Week 15. Popular Music Chinese Media and Cities 12 & 14 December 2017 Keywords

• Popular music (tongsu yinyue, liuxing yinyue) • Mass media • Rock Music • Yellow Music The conditions for the development of popular music

• The commodification of economy • The development of technology and the mass media • urbanization Popular Music

• A market commodity • A form of secular entertainment • An element of a larger socio-political and cultural system Urban

• Produced in a few major urban centers (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou)

The populous, technological expertise essential to its continued existence --capital investment for instruments, recording equipment, manufacturing facilities and skilled workers National

• Broadcast and consumed nationwide (opposed to various regional folk music and the ‘underground’ rock music) the importance of the mass media in its dissemination International

• Musical syncretism (non-western + western: western harmonies, American popular song form, Western instrumentation) HISTORY OF CHINESE POPULAR MUSIC 1. The late 1920s and 1930s

Shanghai, ‘Yellow Music’ (Huangse yinyue) A commodified, syncretic popular music Romantic themes, the tastes of the city’s urbanized petit- bourgeois, lyrical, ‘effeminate’ quality 花长好- 黎明晖 《今夜曲》 - 严斐 Shanghai Old Song

Li Jinhui ‘Sister, I love you’ (Meimei wo ai ni) ‘Peach Blossom River’ (Taohua jiang), ‘Express Train’ (Tebie Kuaiche) 1933—1937

• Shanghai’s Leftist Filmmakers

Films like Street Angels (Malu Tianshi) Fifth Brother Wang (Wang Laowu)

Xia Yan, Tian Han, Nie Er 2. 1937—1949

• The heightened politicization and fragmentation of Chinese popular music

1) Japanese Imperialism Li Xianglan (Chinese-born Japanese singer/actress) before 1945 2) Yellow Music ‘Songs of Tonight’ (Jinye qu), ‘Enchanting Lipstick’ (Zuiren de kouhong), ‘Kiss Me All Over’ (Chuchu wen) 3) Social Satire Chen Gexin ‘The Lady in the Pedicab’ (Sanlunche shang de xiaojie) 4) Revolutionary Song (geming gequ) or mass music (qunzhong yinyue) Nie Er and Xian Xinghai 3. Post-1949

• Nationalization of popular music • Institutionalization of mass music

• Mao Zedong’s Yan’an Talk on Art and Literature (1942) Class Struggle, Revolutionary fervor, CCP’s leadership Liu Xue’an 4. The Cultural Revolution 1966—76 • Modern Revolutionary Opera (geming xiandai xi) • Light Music (qing yinyue) • Quotation Songs (yulu ge) • Model Music (yangban yinyue) 5. The New Era 1978—1989

• Increasingly fragmented in terms of both style and content • The widened availability of modern electrical appliances • Deng Lijun (Taiwanese singer): 1978—80 tian mi mi 1:50

• Disco, Energy songs (jinge), Love songs (shuqing gequ) • Northwest Wind (Xibeifeng): a style that fused the folk music of northwestern China with disco and rock rhythms • Jail songs (Qiuge 囚歌) Chi Zhiqiang (迟志强) Cui Jian - Nothing To My Name 1986 “an unofficial anthem for Chinese youth and activists during the Tianammen Square protests of 1989”

Chi Zhiqiang 迟志强 Tiechuanglei《铁窗泪》 Popularized music (tongsuyinyue) and Popular music (liuxing yinyue)

Tongsu yinyue Liuxing yinyue • Close to folk songs • Western popular (minge) harmonies • No electrified • Youthful audiences instruments • Northwest Wind, Jail • Middle-aged audience Songs, Hong • Political legitimacy and Kong/Taiwan Love Songs, ideological orthodoxy Disco, yellow music, westernization and heterodox activity Tongsu yinyue and Rock Music

Tongsu yinyue Rock Music • Sanctioned, supported • Unofficial, underground and controlled by the phenomena CCP • Individual authenticity • Melodic rather than rhythmic • Heavy Metal bands like • Collective rather than Breathing (Huxi yuedui), individual Tang Dynasty (Tangchao Yuedui), Black Panthers (Heibao yuedui) 彭丽媛 Peng Liyuan • Punks like Tutu, He Yong