Listen to an old 1995 album today, Black Box's "This Laid Place." Black Box also has another official Chinese name, which is called "Black Box".
This Laid Place is Black Box's debut album, and the one I received was a version of his wu released in 1995 under the "Age of Independence" label. Not long after, the entire Black Box group signed to "Rolling Stone Records", and even went to Taiwan for development. After signing the contract, "Rolling Stone Records" was still in Taiwan, and also released another version of "This Leisurely Place", with the cover changed to green. Due to the overseas expansion of Rolling Stone Records at that time, there was even a version exported to Japan.
From the current point of view, "This Leisurely Place" is still a very young record, the creation of Lin Jianhua, Zhang Jiatian and Chen Weigang, or the inheritance of many Cantonese rock and traditional Cantonese song elements, some works for fans familiar with Hong Kong pop music, you can also hear some beyond the shadow of beyond the melody and way of sound.
Of course, as an album released in the mid-nineties, Black Box was also influenced by some indie folk songs and indie rock at that time, and the overall musical tone was more depressing and dark. This is very much like when many Chinese rock bands developed in an underground posture, they always had an inevitable temperament, whether they came from Taipei, Hong Kong or Beijing and Shanghai, they all had a similar decadent state.
On this album, "Soaring" is Black Box's earliest work, this song was first unveiled in 1994 at the Hong Kong Commercial Radio Awards, and won the "Top Four Merit Award", and the song was sung by "Grasshopper". Therefore, in the back cover copyright information of this record, it is also specifically stated that the copyright of this song is in "Poly Gold Records", which is also the only song in the album that is not copyrighted by Black Box.
Somewhat similar to Beyond, Black Box also adopts a structure in which members create and lead singers, with three members being both creators and three lead singers. Of course, from the perspective of the lead singer of the band, the three singers-songwriters can only be said to be qualified, but there are few special vocal styles and characteristics.
Sometimes it has to be said that a good rock band is inseparable from the playing technique, as well as the creative ability of melody and filler words, but the existence of lead singers like Huang Jiaju and Deng Jianming is extremely capable of adding points to the band, or even doing more with less.
Because the black box musicians were assigned, Lin Jianhua as the guitar, keyboard and synthesizer, Zhang Jiatian as the guitar, synthesizer, and Chen Weigang as the bass and guitar, so the drummers of the entire album also adopted an external model, and found The Asian, Tommy, Edmund Leung, the latter also played the traditional instrument of the album's title song "This Leisurely Place", but I listened to it for a long time and did not hear what the traditional instrument was.
"This Leisurely Place", "Soaring" and "Sky" are all works composed by Lin Jianhua. What's more interesting is that these three songs all use the second chord, because of the use of this second-degree sound, so the nostalgia of the work is really more intense.
In the final judging of the "Chinese Music Media Award" for several years, I met Mr. Lin Jianhua, but unfortunately I have not asked about the past of Black Box. Now Mr. Lin has moved "Picking Up Some Music" (J10) from Hong Kong to Guangzhou and runs his music business in the Greater Bay Area.
Yu Zibei, who participated in "The Voice of China" for the second time this year, sang several works by Lin Jianhua. When J10 was unveiled in Guangzhou, Teacher Lin once sent an original sample tape of works such as "Suddenly", which is really a very precious and interesting gift, thanksgiving.
I later turned over my mobile phone and found that my only photo with teacher Li Shouquan was also taken by teacher Lin Jianhua...
Zhang Jiatian's "Please You" and "Love River Stupid" are also works that I like very much on the album. Zhang Jiatian later almost became Gu Juji's "man behind the scenes".
In fact, the so-called underground music, independent music, and non-mainstream music are, in my opinion, not only an opposition to mainstream music, but also a kind of inheritance and relay. If mainstream music wants to bring vitality, it needs independent musicians to enter the industry and inject this fresh element from generation to generation. Like the creators of the Taiwanese folk movement and the group of musicians who clamped the Band in Hong Kong, they have since become the mainstay of Taiwanese pop music and Hong Kong pop music, which is similar to the truth.
Chen Weigang's finale of "A Breath" is also a work with a very Indie temperament, and the work uses 9 chords, so the whole song sounds more emotional and complex.
"When all the heavens are complaining, when everything is difficult to be unrestrained, you can think of this leisurely place"...
