How to get ahead in today's music scene?

Author|Xie Minghong

Editor|Li Chunhui

Li Jian once said, "The king and queen of heaven are feudal superstitions." The Qing capital has been dead for more than a hundred years, where is the king and queen. ”

However, we still have to acknowledge the influence of the four kings of Hong Kong in those years. Moreover, "heavenly king" comes from the Buddhist term and has nothing to do with feudalism.

In 1992, Hong Kong's largest circulation "Oriental Daily" used the "four heavenly kings" of Buddhism to canonize Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Kwok Fucheng and Liming, which has been popular for decades.

In 1994, before the performance of the "New Rock Force" Red Hall, He Yong said in an interview that Jacky Cheung was okay among the "Four Heavenly Kings", and the other three were clowns. Not only did many media severely criticize He Yong, but the performance posters and subway advertisements of "China Fire" were also stoned. Or He Yong softened at the press conference: Hong Kong, a prosperous place, needs the "four heavenly kings" before the incident can be calmed down.

The saying of "four heavenly kings" is still used today, although later internal entertainment also created statements such as "four big and three small", but after all, no one dares to risk the world's condemnation and get a "new four heavenly kings" (but in the millennium, there are Jay Chou, Wang Leehom, Tao Zhe, Lin Junjie four little kings).

However, there are talented people in Jiangshan generation, and the creation of topics depends on binding. Since we have done Chinese, we really need "four masterpieces", "four great talents", "four great inventions" and "four great beauties"... and each generation's own "Four Heavenly Kings". For example, the "New Four Heavenly Kings" recently commented on the Internet: mage Hua Chenyu, snow god Capper, sleeping god Jiang Yunsheng, and Thai pants spicy little ghost. Although only Hua Chenyu is not a rapper, the pattern of "Three British Battles Lü Bu" looks a lot like the conspiracy of the rap circle to bind the upper position.

Ask their masterpieces, it seems that there is no impression, but the stage of Puxin's madness is indeed out of the circle: Capper sings "Such a cold day" on top of two humps, Hua Chenyu descends from the sky like an evil god who wants to provoke war in ancient Greece, and the little ghost encourages fans to be themselves while engaging in home appliances to the countryside...

Whether it is the new four heavenly kings or the new glamorous eel, this is the question. But how to get ahead in today's Chinese music scene, they can be regarded as touching the door.

Who commented, I don't believe

Generally speaking, what are the four big three, basically the worst one of the fan groups or agency team wants to raise coffee and bundle up the momentum. Hard Candy Jun once argued about the "Four Famous Dans", which were secretly all promoted by Xun Huisheng's fans ("Peking Opera Rice Circle Observation Report"). Looking back at the article node of "Oriental Daily" that hyped the "Four Heavenly Kings", it was also the moment when Kwok Fucheng became popular, who took the initiative to market, who was forced to form a group, you can see at a glance.

This year's "New Four Heavenly Kings", according to Hard Candy Jun's research, is a headless public case. The hottest related video on Station B "The new four kings of the music scene in 2023, each of them exists against the sky, and the Chinese music scene is over", released by the UP master "music you and me" on April 19. Further on, there is no earlier title of the new Four Heavenly Kings, and some are also other candidates.

So, were the "new four heavenly kings" chosen by "music you and me"? Nor is it. Watching the video, the UP master used an ambiguous phrase "the new four kings recently rated by netizens", he did not say who commented, nor where he commented, who voted and how many votes they had.

We noticed that on April 19, JRS also posted a post on Tiger Pounce asking "Is this the new four kings of the Chinese music scene". The objects he listed were Hua Chenyu, Cai Xukun, Little Ghost, and Wang Ziyi. Good guys, both of them are different from the B station video.

This kind of description of the same paragraph appears in different records, which is called "foreign text" in philology. The mention of the new four heavenly kings, the appearance of these two versions of foreign texts, seems to indicate that it is an unconscious collective creation by netizens in early April. It's just that the B station version has the largest volume, and then retweets comments through KOLs like Ding Taisheng, which continues to increase the code to become a consensus statement.

By the time Ding Taisheng posted on Douyin on April 28 that "where are the pants of the new four heavenly kings", his statement was even more vague. "Recently, netizens have canonized four powerful singers in the music industry", which is already unknown.

The reflection of the WeChat public account was earlier seen in the article "The New Four Kings of the Chinese Music Scene (Authoritative Version)" published by "Sand Sculpture Graduate Student" on April 22, which is aimed at Little Ghost, Capper, Wang Ziyi, and Hua Chenyu, which overlaps and is different from the tiger pounce version and the B station version. As for the large articles such as "Dr. X" and "She Journal", the objects of its four kings have all chosen the B station version, which seems to be a kind of conclusion on WeChat self-media.

It should be sorted out that the tiger pounce version is not JRS original, but a video carried from Douyin user Cassielist. Cassielist released a five-person video collection of Little Ghost, Wang Ziyi, Cai Xukun, Capper, and Hua Chenyu at 15:36 on April 19, but did not put forward the "four heavenly kings" and "five heavenly kings". The time Cassielist released the video was a few hours earlier than the B station version of 19:24 p.m. on April 19. When the tiger pounce version asked about the "new four kings of the Chinese music scene", it was half an hour later than the B station version, and I don't know if it was affected by the B station version.

The reference to the "new four heavenly kings" now seems to be a completely confused account. It's just that flipping through the accounts of station B "music you and me" and Douyin Cassielist, they all like to post all kinds of porcelain touching and battle content, and it can be speculated that the "new four heavenly kings" are the product of mass spoof videos.

Any acrobatic performance, I play it well

The new four are definitely not judged by songs, but their scene is too cool!

Hua Chenyu's recent concert dressed in white slowly descended from a high place, and Hard Candy Jun thought that he got up early and saw the immortals! It's all you black fans who say that people are mages, and now they don't pretend to be it. Strong suspicion, there is no need for that lifting platform, and the flower also has mana floating down from above.

Although I feel that the saying "one son of heaven and one courtier, the eternal god of the Chinese music scene" is a bit floating, Hua Chenyu was selected into the "New Four Majors", which can be described as a crime. At least "Dust in the Fireworks", "The King and the Beggar" and "Qi Tian" are still both popular and musical. And the songs of the other three, there is no such person outside of "Har Circle". Breath and high pitch or something, rapper is a dead word. Why do you always love to find female singers to sing Hook, because your broken voice can't go up.

Capper's rap skills are still good, with hardcore works such as "No Man's Land Rose" and "Connivance". But "Snow Distance" sings too sticky. "Such a cold day, so far away from me." Maybe he wants to do some lazy singing, but his strength does not support it, and the effect is like getting up in the morning and peeing on the field to fight a cold war ignorance.

The backstabbing is Wan that has led to the sibling relationship for many years, and Hard Candy Jun will not express an opinion on this matter for the time being, anyway, this kind of "anti-bone boy" in the rap circle really attracts female fans (helpless to spread hands). Maybe Capper still regrets it, because "Snow Distance" is the only song on the album that goes directly to buy the song without asking someone to produce it. You laymen, you don't understand the creation of this baby at all!

Jiang Yunsheng's popularity is complicated, and the early Taoist character character, underground battle, and high school dropout can really make a bad youth biopic, just find four characters to act.

He once said that his personality is similar to Dazai's Hazo, and he will play another role in order to win the favor of others. From being squeezed out of the rap circle in Yunnan to going to Chengdu to practice hard and then fighting back to win the Yunnan KOB championship, from doubting that he will never be popular to writing "Traffic Rapper" and not knowing who diss, it is quite entangled and difficult to figure out.

Among the four heavenly kings, the mage is a big boy who pretends to be pure and secretly creates a child, Capper is a bad boy who lies under Naiwan's wing and betrays his sister, and the little ghost is a nervous child who wanders around all day, but Jiang Yunsheng is the most complicated and least like a child. When listening to "Graduation" in the early days, Hard Candy Jun was still quite impressed by his rebellious spirit, and in recent years, he has clearly flattered female fans.

And even so, the lyrics of "Really Didn't Sleep" are too vulgar. "Although she gave me roses, I really didn't sleep with her last night." This "although" has to be sung as a reverse cut "sour" to have a taste. Maybe Edison Chen is at her peak and good-looking, and singing this kind of song is not pleasant. The whole song is macho and objectifies the subconscious of women, especially like playing big handsome guys. As soon as you go out, there are other women in the house.

Pointy chin and attractive long curly hair. Little Ghost Lao was said to be Dong Mingzhu, but Hard Candy Jun felt more like Crayon Xiaoxin's mother Meiling. After "Even Practice", Little Ghost's "Don't Call Me Da Vinci" and "Goodnight" can be regarded as songs that can be listened to. It's just that lately like a wild horse out of control, dressed in a neutral style like a TS big guy, the kind that will bring home straight men and handsome guys from music festivals.

Really Thai pants spicy?

I don't know if I have watched too much "Art Life", Hard Candy Jun always felt that artists should have artistic virtue when he was a child, and should not have too much self-disclosure. But now the new four kings have one thing in common: the more they are criticized, the more they insist, which makes their fans more desperate.

Hua Chenyu once responded: "Didn't those black fans give me a name?" Mage yes, hahaha, I think on Mars (referring to the series of concerts) you really have a bit of metaphysics. "The fans must have made the witch cloak, otherwise the resistance would not be so high.

Capper is the same: "Those who say our song soil, those who say plagiarism, those who say we pull on the spot, people who say my rice circle, they can't write such songs in their lives." "Please, bless me not to write such songs in my next life.

The original intention of the little ghost popping terrier is also to express itself, but the vocabulary is poor. "I'm a very stubborn person, I never care what people tell me to do, how I do it, I don't care. If you can be like me, then I think this thing is too cool! ”

I found that no, the common denominator of the four major is that they do not listen to advice. This chaos of young idols in the music market reflects the twisted mentality of the younger generation in the information age. The great progress of social concepts and the great richness of entertainment content have given them more choices. But abundance also brings rich pain, uncertainty about the future and the collapse of offline socializing, which increases the sweetness of nipple music.

Under the influence of this mentality, in the face of the fast-moving music industry, it seems that the more deviant it is, the more it can reflect the power scepter of choice. Manifesting individuality for the sake of the so-called individuality, abandoning the masses for the sake of the so-called niche, even to the point of blindness. When the outside world reminds or criticizes, they will defend their previous choices for the sake of so-called freedom and rights, and become stickier.

The aesthetics of the world are declining, not only the black mermaids of Europe and the United States (regardless of race, just do not like to deliberately be politically correct), nor is it just Hong Kong male top Jiang Tao and Lu Hanting ("The Two Sides of the Straits and Three Places Have Been Aesthetically Isolated"), the female top Ah Yi, not just the new four kings of the stage style to explode Lei Ren, it is a cultural phenomenon that sweeps the new generation. At first, we felt that we respected diversity and blessed equality, but then we were unknowingly caught up in this storm.

Li Jian gently played the guitar in "Mizuki Nianhua", and Wang Xiaobo advised his nephew Yao Yong not to play rock in "Sanlian Life Weekly". Now, a boy was born in 1996 and dreams of becoming a rap leader. is a sports student with a height of 185 for three years, and can sing "Snow", "Romanticism" and "Bitter Coffee". He was a shaker in junior high school, became a rapper after graduating from high school, and has not lacked a girlfriend since adolescence. In case of an accident, "temporarily holding Buddha's feet", feeling "handsome to no friends".

At the 1993 CCTV celebration party, teacher Zhao Lirong partnered Cai Ming and Guo Da to perform the sketch "Groupies". The people who make Cai Ming swoon are the four heavenly kings of Hong Kong. Cai Ming refused to wash his soiled clothes after watching the concert, when Cai Ming said to his grandmother Zhao Lirong: "What a happy muddy idea!" Now it's different, this skit has changed to now, and the granddaughter has to say: "This muddy Thai pants!" ”