Author | Ding Qianwen Edit | Fan Zhihui
Musicians struggling in the traffic era are waiting for new opportunities for Bole Soma.
On May 17, Station B officially announced the launch of the "New Generation Musician Program - Girls Season", which will be divided into three tracks: singing, singing and composing, singing and dancing, and launching a large-scale call for submissions for all women. Different from similar activities in the industry in the past, Station B promised "Top Ten Offers" with high gold content in cooperation with Sony Music, Riot Games, Modern Sky and other partners at the beginning of recruitment. This generous help quickly aroused heated discussions in the industry.
As music critic "Du Ruoyi" said, "In this new generation, it is not difficult to be a 'musician', but in this new generation, it is becoming more and more difficult to stand out from the vast sea of musicians."
Before analyzing what the ten offers of Station B can bring to music newcomers, the question we need to discuss first is, what is trapped in the current Chinese music scene?
Trapped in AI and algorithms
There is no doubt that after entering 2023, with the amazing iteration speed of AIGC, the AI boom has spread to the global music scene and become a new type of productivity.
In the mainland alone, "AI Sun Yanzi" relied on the Soviets 4.0 model to cover songs such as "Hair Like Snow", "Rainy Day" and "Qingming Rain" quickly became popular, which led to the ridicule that "the first person to lose her job after AI came out was Sun Yanzi".
Many musicians have also begun to actively use AI to complete music "creation". In March this year, Chen Shanni's new work "Teach Me How to Be Your Lover" was sung by her tuning "AI Chen Shanni", which almost deceived all music fans with a fake truth.
Essentially, AI music is generated through algorithms that understand data-based music, and then through human-trained music styles or singer models. To a certain extent, its flexible use can retain the singer's gradually weakening vocal cord advantages, and make the singer "cross" the vocal range that real people are not good at, bringing more diverse musical "works", which does have an auxiliary effect on the musician's creation.
However, for the vast majority of musicians, AI also means that the threshold of music creation may not exist, and music theory knowledge, style aesthetics and even singing skills are no longer "necessities" for musicians. Just as European and American singer Drake left a pessimistic comment on the "last straw" after hearing AI Drake's cover, the evolution of technology has left many musicians in the confusion of whether they will be replaced by AI.
In addition to AI shaping popularity, the proliferation of some unknown hot songs and divine comedy also impacts the living space of musicians.
For example, after "Love Like Fire" inexplicably exploded and trembled, it successively attracted mainstream artists such as Gong Linna and Little Ghost-Wang Linkai to cover songs and repeatedly appeared on the hot search. And these "divine comedy" that are mostly popular due to brainwashing, parody, and earthy flavor, even if there are different adaptations, but to put it bluntly, they are still "popular" created by using algorithm traffic.
As a result, some musicians have to cater to the so-called platform trend in order to survive exposure, and over time, they become workers under the blow of traffic and algorithms, and lose their original musical personality.
The creative end has been impacted by AI, the distribution side has encountered algorithm alienation, the music aesthetic tends to be average, and the maverick musicians and works are becoming fewer and fewer, to the point of having to compromise with the mass traffic.
"Can music still be a long-term commitment?" Many young music creators are repeatedly asking themselves such questions.
How to "tear" a hole for music newcomers?
Under the back and forth attack of AI and algorithms, the public's cognition of music has also been biased.
It is clear that the supply of somatosensory music is overflowing, and major music distribution platforms claim how many of the hundreds of millions of popular songs are played every year. So why can't you talk about a few new music stars? Even the viral spread of "Love Like Fire" has not really pulled the original singer Na Yina into the ranks of musicians, but is infinitely overdrawing her entertainment value.
Frankly speaking, this also reflects the fragility of music brought by AI and algorithms. However, if musicians do not cater to the orientation on the assembly line, they will be largely eliminated by the algorithm era, and it is difficult to enter the public eye with unique music creation.
In recent years, the Chinese music scene, which has been repeatedly declared dead, has actually died with the vitality and endless superstars that once bloomed.
In fact, excellent musicians have always existed, but due to the lack of opportunities to be paid attention to, tapped, and given industry support, they were eventually trapped in the whirlpool of traffic.
This also exposes the scarcity of platforms that truly pay attention to their musical personalities and professional needs. The reason why Station B's "New Generation Musician Program - Girls Season" can arouse heated discussions in the industry is that every commitment in its recruitment announcement directly hits the pain points of music newcomers and the most fundamental value of music creation.
Take a closer look at the top ten offers officially promised by Station B, each of which is a solid "good pie" in the industry.
In addition to providing a million prize money and Berklee College of Music overseas training name, what is more noteworthy in this offer list is Sony Music's "create and release a personal EP" and multiple online and offline music cooperation channels.
For example, Riot Game Music not only holds several game and event theme song resources based on "League of Legends", but also creates music works that have repeatedly entered the US Billboard list and are popular around the world; The creation and singing of the graduation song of Station B have previously fallen into the top echelon in the industry (Mao Buyi, Yi Yangqianxi and Luo Dayou have all been singers in previous sessions). Of course, station B's own fixed project resources such as the New Year's Eve party and the national animation promotion song will also be tilted towards it.
It is not difficult to see that the return provided by the recruitment plan of Station B for musicians is a professional and commercial cooperation system, which is enough to support musicians to complete their demands to the mainstream, rather than giving up the original music love and production concept in order to compromise with traffic.
From online to offline, from inside the station to outside the station, it is comparable to the "BOSS direct employment" of the music industry.
epilogue
In fact, the public's demand for good music has always been there.
We longed for the comeback of powerful musicians such as Sun Yanzi and Faye Wong, so we used AI to complete their "new songs"; We believe that music has the power to grow savagely from the bottom up, so we tirelessly select "masterpieces" in the earthy divine comedy.
Of course, if music creators want to break the dilemma of "one failure", they still have to rely on their works.
As music lovers, we just hope that an essential event like the "New Generation Musician Program" will become the mainstream of the industry, bringing unique sounds and a stage that can truly ignite resonance to more people. Eventually, together change the direction of the tide.
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