Ding Taisheng's popularity is precisely the dilemma of music critics

Image source: @VisualChina

Text|Deep Pupil Music, Author | Hippo Jun Chu Qingzhou

Is Zhang Jie a good singer?

This question itself actually does not have much meaning, any singer's "good and bad" can not be discussed out of a specific context, Zhang Jie, as a famous singer in domestic entertainment, has deep fans, naturally there are also criticisms.

Recently, the well-known music critic Ding Taisheng said very bluntly that Zhang Jie is not a good singer, or even a bad singer, bringing together the problems of many singers in the Chinese music scene, although he is recognizable and can also soar the high note, but he overuses skills in the processing of the voice, and his skills do not serve the mood of the work.

Also criticized for showing off skills are also about Zhe and Sun Nan, and the worst is Xue Zhiqian, because "no skills", he is not worthy of being compared with the previous three singers...

There are many well-known Internet memes in the comments, such as Zhang Jie's "dirt has to fall", and some singers in the music industry are "greasy", and finally criticized the strong rap passages and drama to destroy the integrity of the work... After reading it, some people nodded frequently: This is the problem of the Chinese music scene!

It is undeniable that there are many drawbacks in today's music.

However, there is a question, I don't know if you have thought about it: is this Douban and Cloud Music Comment Area collection version review made by Ding Taisheng a music review of our time?

1. Zhang Jie's "plastic music" and Ding Taisheng's "plastic music review"

Everyone is a discerning person, and the "traffic attribute" of the video is full of obvious. At the beginning of responding to Douyin netizens, the author made it clear that Che Ma wanted this wave of "sinking traffic".

In fact, Ding Taisheng cleverly found an entry angle: to comment on Zhang Jie, a singer who is always hot, and passers-by have a slightly negative public opinion style.

In this way, passers-by like a wave of traffic, fans "anti-black" eat a wave of traffic, passers-by emotional rebound and another wave of traffic, to achieve a long tail of traffic, the best case is a wave of unevenness and a wave, and finally pull the goodwill of passers-by, Bo a 'dare to say' reputation, not much loss of reputation.

Traffic thinking is not a fault in this era, but such music reviews that cater too much to the audience's emotions are undoubtedly divorced from the original intention and essence of "music criticism".

Ding Taisheng said that Zhang Jie's tobacco and alcohol voice is not "metallic" in texture, but plastic, which makes sense. But from another perspective, music has plastic, and of course there are reviews. Plastic music with plastic music reviews, repeated matryoshka dolls, will this circle get better and worse, or is it getting worse and worse?

The masses have been complaining about Zhang Jie for a long time, and this topic certainly has certain discussion value. But the question is, how exactly should professional music critics evaluate singers?

Whether greasy or ru, Xie Na's "nepotism" is good, they are all old rice circle terriers. Music criticism follows the rice circle, which is inherently unhealthy. 

In order to make the old terrier effective, other effects were added to the video, such as describing Zhang Jie's oil in stages: "the face that has not been washed for three days, the pot that has not been washed after stewing, the overalls of oil workers who have not had time to wash"...

But from beginning to end, Ding Taisheng did not explain exactly what the essence of "oil" was, but swept by, and criticized Zhang Jie for being rude and without aesthetics. Overall, the entire video is more like a "new blogger" or "influencer" than a music critic.

If Zhang Jie's problem is too many skills and lack of feelings, then Ding Taisheng's problem is that "all feelings, no technology" - and technology is precisely the most essential barrier between music critics and ordinary people.

Ding Taisheng criticized Li Ronghao's "Wumei Zi Sauce" for pandering too much to the sinking market. But in essence, Ding Taisheng and Li Ronghao are "fellow travelers".

Second, decentralized music, a group of music critics who are disconnected

Of course, some things should not be the responsibility of Ding Taisheng, and he cannot bear this responsibility.

Even I don't dare to write "Ding Taisheng is not a professional music critic" here - the question is very specific and realistic: if Ding Taisheng is not a professional music critic, who is?

You can criticize Ding Taisheng for having a low education, not really academic, chasing traffic without talking about technology... However, the big problem in the Chinese music scene is not Ding Taisheng or which critic is how, but that we lack a value system to judge popular music.

The academic school has developed itself in niche fields such as bel canto and ethnicity, and the popular music of the previous era has gradually lost the core attribute of "popular", and those music that is really in wide contact with the audience actually has no "music critics".

This is not entirely bad, at least the "listening masses" have full self-determination rights as a result.

The Internet has rapidly dismantled the "old system" centered on large record groups and professional producers. In the past, the awards and lists that symbolized authority were ignored by dogs, or at least they became very embarrassing.

What is even more paradoxical is that because of the dimensionality reduction blow of the rice circle culture, the "singing degree" that was originally the gold standard was seriously polluted by data.

There are many truths in the world, and natural communication can never do it, and fan lists are one of them. The digitization of records is only one of the reasons for the popularity of the list, capital has endowed the rice circle with strong action and a highly organized structure, which is the core element of the "combat effectiveness" of the rice circle, even if it is a physical record, it may be bought out by die-hard fans.

When AKB·48 became popular next door, the records and singles bundled with AKB overall selection results dominated the charts for a long time. No matter how strong Heisei Sangehime sings, it is not as strong as the determination of fans to send idols to the top.

It's the same with internal entertainment. Even the real king Jay Chou once claimed to "counterattack" a certain flow, teaching young people a lesson. If you think about it, isn't it also because of organizing and dragging middle-aged and elderly people into the super talk check-in, and using the magic of the rice circle to win?

In a sense, Jay Chou won the list that year, which further shows that in the competition for awards and sales, idols are invincible. And within the "loser alliance" composed of regular singers and producers, there is also a lack of basic judging standards.

It can be said that in the past ten years, Chinese music has truly achieved "decentralization", in other words, although the creation of Chinese pop music has many constraints, the audience is very free in choice and almost not affected by "mainstream aesthetics"——

Because we basically do not have the "mainstream aesthetic" thing, the real "mainstream" party national team is automatically isolated from the popular, just like Li Guyi comes out every year at the Spring Festival Gala to receive a "real artist" praise, and the rest of the time she hardly appears in the pop music vision.

Music reviews are the same, you are sad in the comment area of NetEase Cloud Music, it is music criticism - this is also true, no one has ever said it, only those who are well versed in music theory are called music reviews.

The question is, what about professional reviews?

Academic journals are reviews, music APP message areas are also comments, between these two types of comments, at present we can only see a few "semi-wild" commenters such as Er Di and Ding Taisheng, and Chi Bin sometimes jumps out to say two sentences.

They all have their own style and audience, but they can't fill the huge gap between academics and casual comments.

In this "decentralized" post-comment wilderness, the means of controlling the volume of public opinion are rampant, and some opportunistic music critics take the opportunity to make a fortune.

It's like there is a magical profession called "virtual currency analyst", always using specious financial terms to analyze the trend of Dogecoin, Coin, Ether...

In fact, what are the economic laws of these coins, funds do the game, the trading station can also pull out the network cable, cut leeks, what are the morality of the rivers and lakes.

What Chinese music critics need to do is to fill in this huge blank space, build a value orientation for popular music, and establish judging standards for the people who listen to songs, which is the direction of current music criticism, but it is also a dilemma that needs to be broken through.

Third, the Chinese music market, waiting to rebuild independent music criticism

It is already a fact that Chinese music is "decentralized", and each vertical subdivision of music genres is really vertical...

Heavy metal and soft rock can't pee in a pot, folk artists carry different guitars, fans despise each other for "not real folk"... This is probably one of the reasons why "broad-spectrum music reviews" are so difficult to exist.

So whether it's Emperor Ear or Ding Taisheng, their ecological niche is indeed a little difficult to grasp.

On the one hand, reviews can't be too far away from the audience. Not to mention the decline of music journals, even if the journal does not stop, it is difficult to support even a subsistence life by relying on manuscript fees, so if there is no traffic at all, "music critics" are likely to starve to death in rental houses.

Today's reality is that part-time music criticism by singers/producers or industry-related personnel has become mainstream, such as "mentors" and professional voters in various music programs, to a large extent performing the function of "music criticism".

At least their professionalism is convincing enough, the only problem is that such comments rarely take into account the feelings of the "audience". It is true that the show is edited, but the instructors and judges exclaimed exaggeratedly, pinched their noses and shouted hello, even after editing, it was still visible to the naked eye.

Their own artists must be good, the seniors do not dare to offend, and the face of the brothers of the same master must also be given ... Let's talk about Zhang Jie, Ding Taisheng's criticism is also reasonable, he sings on Hunan Satellite TV, Lin Zhixuan and other singers are not going to be deeply shocked and greatly admired?

Therefore, Ding Taisheng's "traffic orientation" cannot be said to be wrong, and comments do have to be backed by the public in order to have a certain degree of independence.

But at the same time, if you only say what the public loves to hear, the audience scolds whoever oil will scold, this is probably not an independent comment, after all, the audience wants to watch in the final analysis or has a certain professional evaluation, if it is purely to find a follower, add a WeChat group can be, why do you need to have music critics?

Music in the Internet era is too flat, and singers and listeners have achieved "direct connection" in the APP, which fundamentally squeezes the living space of music critics.

Artist agencies are simultaneously promoting "rice circleization" in various fields, which has also turned the original normal praise and criticism into a battlefield of "control and evaluation war", which are all unfavorable conditions for the survival and development of music criticism.

In the medium to long term, we believe that there is room and need for "independent commentary". Referring to most consumer fields, there are similar ecological niches, sports have IP stations, perfumes have fragrance critics, electronic products have evaluation agencies...

At present, music is still in a transitional period of industrial change, and a corresponding "critic-evaluation agency" system has not yet been established.

At this stage, there will be music critics who are "fan" and music critics who are "just a meal", which is normal, and it is also a stage that cannot be avoided in the development of the industry evaluation system.

All parties in the industry are also exploring professional lists, such as NetEase Cloud Music's "Hard Court Original Music List" and Tencent Music's first "Wave Music Awards" just launched.

We still hope that after the temporary difficulties and chaos have passed, the gradually improving music review system will emerge.

At that time, people would see "big data models" and humanistic analysis in music reviews, dissecting the "every ru" of "soil and falling ru" clearly, telling us where the soil is and where the oil is, rather than the whole process of passionately matching with Douyin netizens.

Just hope this day, not too long.