"Caodong has no new songs?" No, no, no, this time Caodong No Party's new album is really coming at last.
Recently, the news obtained from the ISRC international standard audio and video data code query system shows that Caodong is about to release a new album "Wahe" on 520.
The page shows that Caodong's new album "Wahe" includes the following eleven songs, including the familiar "Bed" and "Lao Zhang", but there are also several unfamiliar new song names. The release and production company of this new album is KH1 Black Skin Country Co., Ltd., which is led by lead singer Lin Gengyou and was established in 2022.
In April 2016, Caodong's first album "Ugly Slave" was released by Taiwanese independent label Street Voice, and it has been 7 years since they finally released a new album, which made thousands of fans excited.
The release of the new album is scheduled for May 20, which is also a very special day for Caodong, and all the "Budu Ma Sheng" tours have been held at this time. This year 520, music fans will be waiting for this long-awaited new album, and we are silently praying in our hearts that we can reunite with Caodong in 2023 on the music scene.
01
Taipei Wanqing, did not release an album for seven years
In 2012, in Caodong Street near Taipei's Yong Highway and in the lush Yangmingshan area not far away, a few young people decided to form a band called "Caodong Street Party". Later, the personnel were separated several times, and in 2014, the Caodong Street Party was renamed Caodong No Party.
The members of the band are composed of lead singer Wu Gao (real name Lin Gengyou), guitarist Tsuki, bassist Shixuan, and drummer Fan Fan.
Caodong's music style is changeable, and most of them are stream-of-consciousness, allowing fans to smell the dry and dusty atmosphere of the post-industrial era of mainland cities in their music. Whether it is the lead singer's pronounced words, the style of the song or the confusion and helplessness of young people expressed in the song, Caodong has similarities with the mainland rock band Universal Youth Hostel, so originally, they were also called the Taiwanese version of "Wanqing".
In 2014, Caodong successively released works such as "Lao Zhang" and "Ugly" on the Internet. The following year, they filmed the band's first MV "Mountains and Seas". After that, the band's songs began to go out of the circle, and Caodong's name gradually spread in the mainland.
In 2016, after applying for a "hard court recording subsidy" of 300,000 yuan in Taiwan, Caodong began to independently create the first album "Ugly Slave". The first batch of 2,000 physical albums were only sold in independent coffee shops, convenience stores and record shops, but they were all sold out within 3 days.
In 2017, Cao Dong was shortlisted for 6 nominations at the "28th Taiwan Golden Melody Awards" with his album "Ugly Slave". In the end, the song "Blowing in the Wind" on the album beat Jay Chou's "Confession Balloon" and Mayday's "Stubborn" and other hit songs to win the "Song of the Year Award", and the band won the "Best Newcomer Award" and "Best Orchestra Award".
Huang Yunling, Chairperson of the judges, said: "They are an outbreak of the stuffy generation. Music gives people too much impact and breaks everyone's ideas about hearing. ”
Some fans commented on Caodong's song: "If the Universal Youth Hostel is an obscure maze, a sentence of exploration is followed by a wonderful exclamation." There is no party in Caodong, it is more like a straight corridor, you stride forward, but you step on the mechanism, and when you go to the depths, you replace the old with new. ”
The pursuit and recognition of Caodong by mainland music fans quickly made the atmosphere of ticket grabbing "tense". At the end of 2016, Caodong held the "Tao" Bingshen New Year Winter Tour, starting from the east and west coasts of North America and ending in Guangzhou. The original 16 performances lasted for three months, and less than 10 minutes after the ticket was issued, the announcement that "tickets are sold out" was posted, tickets for eight cities were sold out in an hour, and the New Year's Eve venue in Beijing was illuminated in less than a minute.
This tour also became one of the annual events in the independent music industry that year, inscribed in the process of industrial development.
In recent years, Caodong has become the darling of major music festivals in the mainland, participating in the 2018 Chengdu Spring Wave Music Festival, the 2018 Shanghai Spring Wave Music Festival, the 19-year-old Taihu Midi Music Festival and the 21-year Strawberry Music Festival, and may participate in the West Lake Music Festival this year. Caodong not only made a grand finale appearance at the music festival, but also a ticket to the music festival in which they appeared.
There is also a slogan circulating in the music fan circle - "I haven't heard of Caodong, just like the young people back then didn't hear of Teresa Teresa". Therefore, "Caodong No Party" is often jokingly called "Caodong No Tickets", which proves their status in the hearts of the younger generation of rock fans and their huge appeal at the box office.
02
Cherish fate "as usual"
So far, Caodong has not released new songs for 3 years and has not released an album for 7 years.
Caodong is not a prolific band, and after the Golden Melody Awards, the band did not release a new album for a long time. In 2018, the new song "As Usual" sung by the band during the live performance was officially recorded and released in 2020.
In 2020, due to the epidemic, the band's "5.0 Birthday of Budu Ma" performance plan became a live drama.
The year when the new crown pneumonia epidemic broke out and everyone was in a state of panic, the band released the single "As usual". In the song synopsis, they write, "May all the good things that are kept be as usual, and may all the unbearable and unbearable stop at impermanence." ”
Caodong, who always seems to be cynical, also expressed hope for a "good" life that year - "the epidemic is over and everything returns to normal".
Previously, Cao Dong did a live interactive program on YouTube, filming a story about a family of three who fell apart. Mom and Dad broke down emotionally and eventually divorced, but something happened to make their relationship warm up again. On their way home, when everything seemed to be slowly starting to get better, Dad got out of the car to buy drinks, and a meteorite fell from the sky and smashed into the car carrying his future full of happy sunshine...
Thus, the theme of this short story echoes the song: "May all the good things that are kept be as usual, and may all the unbearable and unbearable stop at impermanence." ”
It's business as usual, but things always seem to be impermanent.
On October 26, 2021, Caodong's updated Weibo wrote: "Long time no see, short stay in Chengdu, Changzhou, Jinzhong. Thank you Cactus, Taihu Bay, Strawberry Music Festival. Thank you to everyone who met you there. We will have a period later. ”
On October 30, a sad news reached the mainland, and Caodong drummer Cai Yifan hanged himself at the Taiwan Epidemic Prevention Hotel. Music fans are extremely sorry and mourning for the death of the 26-year-old girl.
Immediately, various speculations about the cause of Fanfan's death arose. The most said is that the dog that has accompanied Fan Fan for 12 years suddenly passed away, she could not see it for the last time, and under the inexplicable frustration, emotions became the last straw that overwhelmed Fanfan.
Fate is not "business as usual", and it may seem ridiculous fatalism, but we still have to say with a heavy sentence: "The ordinary drum beat will always be normal in our hearts".
On social media, Caodong posted that "I have not been able to learn to say goodbye properly, and these quiet days are more tormenting than the usual busyness." We are still trying to digest the emotions and confusion that are difficult to put into words. There are many things that people can carry, and the beauty in them is often called love, and all the people have been full of love all the way... Thank you for being in our lives. After being honest with ourselves and many discussions, we will cancel the "6.0 Arena of Budu Ma Sheng" Little Dome performance, sorry to keep everyone waiting. ”
The band has not had any activities since then, the "6.0 of Budu Ma Sheng" tour has been canceled, and the band's Facebook account only posted a dark picture on May 20, 2022, and Zheng Jingru, who previously quit the band, also expressed his helplessness on TikTok that "the party is difficult to comeback".
Gradually, some social media also appeared on some social media with the pessimistic assertion that "Caodong will not have new songs".
In recent years, Caodong has also had an important influence on the creation of new bands in the mainland, for example, the new generation of potential band Frog Chi, which was originally identified as the mainland version of "Caodong" in terms of style.
Without Caodong, indie rock today has always lacked the most reflective power and authentic voice. In terms of music and expression, Caodong has long become a faith and irreplaceable existence in the hearts of a generation of young people.
Fortunately, after walking through the trough, Caodong finally returned.
The party in the world continues, Caodong Street is still there, Yangmingshan is still there, Caodong returns, may everything be "as usual".