of the times and people, she divided the folk songs into three stages, one was the 90s campus folk songs represented by Old Wolf and Xiaoke, "they are the industrial elite of academia and records"; One category is the urban new folk songs represented by wild children, Xiaohe, Wan Xiaoli, etc., "they are bitter urban strangers"; One category is the Internet new folk songs represented by Chen Hongyu, Cheng Bi, Good Sister, etc., "they are new cultural IPs that grow freely."
Guo Xiaohan, who has been in the industry for more than 20 years, feels that folk music does not need to be defined, it is an abstract and unique music category, "its narrative is relatively strong, and it is closer to daily life." Ballads are the awakening of self-awareness, an expression of inner emotions, and the listener sees themselves in music. ”
More than technique, style, and form of expression, folk is more of an endogenous force, which is written in the lyrics by the musician and gives the soul to the depths of the heart. Folk songs can be youth, nostalgia, nation, wandering over the city, or the twisting of a group.
It is more heartfelt than form, which may be why folk songs are easy to hit the audience, but also difficult to understand.
Ballads are on the way
Folk has had a boom in the mainstream sense.
In Guo Xiaohan's memory, folk songs were once popular to the level of "pop music". In the 90s, one of Old Wolf's records could sell tens of millions of copies, and he even appeared on the big stage of the Spring Festival Gala with "You at the Same Table".
At that time, folk songs had become a kind of "mainstream", "At that time, although everyone also called it folk, but it would not be as different as it is now, it is part of popular music, folk music, rock or pop, there are very popular people." ”
Folk songs at that time rose with the popularity of the music industry. Guo Xiaohan recalled that at that time, when making products, Dadi Record Company would spread the selling points on the TV station, and the operation of the independent record industry in this aspect also played a role in promoting it.
In 2004, Guo Xiaohan graduated from Lanzhou and came to Beijing. The rock era of Moyan Sanjie is over, and only relatively simple, low-cost music is left to perform day after day in small bars.
At that time, Guo Xiaohan was writing in the mainstream media, and Lu Zhongqiang began to look for more space for independent musicians such as Su Yang and Wan Xiaoli. When the reporter met the producer, the two began the publicity cooperation of that era, and Guo Xiaohan began to chat with the musicians after the performance.
"Folk singers are relatively simple, and interviews are like chatting with ordinary people or colleagues."
Unlike the singers of the fire, the balladers' interviews were not followed by security and assistants, and after the performance, they sat at the dinner table with the reporters, like friends, and talked until midnight.
The content of the conversation is not necessarily music-related, sometimes it is poetry, sometimes it is film, "turning interviews into a way of communication, when the old Lu (Lu Zhongqiang) created an atmosphere for everyone to understand each other like friends, which is still very precious." ”
If you can talk, you can be a friend, if you can't talk, you don't speculate for more than half a sentence, and then go home separately. These trivial lives are just the tip of the iceberg for creators, who will observe life with a calm and objective attitude, and then turn these pains and beauty into inspiration after drinking.
The creations of this group of musicians have therefore always maintained a unique aesthetic, but the issue of practical development has to be paid attention to.
In 2006, Lu Zhongqiang founded Thirteen Culture and signed artist agents for musicians such as Su Yang, Wan Xiaoli, Ma Tiao, Zhong Lifeng and so on.
At that time, the commercial performance opportunities of this group of musicians were very small, and the advance album and salary given in March were an important source of income for them. Lu Zhongqiang is also very active in giving these non-mainstream musicians more exposure opportunities, such as winning a chance for the Shanren Band to be on "Happy Camp", and once put Wan Xiaoli's hard broadcast on Beijing Subway Line 1.
Source: Sina Weibo @iQiyi Our Folk Song 2022
In 2009, Lu Zhongqiang found a famous chart with Ma Tiao's new album, hoping to do some promotion. At that time, the music chart was a big expense, and Lu Zhongqiang hoped that this mainstream chart could promote Ma Tiao's new album, but was rejected, and he made a drama called "That Night We Made Music" in a fit of anger, giving voice to a large number of talented musicians who rarely had the opportunity to show in the mainstream.
The male number one of this drama is the lead singer of "Ziyue" Qiuye, at the same time, Wan Xiaoli, Su Yang, Ma Tiao, Zhang Chu, and Xie Tianxiao also participated. At that time, the play was performed at the People's Liberation Army Opera House for a week, and it achieved a full-out effect.
Also in the winter of that year, in Baiziwan, Beijing, one month before Christmas, Lu Zhongqiang, Zhang Enchao, general manager of Banyan Tree, and Wang Xiaoshan, the editor-in-chief, drank a big drink and reached a cooperation: let independent musicians form groups into theaters, concert halls, and even gymnasiums to do intensive tours, giving these independent musicians a bigger stage.
Banyan Tree took out 600,000 as the title party, and Lu Zhongqiang pooled 400,000 to make up a basic plate.
Finally, the hotel was about to close, and the planning of the basic plate also had a name, which was casually started by Lu Zhongqiang, called "Folk Songs on the Road". He remembered that day when the three of them finished drinking and came out of the restaurant, flakes of snow were falling from the sky.
From 2010 to 2014, a large number of musicians started a national tour of "Folk Songs on the Road", singing from Beijing, Qingdao, Xi'an, Wuhan, all the way to Guangzhou, so that the relatively niche folk songs at this time were known by more people.
"In fact, I am quite grateful to Wang Xiaoshan, Weibo was popular at that time, and he was a Weibo big V, which played a good publicity role in our activities."
The first show exploded. Shen Qing, who has not sung for many years, appeared on the stage again, and his singing of "Youth" attracted many onlookers. There was also a particularly helpless time, once in a live house performance in Wuhan, Zhou Yunpeng, Ma Tiao, Wan Xiaoli, Shanren Band and others were there, and as a result, several people's performances sold a total of 47 tickets.
But in any case, the "Folk Songs on the Road" project has continued to this day, with more than 500 performances in almost all major theaters and concert halls in China.
"When you act enough, there is a process of quantitative change to qualitative change." It is precisely with Lu Zhongqiang's group of practitioners and musicians who have promoted folk songs in the past 10 years that folk songs are ready to break out in the Internet period.
Folk songs are growing
After the broadcast of "We Folk 2022", in addition to the discussion of the definition of folk, this feedback did not have the expected enthusiastic program, which caused another question for the audience: "Is the folk song not popular?" ”
After all, campus folk, urban strangers, and then new culture IP, there are phenomenal music in every period, and in the program, word of mouth is still the classic music of the past. Even though the new generation of musicians Jiang Xiangui has received a lot of attention, he is also one of the few up-and-coming newcomers in this field.
Chen Hongyu believes that there is no saying whether the folk song is "not popular", but there is a gap in time and space. After 2016, Chen Hongyu has rarely heard of well-known singers in the circle, and from the vertical axis of time, there is indeed a gap in the ballad for a blockbuster.
On the one hand, because after 2015, the music market has undergone changes in listening methods, copyright logic, and musicians' own development models, whether it is the mentality of listeners or the mentality of musicians.
On the other hand, the rise of the variety show market has made folk covers more popular, although it has invisibly catalyzed the development of the market and made folk songs in front of more people, but it has not formed a positive encouragement - covers bring only song fire, and form fire, "A lot of folk-style music has appeared, but few good original music has appeared." ”
The popularity of hip-hop, rock and other music ensembles has also won some of the heat. The rapidly developing music market will not stay in place waiting for the folk category.
In fact, folk has always had its own rhythm and pace.
Guo Xiaohan has also been asked in her life whether folk songs are not popular, which in her view is a false proposition: "Any kind of popular culture, from budding to prospering, must go through its own growth, and in the process, creators have always maintained their own standards." For them, neither because the folk song is fire, nor because it is not hot, they do not make this thing. ”
The explosion in the eyes of the public, out of the circle is indispensable to the boost of capital, the development of the record industry, so that some independent musicians can be recognized by the public and live a better life, "In contrast, everyone has not given up creating in ordinary life, which is actually more rare." ”
For Guo Xiaohan, the vitality of folk songs is stronger than expected. This is also why twenty years ago, Zhou Yunpeng's music could be popular, and twenty years later, he could still win the championship in a variety show.
To be more precise, folk songs are not not popular, but a state of always growing in stable development, which is like an ageless song, affecting generations of people with endogenous power.
And people deep in the industry have been transmitting this influence.
In addition to performance planning, Guo Xiaohan will also do improvisational music and experimental music curation, using innovative music forms to bring performances to campus and theaters, and re-recognize himself, "Only by constantly promoting can the public know who you are and how powerful your music is." ”
Chen Hongyu returned to offline performances, interacting with young fans, new and old music fans. After each performance, he would stand on stage and take photos with fans, and the memory fragments formed by each live performance would inadvertently become a corner of his "museum".
While "Folk Songs on the Road" continued to develop, Lu Zhongqiang devoted part of his energy to the performance planning of "Xinle Fu". He hopes to give more possibilities to Chinese opera and folk music through more cross-border mixing and matching, more international dissemination and win the love of more young people.
"Folk is on the road, I made more than 20 albums, Xinle Fu I made almost 43 albums." Lu Zhongqiang added.
In the time when it is not noticed, everyone is working in their own way to help the ballad continue to grow upward. And musicians are also in the ups and downs, continue to practice their basic skills and accept all changes.
"Times change, but the honesty, truthfulness, naivety, and sensitivity of the ballad are always the same." Guo Xiaohan likes Jiang Xiangui's "King Kong is Not Bad Great Sword", "Everyone has their own big sword to help us cultivate in this world. ”
epilogue
Although Lu Zhongqiang has no way to define folk songs specifically, he remembers a very "folk" thing.
During the "Folk Songs on the Road" tour, Lu Zhongqiang brought the band to the concert hall of Guangzhou Opera House to perform. After the performance, Lu Zhongqiang was stranded for a day, and the other musicians flew back to Beijing, and he still clearly remembers that everyone was sitting in an Airbus 380.
When boarding the plane, Ma Tiao took photos to show off to Lu Zhongqiang, "Look at old Lu, we are on a double-decker plane. ”
Unexpectedly, due to weather factors, the flight landed at Wuhan Airport. At that time, the number of people stranded at the scene was particularly large, the scene was more chaotic, the old wolf's musician Xiao Peng suddenly took the piano to blow, the mountain man band also took out percussion, and the people in the orchestra took out their own instruments, and then, Shen Qing began to hold the guitar and sing.
They really came with a completely improvised, unplugged live show. At this time, many people at the airport gathered around to watch the show and participate in it. Some put money in the musician's hat, and some danced with the Mountain Man Band's Xiao Budian (musician's name).
"That night, the performance of this folk song at the airport formed a communication event on Weibo, and after I saw a large number of photos of the scene, I said to Zhang Enchao, this is the ballad I want!"
In the thirty years of folk songs, there have been climax and dullness, and in the controversy and discussion related to folk songs, Guo Xiaohan said, "Just believe in folk songs." Don't miss the old days, look forward. ”