After so many years, I didn't expect that the Chinese music scene on the cusp of the storm still depends on "rock"

Text | Ling Hu Boguang

On the evening of August 11, "Summer of the Band 3" was officially broadcast (membership), this season is still inferior from the first two seasons compared to the previous two seasons, probably the first season is the purest (mainly mainland rock music), and the second season has a richer musical style (and almost the top in China).

The first issue of the third season was lackluster in China, and the Internet celebrity bands Orange Sea and Constant's Changing Ball completed the task of playing songs normally (many ordinary viewers have heard the song, but may not know who the band is). The remaining Liu Lian, Steel Heart Tiger Xiaochun and other performance are average, the most amazing are the new band Berlin Nurse and the finale Nova Heart.

It's a bit of a second season white paper and reinvention, which is a few highlights of the first issue, but it almost exploded. It's like changing the format in the early stage of the run-in can't work, and the conversation is a little awkward.

I won't analyze the program here (it's already overwhelming on the Internet), I don't know if you found out. In recent years, the Chinese music scene has been lackluster, even if the music variety show is the same, the idol talent variety show has stopped, and variety shows such as "The Voice" and "Hip Hop" have been broadcasting, but they are not popular, and the songs are not out of the circle.

Now that "Lexia 3" has been broadcast, it is not only the best music complex in China at present, but also has brought many bands and songs to fire.

The Chinese music scene is no longer working, but Chinese music is richer? This is really not a contradiction

Bo Guangjun is a post-80s generation, but also experienced the 8090s Hong Kong and Taiwan music, the tail of Cui Jian's rock music in the mainland, and then musicians such as King Taolin of Zhou spent the entire childhood, adolescence and adolescence, and obviously felt that after 2008, the energy of innovation in the Chinese music scene in the first decade of the 21st century was gone.

It seems that this nice song is not as many and frequent as before.

At that time, it was not the Internet that began to prevail, I gradually left Chinese music to listen to foreign songs, so I didn't care much about the lyrics when listening to songs, so after listening to it for a long time, I began to pay special attention to the "music" itself. Or maybe it's because I'm more sensitive to music and less sensitive to words, which ultimately led me to prefer a song's composition, arrangement, instrumental music, harmony and production.

My concept of music was formed in this situation, and for the concept of music as an abstract entity, I gradually became more interested in music itself, trying to understand music.

Since I didn't listen to Chinese music for many years, but after all, I often have to listen passively in this environment, and I have been blindly comparing the problems of the Chinese music scene before. For example, Chinese popular music has a single style, a single theme, poor production, weak arrangement, etc.

If I were to scold the Chinese music scene, it would probably be deeper and worse than many people's scolding.

But then I went to listen to Chinese-language independent music, especially the independent music of mainland bands. In the end, it was found that although mainland independent music is not comparable to the European and American music scenes, and not comparable to the Japanese music scene, it is still better than Korean music.

Among them, especially the various musical styles extended by mainland rock, there are god-level musicians, a large number of excellent music albums, a large number of technology to humanities, from music itself to cultural expression, and so on. It also includes compositions, lyrics, singing, arranging, production, and other works that are excellent.

Even Chinese rock bands have begun to feed back to Taiwan and become representatives of Chinese music in the new era.

For 37 years, I didn't expect it to be Chinese rock, supporting the "Chinese music scene"

Many people think that Chinese rock was started by Cui Jian in the 80s, no, it is common sense that rock was born out of blues, and China has the foundation of blues, which can be traced back to the new school of Chinese Westerners to the Shanghai era song.

At that time, Shanghai in the 1920s was used as a loan, resources were very extensive, jazz was born in 1880-1898, and then experienced different styles of jazz style to spread to China when it was mainly a big band, and then China's jazz creation at that time was mainly in the hands of Filipino and Russian composers and arrangers, of course, there were a small number of Chinese jazz bands, but they were tepid.

In 1920, the spread of sound had a new carrier (vinyl and radio) Jazz really combined with Chinese culture, such as Zhou Xuan and other super popular musicians in the Shanghai era song, and then Shanghai fell to Hong Kong, where the focus of pop music shifted, and at this time Taiwan began to have local folk songs.

Shanghai era music spread to Taiwan there was a folk song movement, Hong Kong pop music because composers rarely have a new way to make songs is to borrow songs to fill in the lyrics, but people are tired of this way of making songs, followed by the opening of the mainland in 78, like Teresa Teng and a bunch of people's songs spread to the mainland was called a quiet sound.

In those days, in addition to the progress of scientific research, other aspects were almost clean, there was vinyl at home was found to be "funny", after the opening there was the first New Year's party, and it took a lot of effort to make Li Guyi go up and sing "Hometown Love", which marked the beginning of the pop again.

Then the evolved Hong Kong and Taiwan pop music was introduced to the mainland, and the sound transmission method had a new carrier tape, and at the same time, Europe and the United States themselves rocked, jazz also reached the peak, which was the peak of Chinese rock started by Cui Jian, Moyan Sanjie, Tang Dynasty Band, Xu Wei and a group of people.

The development history of Chinese rock may not be clear to many people, and it is also defeated by Hong Kong and Taiwan popularity in the market.

Around 2000, mainland rock entered the "underground decade" for various reasons, and now look back. If Cui Jian's opening of Chinese rock is the first stage, this decade belongs to the decade from technology to humanistic expression, pioneering musical styles and laying the foundation for richer Chinese rock music.

At that time, the mainstream of the market was still Wang Feng, Zhang Wei and the like, the popularization and dissemination was of great significance, but the breakthrough was not too big.

And the underground representative musician Xie Tianxiao, and then to the national rock hanggai band, Jiubao band, Houpeng band remodeling, electronic band supermarket, and other deathcore, British rock, etc., because of their foreshadowing has new pants, admiration band, houhai shark, escape plan, etc. have become popular bands in the market.

Around 2010, in this decade, mainland independent rock bands, rock musicians finally ushered in a wave of outbreaks under the paving of music festivals and livehouses, and this representative band is Universal Youth Hostel.

At the same time, rock bands, punk bands, post-punk bands, national rock, British rock, death core, beach rock, jazz bands, electronic bands, and so on from the previous decade. There are also all kinds of bands that have begun to explode, and the music style alone is far more than the previous decade, and it takes more time to play.

If the previous decade was precipitated by accumulation, the only popular pop bands born in the first wave of music festivals were those.

Through the accumulation and precipitation of the first 30 years in this decade, the pop band that broke out is the "Internet celebrity band" that was criticized by the circle after 2015. In fact, it broke out in full before the "epidemic". The overall level has decreased compared to before, but the number is too much, and it has begun to meet the commercialization and marketization of some Chinese pop music listeners.

This is also the reason why the music festival, livehouse market has grown significantly in recent years. The new generation of young listeners disappointed with the mainstream Chinese music scene embraces independent music, but this thing is also market-oriented, it is the so-called pop music.

Of course, two seasons of "Summer of the Band" and a third season have a commercial effect. So why doesn't Chinese rock retreat and start to save the Chinese music scene?

After so many years, I didn't think that the Chinese music scene still had to rock to "open"

According to my understanding, through offline development such as music festivals, the mainland independent concerts represented by rock have burned into the mainstream music scene, but whether it can become the mainstream of the music scene is a very complicated issue.

But why is Chinese rock on the rise? It is not like many musical styles in the Hong Kong and Taiwan music scene that have declined.

The main reason is, of course, the economic development of the mainland behind it, and the huge market support, and the restrictive environment in the mainland has always had the soil of rebellion such as rock. The problem is that even if it's rebellious spirit or something, there are other musical styles, just like hip-hop is a sign of rebellion.

But what other musical styles are there in hip-hop, and why hasn't it replaced rock's position in the mainland music scene?

When we talk about Chinese rock, the consensus of the whole society is the "voice of the times", and there are still serious stereotypes when it comes to hip-hop. This question is the same as the comparison between stand-up comedy and crosstalk sketches, and there is scar literature on the rise of the mainland at the same time, right, but it is also "scar literature", and there were also a large number of reflections that followed the trend at that time.

But Mo Yan's novel, Chen Zhongzhong's "White Deer Plain", and then to Yu Hua, Jia Pingwo, Liu Zhenyun and so on.

The content reflecting the "death of the times" is now much controversial, and it can be discussed. But if you know a little about China's serious literary circle, you know that these mainland writers are studying Western literature, Latin American magical realism, from writing techniques, to language and writing, to cultural expression.

There were great breakthroughs in both metaphysics and metaphysics, and finally established a serious Chinese literary system in the new era.

If you still don't understand, the same is Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige's literary and artistic films since the fifth generation, no matter how controversial they are now, can you deny that the early Zhang Yimou, Chen Kaige's films, film aesthetics, film content, film expression is not profound? Not the peak of modern Chinese cinema?

You look at the composition system of Huang Xiao, Luo Dayou and others, and there are still people who study it. On the contrary, Tao Zhe, Wang Leehom and Jay Chou's RB, rap music, and New China have learned a lot less.

Note that cultural inheritance, learning and influence are not the same thing. The main audience of Zhou Wang Taolin is in the prime of 8090, and it will definitely be popular for a long time, but the entire Chinese music circle has become less to learn from them, at least it is not as good as inheriting Cui Jian and other early rockers, creating their own peak universal youth hostel, which has a wide influence on Chinese bands, Chinese rock music, and independent music scenes.

Many people may say that they have stepped on it, and the famous Taiwanese band that studied Wan Qing has a band called Caodong and Lao Wang, including the change ball of Constan who won the first place in the first issue of "Lexia 3", which is actually this set of rock.

The current Taiwanese music scene cannot be said to be all this kind of rock, but from influencing the mainland to being influenced by mainland rock, it can be seen that the development of the Chinese music scene has changed.

Utilitarian or promoted? "Lexia" still brings some hope to the Chinese music scene

Finally, Chinese rock has come all the way, from Cui Jian, Dou Wei, Zhang Chu, Wan Qing, Nanjing Li Min, Mekader, Hai Pengsen, Su Zixu, etc., many people feel that rock music has been rebellious and iconoclastic since its birth, but I think the development of the national shake is still good.

The show "Summer of the Band" has been born for three seasons in five years, and some excellent bands have come up, and some excellent bands can't.

The most important thing is that variety shows are always entertaining and commercial. Do you say that running this show is utilitarian, or whether this show has promoted rock and bands, if you look at the general environment, it has finally brought a lot of pure musicians and music in this group of devil-dancing Chinese music scenes.

This is enough, just like many songs in the first issue of "Lexia 3" you can't enjoy, although the orange sea "Summer Washstone" is already an Internet celebrity song, but if it can be promoted a wave, this kind of song is a good song required by the public!