Who can sing the Divine Comedy?

Author|Xie Minghong

Editor|Li Chunhui

In the history of Chinese music, the Divine Comedy has a long history.

At the end of the 90s, Li Na had the song "Women are Tigers". The funny lines plus her Yan Yi can be counted as the brainwashing divine comedy at that time. "The woman under the mountain is a tiger, and you must avoid it when you meet it" Although it is based on Yuan Zhang's "Zi Wu Yu", it is as catchy as Honey Snow Ice City Sweet Honey.

There is also Ma Tianyu, who has completely become an actor today and sings very out of tune back then, and in 2007 he was able to win the first place with a song "Damn Tender", and then radiated through a "top singing platform" such as "Happy Camp", which was really popular all over the streets. The MV of this song became the most popular MV of the year because of the high search volume of Baidu videos, and it was even selected as "Remember Chinese by Singing" (a Japanese Chinese textbook), which is amazing enough!

He Xin, the lyricist and rap singer of "Love Trade", once summarized the three characteristics of the "Divine Comedy" to Hard Candy Jun: first, the melody is catchy, second, the arrangement is powerful, and third, the lyrics are easy to understand. I will sing it once, and I will brainwash it twice. Let you hear it out of nowhere, and at any time it comes to your heart, and you can't shake it off.

However, most of the original Divine Comedy singers failed to get rid of the label of Divine Comedy. Whether it is Yang Chengang of "Mouse Loves Rice" or Wang Rong of "I Am Not Huang Rong", either disappear or sing a lifetime of divine comedy. It is rare to complete the polar reversal from "Anxiety" to "Little River Flowing Water" like Gong Linna.

Whenever Gong Linna makes a strange new song, there must be "the national team under the fan" in the comment area. Hard Candy Jun felt that Gong's Divine Comedy singing method was an "evil skill" more powerful than the national team. If "Anxiety" can still barely imitate, the bite of "Dijiang Chaos" has reached a density that is difficult for ordinary people to reach. I hadn't read the lyrics halfway, and she was already crackling.

Things can't stand up to talking, and when they say it, they slap them in the face. Hard Candy Jun just lamented in "2022 No Annual Song" that "the divine comedy disappeared", this opening year, Zhang Jie's "Listen", Na Yina's "Love Like Fire", Li Ronghao's "Wumeizi Sauce", the three songs were sung in 2023.

However, while Lady Nana is busy touring Beijing and ushering in the second spring of her career, Li Ronghao is suffering from unprecedented criticism for writing saliva songs. Some people ascended by day, and some walked down the altar. The same "Divine Comedy", but the impact on the singers is completely different. And ask the vast earth, who is most suitable for singing the Divine Comedy?

Ascension: From Russian Nana to Lady nana

"The heart is beating is love like fire, you are laughing crazy people are me". It is unlikely that people who brush short videos have not heard of "Love Like Fire" this year. However, as the original singer, Na Yina's singing skills really need to be polished. The same song, every time she sings she is not in the same key.

In January this year, when she posted a video of her song on Douyin, some fans announced that she was traveling in the UK a few days ago and suddenly sounded "Love Like Fire" while dining at a high-end restaurant, which made her feel very proud. Na Yina expressed disbelief, and the fan replied: "It's really Nana, I'm sure anyone who is Na Jiajun will be proud." ”

This seemingly common conversation between Internet celebrities and fans was stunned by Hard Candy Jun out of the tone of the translation tone of the translation film. And today's hot Na Yina is the Internet celebrity "Russian Nana" who was previously fake. She pretended to be Russian with a filter, and used crooked nuts to boast about China's traffic password to attract two million fans. Miraculously, no one doubted her identity until the lie was exposed. Obviously that pidgin Russian is super dramatic: "Chinese brothers and sisters, the beans don't come to cut, good evening." ”

But Nana is really good at topic selection. It is said that Russian women work very hard and do everything, and in China it is the husband who rushes to work, calling on Slavic beauties to marry into China. Just as the so-called foreign is used in China, we can also master the traditional performing arts of foreign Internet celebrities Chinese.

After the household registration was exposed, I thought that Nana would be slumped, and as a result, "Love into Fire" directly staged Concubine Xi returning to the palace. At the New Year, I was still walking at the wedding scene in rural Hubei, and in a blink of an eye, I started a small tour in Beijing, and a divine comedy can be described as a quick blessing to Na Yina.

The producer and distributor of "Love into Fire", Hamo Music, is not known for its divine comedy, but has produced many singer albums and film and television drama OSTs, which also makes "Love Like Fire" have a good potential to be adapted. In fact, listening to Zhou Hui's cover version, you can find that the lyrical version of "Love Like Fire" is actually a very textured song.

In terms of communication links, the DJ version of "Love Like Fire" was the first to win, and the R&B adaptation version triggered a wave of user covers. Nana's DJ version is brave to pursue love, and the R&B adaptation is an EMO love song, which can fit the emotional resonance of different listeners. Netizens generally wondered, "This song is toxic, the original version is very noisy, change it a lot more advanced." ”

Hard Candy Jun strongly suspects that the original is an adaptation. It's just that Nana can't sing well, and the producer had to change it to the DJ version. Hard Candy Jun felt that Yuan Yawei could sing to the best, but it is a pity that Tia has been making fun in the future.

Recently, Nana's style flaming red lips, obviously copycat Lady Gaga, no wonder everyone jokingly called Lady Nana. When good girlfriends "Three Dreams" and "Heartthrob" were still quarreling in the live broadcast room, Na Yina had already gone to Beijing for a commercial performance. This gap directly overturned the boat of friendship.

Not to mention that Internet celebrities must also have representative works. "Three Dreams" daily imitation of Yang Mi's singing "Offering of Love" is an imitation show after all, and there is also a risk of infringement. Heartthrobs are even more talentless, and the work out of the circle is the scolding war with Sanmeng. And Na Yina's "Love Like Fire" is a real "pension insurance".

Fall: From Talent to Saliva Song

It should be reminded that "Wumei Zi Sauce" was not yet out of the circle when it was sung across the Chinese New Year's Eve in Lantai, and it really became popular on Douyin after the year. Unlike Nana's ascension, what Li Ronghao gained from this divine comedy is a question of music creation and even musical pursuit.

Ding Taisheng posted a video on Station B to criticize: "It's simply vulgar, use the word vulgar to describe this song, the word vulgar has become more vulgar." Li Ronghao responded on Weibo: "Never blame pigs for treating freshly cooked meals as pig food." (The Weibo has been deleted)

It's actually nothing to say that "Wumeizi Sauce" is a saliva song, but Hard Candy Jun opposes Ding Taisheng's division of the song's audience. He said that Li Ronghao's song was opportunistic, whose machine was cast? "Small-town youth, literary and artistic backbones who graduated from junior high school, those migrant workers." Good fellow, offend three waves of people in one word. As workers, are we so deep? I can't listen to something like "if I didn't feel inferior when I was young."

Of course, Ding Taisheng is not completely blind. He said that the melody 12216155/5233 of "Ume Sauce" was cheesy. That's fine. Some netizens said that "Wumeizi Sauce" and "Romantic Mobile Phone" are very similar. Plagiarism does not count, it is just a tribute to the number of roads.

The four chords at the beginning and end of "Romantic Mobile Phone" and "Plum Sauce" are pure fourth-degree relationships. Even the chords didn't change, just lowered. The middle is also four sevenths, but the chords change. Li Ronghao lowered the first two chords of "Romance", and changed some of the middle seven chords, some are in tune, some are semitones, and turn "Wumei" and "Romance" into a relationship between likeness and dislike.

It should be said that most of the audience's surprise comes from: This is actually Li Ronghao's song? For him, everyone's original expectation was to be forced and out of the circle. Just like the strict requirements in Xu Song's "Elegant and Secular Appreciation": "They say that it is easy to write a love song quickly and enjoy it both elegantly and customarily, and it is easier to sing it when you write and convey the spirit." ”

From a commercial point of view, songs like "Wumei Zi Sauce" are easier to catch up with the Valentine's Day cycle, and it is easy to form a screen dominance in short videos in February. The data is also proof of this: "Wumei Zi Sauce" has been played 3.34 billion times on Douyin, slightly inferior to the 3.7 billion of "Love Like Fire".

From a production point of view, in terms of details, Li Ronghao is still more sincere than many divine comedy. It's that the chorus is too steep, and it seems like two songs are collaged together.

Pearl jade is ahead, rubble is difficult. Li Ronghao, as a relatively high-ranking player in the Chinese music scene, takes the initiative to sell cabbage backwards, which always makes people difficult to adapt for a while. His statement that "music is not good or bad" is valid in the context of the "The Voice" competition, but it may not be necessary to test his own creation. With old-fashioned chords and carefully planned lyrics, "Umeizi Sauce", although delicately brainwashed, can only be a standard cultural and industrial commodity, without much artistic charm.

Did he really respond to the sentence of his ex-girlfriend Lu Yao - "It's okay, he left me, he doesn't have a good song." Looking at the chronology of Li Ronghao's songs, after 2018's "Young and Talented", there are really no out-of-the-loop works. For Li Ronghao, who lingers in the music variety program, "Wumeizi Sauce" is just a concentrated catharsis for his declining reputation.

Go Red: A short video opportunity for singers

Recently, "Baichuan Le Time and Space" produced by Douyin is still playing the "amateur evaluation" set. Ask listeners to rate their singing without knowing who the singer is. Because Zhan Wenting did not find this person in Generation Z, she was once regarded as a parody show by the audience. I really answered that sentence - untie the old shackles of the past, and today I know that I am me.

Imagine that if the mango ensemble "Time Concert 2" also adopts this format, the audience may not be surprised by the singer's singing. Tian Zhen's singing of "Red Dust Inn" has its own unique taste, but Sun Yue has never been comfortable singing "Straight to the Point" to bite the word - Sun Yanzi sings a sense of arbitrary chaos, and Sun Yue's generation of singers is not allowed to bite the word ambiguously, and must bite the syllable by syllable.

Whether it's nostalgia or blind singing plus amateur ratings, most mixes still haven't been able to find the best way for famous singers to connect with younger listeners. But in short videos, this kind of time-traveling circle seems to happen at any time. Unfortunately, this opportunity is often random and elusive, and there is no way to learn from it.

At the beginning of the year, "Crazy" became popular, and short videos have matched "Listen" with the plot of Gao Qiqiang. The original singer Zhang Jie sang "Listen" when talking about this in "Our Inn", and immediately received a lot of positive comments. "Professional singers are powerful, a cappella will not overturn", "A cappella has its own reverberation", "A cappella has an electric effect"...

Aren't these real effects and passers-by evaluations exactly what the music ensembles are looking for? In particular, the "Listen" sung by Zhang Jie and Song Yaxuan in the program is like a family K song, but its intergenerational communication effect is often hung in the investment PPT and finally does not do it.

For famous singers, suddenly a song has become a divine comedy, which is obviously an important opportunity to conquer new media. Many singers will initiate a chorus on Douyin when the song becomes popular, creating a people-friendly image and consolidating the public's reputation. For example, Deng Ziqi's "How Far Have to Be Together", the first stage was the Spring Festival Gala in 2015, this song has been cool for 7 years, and it will not become popular in short videos until 2022. Deng Ziqi also replayed and sang this song at the strong request of netizens, and received 3.562 million likes.

Joey Yung's "Let This Heavy Rain Fall" was released in July 2022, and in January this year, Zuer Yung also released a singing video through the popularity of the song in the short video.

In the context of the overall decline of the Chinese music scene, short videos "scam corpses" from time to time, and also form a fixed nostalgic mode - it requires an old song with a pleasant melody + a new flashpoint that can be combined with current events. For example, Guo Jing's "Wall of Heart" released in 2009 did not become popular until the 2022 World Cup combined with Neymar's celebration of victory dance.

For famous singers, the Divine Comedy can probably only insert willows unintentionally. If it is intentional, it will always be disgusted and the posture is not decent. That's why after listening to "The Lonely Brave" praised Eason Chen for his singing skills, and after listening to "Wumei Zi Sauce", Li Ronghao did not pursue.

As early as the pre-short video era when "The Most Dazzling National Style" and "Jiangnan Style" became popular, it was already a common practice to concoct the Divine Comedy with video content suitable for viral transmission. It is nothing more than to make a few excellent versions by the promoter first, and then promote it to drive co-creation. Use classic routines, grasp the mood of the moment, and the rest is up to your luck.