It’s [Chinese] indie rock ‘n’ roll for me
Written By: Due-East on August 17, 2007
4 Comments
 Re-TROS (L to R): Hua Dong guitar/vocals; Liu Min, bass/vocals; and Ma Hui, drums. |
| It was 5:30AM, and I grumbled to myself as I usually do, irritated about how closely morning follows night five of the days of the week. Every day I’m awakened by one NPR correspondent or another talking about one news item or personal interest story or another from around the world. I normally just lie in bed for a good twenty minutes, not paying much attention to what’s actually being said but not wanting to actually get out of bed either. But today was a little different. This morning, Lisa Chow was showcasing China’s latest export: anti-establishment music. Of course, I perked up a bit. |
| Now I’m definitely not anti-establishment. I’m not a beatnik or an elitist, and I don’t walk around in “skinny jeans” rejecting everything mainstream and whining about how a formerly cool band sold out when they released a particular album. And I can’t stand the whole “being different for the sake of being different” scene. It’s just not me. But that’s not to say I don’t appreciate creativity and music that doesn’t sound like everything else on the planet. In fact, I rarely listen to mainstream radio because everybody sounds the same. Needless to say, I was pretty happy to hear some non-mainstream Chinese music advertised in a part of the media with such a large audience. |
| Since I’m not into politics (read: I hate it), this post isn’t focusing so much on the band that was featured on NPR this morning as it is focusing on Chinese indie rock itself. I first got into it when I happened upon the website for Modern Sky (China’s largest independent record label) a few years ago. Although I couldn’t read much Chinese at the time (still can’t), I managed to find a place on the site to sample the music of some of the label’s featured bands. I was impressed. In a culture where standing out from the crowd is discouraged, there was quite a bit of well-written independent music in styles varying from trip-hop to garage rock. Some of it’s really good. So I decided to look around for more Chinese indie music and found bands like Hopscotch (跳房子), InLove, Wang Fu (旺福), and Cold Fairyland, who have a very well-polished sound. And Pixeltoy, My Little Airport, and The Marshmallow Kisses definitely deserve a mention as well. There’s a large variety of great music in just those few bands, and there’s a lot more Chinese indie music that I still haven’t explored, so I’m likely to find a lot more to love. |
| If you’d like to check out Chinese indie music yourself but are worried you won’t understand any of it because you’re monolingual, you can rest easy. You don’t always have to speak Chinese to appreciate a lot of the indie rock coming out of China; some of the better bands like Hopscotch (跳房子) and My Little Airport actually write a lot of their lyrics in English. You can find their music and lots more on Last.FM. Most of the Chinese bands I listen to are bands I found on that site. It’s actually a great resource for finding new music in any genre. |
| While NPR is just one media outlet, and the majority of the world has never heard much of today’s independent Chinese music, it’s still encouraging to hear Chinese bands featured in their articles because it could potentially lead a lot of exposure for hard working artists. Who knows where that kind of coverage could lead? Maybe some of these bands will play Nashville some day…yeah, probably not. |
man,the below site intro chinese indie music for you
http://www.indiechina.com
Hey, thanks, road! That rocks! If only I could read Chinese better…I guess it gives me something to work on.
some english editor have joined our team now.
my english is terrible,but they are very good.
Ah, very cool. I’ll have to make sure and check out what they write. Thanks!