Author | Friends Edited | Fan Zhihui
On August 21, the Taiwan Golden Melody Awards came to an end.
Tian Fuzhen won the best Chinese female singer with "Nobody Knows", contributing the highest popularity of the Golden Melody Award that night, and fans were excited to celebrate, saying that "the best gift in the 20 years of debut"; Chen Shanni, a live science music producer, also won the praise of people inside and outside the circle; Luo Dayou won the special contribution award and won the standing ovation of the audience.
As the biggest winner of the night, Taiwan's well-known hip-hop singer Du Zhenxi (aka Egg Fort) won two awards for Best Chinese Album and Best Chinese Male Singer in one fell swoop, but in front of mainland audiences, it was still not familiar enough, and the degree of discussion was even inferior to Tian Fuzhen's award guest Wu Qingfeng; Wan Fang, who did not win the best female singer, won the Best Jury Award, except for fans who jokingly called the new album "To You" unlucky, there were few comments.
Tan Weiwei and Li Quan, as the only two mainland singers to be nominated, did not win the podium in the end. Faced with the complete list of winners, fans only feel that the song has not been heard and people are not familiar with it.
In addition, there is not much attention paid to this year's awards ceremony. According to music herald observation, the Weibo topic #32nd Golden Melody Awards ushered in the peak of attention at 23:00 that night, and the amount of reading was only 54.54 million, and the amount of discussion was not more than 30,000. Among them, music KOLs and star support associations are the main topic contributors.
As the largest and most influential music award in the Chinese music scene and on a par with the Golden Horse Film Awards, the attention and discussion of the Taiwan Golden Melody Awards are not commensurate with these titles. In recent years, the golden melody award-winning works have frequently exploded, the music has become more and more niche, the musicians have become less and less popular, and the singing of "one year is not as good as a year" has been endless.
We can't help but ask, does this era still need the Golden Melody Award?
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="19" Why did the Golden Melody Award > decline? </h1>
"The Golden Melody Awards are not good" and "a year is not as good as a year" are not the words of mainland music fans. As early as around 2010, the ratings of Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards were not very good, and the news that repeatedly set new lows was endless, losing millions of viewers at every turn.
It was not until 2020 that the Golden Melody Awards synchronized the award ceremony to the online platform live broadcast, and it was viewed more than 460,000 times on the official YouTube channel, and the results were not eye-catching. This year's results are slightly inferior to last year's, with only 360,000 viewers (as of 8:00 a.m. on August 23, 2021). It can be seen that on the track of the Internet, the Golden Melody Award not only started late, but also lacked motivation.
At the same time, the award method of the Golden Melody Award has not yet entered the Internet era. At present, its selection rules still rely on the production and distribution of physical records, and the award criteria alone, "Singers' albums must be released simultaneously in Taiwan", has turned away many mainland singers. With the rapid development of music streaming, the record industry has become an accessory to the "loss-making operation" of stars.
The late rock star David Bowie predicted: "Music is going to become as accessible as running water or electricity, and you'll have to be prepared for a lot of tours, because that might really be the only thing left with a personal character." ”
Now that records have become a loss-making business, as soon as they are released, the stars rush to join the concert tour, using ticket revenue to make up for production costs. In stark contrast to the recording industry, between 1981 and 2018, the average ticket price for concerts rose by more than 400%, well above the 160% increase in the overall consumer price index.
Under the impact of digital music, the volume of physical album album distribution has been declining, and it may take two to three years for Tianwang Tianhou, who originally launched a record a year, to launch a new work. Take Jay Chou, for example, from 2000 to 2008, he released at least one record a year, and in recent years fans have been eagerly looking forward to a single released online.
As the record market continues to decline, the criteria for judging are entrenched, and it becomes even more difficult to select a work of both artistic and commercial value. The 32-year-old Golden Melody Awards also seems to have encountered its own "mid-life crisis", but behind it is the dilemma of the entire Taiwanese pop music.
In the first decade of the rapid rise of the Golden Melody Awards, we witnessed Zhang Yusheng's waiting at the age of 24, and the king of songs was passed from Zhou Huajian to Zhang Xinzhe, and finally to the talented 23-year-old young man Wang Lihong at the turn of the millennium.
At that time, young people on the other side of the strait may not know what the Golden Melody Award is, but the famous voices on the Golden Melody Awards list are like the sea breeze blowing to the other side, sweeping across the river and north, confirming the central position of Taiwanese pop music in the mainland.
In the second decade between 2000 and 2010, the Golden Melody Awards continued its glory. Jay Chou, Sun Yanzi, Zhang Huimei, Mayday, Soda Green, Eason Chan, Lin Junjie these figures shone brightly at the award ceremony.
But on the other side, the mainland's native pop music has chosen a new track and grown wildly. With "Super Girl" as the representative talent show bursting, the public used mobile phone text messages to determine the next popular wind direction; the Internet singers represented by Xu Song rubbed their fists and expanded their territory in the binary space.
The market has taken the right to speak from the professional awards ceremony judges, handed over to the public and continues to this day. In the 29th Golden Melody Awards in 2018, the 29th Golden Melody Awards were awarded, and the fans in the mainland were busy sending the practice students in "Creation 101" to make their debut; the 31st Golden Melody Awards in 2020 struggled to survive under the epidemic, and the fans in the mainland watched their sisters ride the wind and waves while watching the band usher in the summer.
There is no doubt that the focus of Chinese music has shifted from Hong Kong and Taiwan to the mainland, and the content production of music has been tilted towards the mainland, where the market power and consumption power are stronger. The stagnation of Taiwan's economy and society and the downturn of the music market are also quietly changing the aesthetic style of young people.
The 2017 Mayday upset loss to Caodong without a party is a signal. Gentle and romantic Taiwanese pop music loses to a refreshing mourning temperament, young people no longer want to "elope to the moon", they "want to do, rich people have done it." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" Data-track="54" > Golden Melody Awards, not just niche revelry</h1>
Losing to Internet traffic is an indisputable fact that Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards need to face. But even so, after the scenery is gone, it has always maintained an authoritative position in the hearts of musicians.
At the 32nd awards ceremony, the golden melody diva Tian Fuzhen still choked up and said that the stairs to the podium were "soft legs", she regarded the Golden Melody Award as a sign of the realization of childhood dreams, saying that when she was a child, she forgot to sing in the bathroom, she said" "Mom, I did not waste water bills, I got the Golden Melody Award"; last year, Liang Jingru, who has been groping in the Taiwanese music scene for 20 years, still showed her small copy on the Instagram before the Golden Melody Award.
In addition, the credibility of Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards stems from unyielding and uncompromising in the game of artistry and popularity. I have to say that for so many years, for the development and dissemination of niche music, the Golden Melody Awards have a power that cannot be underestimated.
Winning the Best Singing Group Award at this year's Golden Melody Awards is called "Finding Notice", which is a name that is close to unheard of in the mainland. As an Acapella choir, the award-winning album "Dear, Adult" was also completed through crowdfunding. In the group's promotional video, the search notice said: "In the past five years, many people have told us that it is impossible, that Acapella's music cannot become popular, and that vocal orchestras cannot stand on a higher stage." ”
And this year's Golden Melody Awards will stamp their five years of hard work and persistence to certify: the impossible becomes possible, and Akbela deserves a bigger stage.
Back at last year's Golden Melody Awards, Jude, a mainland musician nominated for Best Chinese Male Singer, is also an unfamiliar name. As a singer-songwriter supported by the NetEase Cloud Music "Stone Project", mainland media people commented that "Jude's shortlisting also has a great significance, and good music that is really made with heart must have a chance to be heard, especially in the Internet age, good musicians will not be buried." ”
At the earlier 18th Golden Melody Awards, MC Hotdog's Wake Up won Best Chinese Album. At that time, the public was still discussing whether Hip-hop singers could become singers, and the Golden Melody Awards judges had already thrown an olive branch to help hip-hop music in its journey towards the mainstream.
What kind of music can be called a "golden song"? The answer must be a matter of opinion, but it is certain that the "Golden Melody Chart" is not a KTV chart, and the amount of listening is not the supreme standard for good music.
Looking at today's music market, new divine comedies are emerging in an endless stream, and the public's demand for good works is also getting higher and higher.
Among the top ten hit songs of Douyin in 2020, most of the songs have received more or less criticism, and more and more music is limited to the chorus part of 15 seconds to 30 seconds, although the total number of plays is 94.5 billion, equivalent to an average of 67 plays per person in China, but for most people, it has never even been played once.
In this context, the Taiwan Golden Melody Awards aims to redefine the development trend and aesthetic standards of popular music for the public through the "Golden Melody". Niche music is the personalized label of popular music, and the Golden Melody Awards give them recognition in the mainstream sense; and through the dissemination of the Golden Melody Awards, the audience of niche music is expanded, so that the future possibilities of popular music continue to expand.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="81" > we still need the Golden Melody Award</h1>
It is not denied that the 32-year Golden Melody Awards have become tired to this day.
In the question of whether the Golden Melody Awards should be banned, professional practitioners and media are paying tribute to them. Because this is not a simple list of winners, but a submission in the era of traffic logic.
The Golden Melody Awards adhere to the public's mission of musical literacy, crown the best MV director, best arranger, best producer, and best recording, and tell the public that a "golden song" is not only a star in front of the stage, but also needs a lot of professional talents to encourage, and there are still many standards to adhere to.
The chairman of the jury, Chen Shanni, went out of the circle to justify the producer's name, and she popularized the music producer to the public on the spot, saying that the producer's job is to "integrate all trivialities and creativity between music and speakers, and use another craftsman spirit to achieve the ultimate, so that there is no substitute."
Similarly, the Golden Melody Awards also show us the power of music. This year, the Golden Melody Awards awarded the Special Contribution Award to Luo Dayou, and Ma Shifang, as the introducer, read out the views of the Golden Melody Awards judges - "A singer can not only have the soul of a poet, he can also have the spirit of a thinker and the temperament of a revolutionary, and a record can also become an enlightenment event that shocks the times." ”
In the era of traffic, commercial value is not enshrined as a guideline, which also makes the Golden Melody Award a Golden Melody Award.
We also need the Golden Melody Awards, and we need more Golden Melody Awards.
Typography | Anlin
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