This summer, a variety show "Summer of the Band" ignited the enthusiasm of countless people about music. It has been 35 years since the first band "seven plywood" was formed in 1984. Among them, there was not only the exciting rock boom in Hung Hom in 1994, but also the ups and downs of a new generation of musicians since then. The Beijing News interviewed music critic Zhang Xiaozhou, DJ Zhang Wei and musician Zhang Yadong. Looking back on these 35 years, the originality of musicians is not limited by the times, and every generation will have a genius. Many people say that the times made Cui Jian, but in turn it was Cui Jian who made the times, and outstanding musicians should make the times. Band culture, especially rock music culture, is a portrayal of the spirit of the times and social changes.
1984-1994
The band "Musical Aristocratic Children" emerged, emphasizing rock and technology.
The band is the embodiment of the spirit of the times. The 1980s was a special era for China society and China music.
In 1980s, China society entered the transformation from agricultural civilization to modern civilization. Before that, discos were all yellow songs and dances. After the reform and opening-up, some foreign musicians came to China to perform. In 1982, Masaji Sata from japanese pop came to Beijing to give a concert and became the first foreign musician to perform in China. In 1985, the British wham band came to Beijing. Tayu Lo appeared in Taiwanese music during this period. In 1982, Tayu Lo released his first album "What is it?", which led Taiwan Province pop music to the trend of criticism and reflection.
Music with free and unrestrained melody rhythm and bohemian stage performance quickly became popular among a group of young people in Beijing. They had the opportunity to hear these music, which was regarded as "decadent culture of western bourgeoisie" at that time, before most people in the country, including Cui Jian and others. In 1984, the "seven plywood" band, including Cui Jian, Liu Yuan and Yang Le, was founded. The band members were all Beijing Song and Dance Troupe actors, mainly covering foreign pop music. At that time, it was very fashionable for young people to play acoustic guitars and sing English songs. The band released the album "seven plywood" with the same name, which is regarded as the first music album published by Chinese mainland under the name of the band.
The picture of Cui Jian comes from the Internet.
In 1986, Cui Jian and his band sang "Nothing" for the first time at the first concert of 100 singers in the "World Peace Year" in Beijing Workers Gymnasium, which was regarded as the first crow and beginning of Chinese rock music. Zhang Xiaozhou thinks that Cui Jian brought rock music when China’s music was "nothing" at that time, which was caught off guard and unreasonable.
Young people in China began to show unprecedented enthusiasm for guitar and bass, the Beatles and Queen. From the late 1980s to the early 1990s, the first rock bands emerged collectively. Most of these young people have a musical background, or have family members engaged in music-related work, and they have been exposed since childhood. As a child of a song and dance troupe, he has high musical quality and is easy to get in touch with more cultural information. Many of their parents are folk musicians, Cui Jian’s father Cui Xiongji is a trumpet player, Dou Wei’s father Dou Shaoru is a wind player, and Liu Yuan’s father Liu Fengtong is a famous suona player.
During this period, the band preferred heroism and grand propositions, such as Dream Back to the Tang Dynasty, and the theme was less related to daily life. Musically, the pursuit of openness and unity, pay attention to arrangement. For many people who don’t have the chance to listen to European and American rock music, this generation of bands bears the role of Chinese’s rock enlightenment.
Tang dynasty band. The picture comes from the Internet.
In the late 1980s, China was still in a relatively closed social environment. Only in Wangfujing can there be a big bookstore where you can buy foreign records. Young musicians can only communicate with foreign students and diplomats. For example, Cui Jian guitarist Eddie is a Malagasy. Bands also exist mainly underground. In a few big cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, etc., there were band performances, which were concentrated in foreign clubs and restaurants. For example, Maxim’s restaurant in Beijing was the gathering place of bands and fashion performances at that time. There are often parties in Beijing’s diplomatic apartments, and only foreigners can go in. Cui Jian occasionally "tries his best" to get in.
During this period, China was on the eve of a commodity society, and it was lucky to have a Sony Walkman. At that time, there were no music festivals with tens of thousands of people, but there were book fairs with tens of thousands of people. Young people were hungry for advanced culture, but the word "rock music" could not even be promoted. That magic rock called "rock" "new music".
In 1991, Rolling Stone decided to enter the mainland music market. Producer Zhang Peiren came to Beijing from Taiwan Province to establish Magic Rock Culture, and in early 1991, he decided to sign the Tang Dynasty band under the brand of "Fire in China". In 1991, the first album "Fire in China" was released, which included 9 songs including Zhang Chu, Face, Tang Dynasty and Black Panther band. In 1994, Moyan Culture held the "Rock and Roll Concert of China Music Forces" in Hung Hom, Hong Kong, from which the three outstanding artists of Moyan resounded across the Taiwan Strait and three places, and thus played the "Spring of New Music".
Magic Rock Sanjie Plateau/photo
Face plateau/photo
1995 -2000
Multi-style band of provincial youth group
In 1995, the commercialization of Magic Rock failed. Coupled with rampant domestic piracy, rock music has been suppressed. The so-called "rock boom" in 1994 was just a dream.
At the same time, China society began to enter a comprehensive commercial transformation, and the market economy widened the gap between the rich and the poor. With the deepening of reform and opening-up, the reform of state-owned enterprises and the laid-off workers have broken the closed social structure of China, and private enterprises have emerged and the city has expanded. People are no longer bound by their birthplace and flock to big cities. This great social change has brought "young people from other provinces". Young people from other provinces have changed the composition structure of the China Band. The previous generation of bands mainly consisted of children of musical families. This generation of musicians "heroes don’t ask where they came from", and most of them have no musical background.
The characteristics of China bands in this period can only be described as "unable to be summarized". The band has diversified styles and distinctive features, so it is difficult to define it by a certain type of music. For example, Zi Yue and Second-hand Rose band combined China folk art, sketches and cross talk elements into rock music, while NO band had artist temperament, while Tongue and Inducing Society band showed social criticism.
By the end of 1990s, bands all over the country had blossomed everywhere, and various branches of rock music, such as heavy metal, punk and experimental noise, all produced their own representative bands. Mirror and New Pants were the earliest punk bands active in Beijing at the end of 1990s. At that time, Zhang Wei made a program "Anyone can play guitar" to teach guitar, which influenced a group of teenagers to learn guitar bands. Zhang’s original intention of doing this program is that there should be more bands in China, and all teenagers should have guitars to sing together.
The picture of New Pants comes from the Internet.
Zhang Xiaozhou believed that the bands in this period were the most unique and creative. However, due to the lack of commercial mechanism, many of them are not well known to the public, and the record production level of many bands cannot reflect their true strength.
During this period, younger bands appeared, such as Dada, Huaer and Mayday, which are called "Cutie" in Europe and America. Today, Dada is still the hottest band at that time in the eyes of bands in the same period as "Young Boys". Dada released their debut album "Angel" in January 2001, which included all domestic newcomers, media recommendation awards, best rock band and other 15 music awards within half a year. Another band, Huaer, is called the first underage rock band in China. In 1999, Huaer released its first album Next to Happiness, and in 2002, it appeared in TIME magazine. In the same year, an influential young band, Mayday, was born across the Taiwan Strait. Similar to the story of Flower Band, Mayday members also made their debut as students. Thanks to the valuable experience of live singing, Mayday was signed by Rolling Stone and became one of the rock bands in full swing at that time.
Flower band pictures from the Internet.
2000-present
"Slash youth" imitates foreign traces, no longer criticizes and stays away from profundity.
In the new century, with the formation of globalization, China society has entered the Internet era in which mobile phones and personal computers dominate daily life. During this period, the only-child generation grew up and became the main force of social consumption.
In China, music consumption was formed at this stage, and a music festival as a form of cultural consumption began to exist. In 2009, the first Strawberry Music Festival was founded, Midi Music Festival began to be market-oriented, and the number of performance venues such as Live House increased greatly. The development of self-media music platforms such as Douban and Shrimp has brought development space to a group of independent musicians such as Li Zhi. At the same time, musical instruments have become more and more popular, musical instruments have sprung up in a large area, and music education has developed rapidly. More young people who love music can go online to learn guitar, bass and drums. During this period, music copyright was paid attention to and protected, and bands began to appear on the stage of TV variety shows such as The Voice of China, Good Chinese Songs and China Band.
Bands all over the world are the same, and few people can support themselves with music. The biggest difference between musicians in the new century and their predecessors is that they no longer regard "band" as the only pillar of life, but they are a generation of "slash youth". Most of the bands run around the office building from nine to five during the day, and Xiong Hua, the bass player of penicillin, is currently working in a company. Lu Xiansen’s band members include structural engineers and architectural designers; Xue Ran, the lead singer of Luminous Curve Band, opened a Sichuan restaurant in his hometown in Shandong to support himself. These young people get together to play music on weekends, do what they like, and then return to work on Monday.
During this period, the number of bands exploded, which was 100 times and 1000 times higher than that of the previous two eras. "POST-ROCK" became popular. Post-Rock is a type of music derived from rock and roll. Its biggest feature is that there is almost no human voice, no lead singer, and it is played entirely by musical instruments. It pays attention to inner feelings, tortuous arrangement and delicate arrangement of instrumental music. It is not as angry as rock and roll, but has a sense of powerlessness, which is more in line with the delicate inner feelings of this generation of young people. The representative band is Wang Wen Band.
The "mourning" and "boredom" of a new generation of young people are also written into songs, for example, there is no party band in Caodong, Taiwan Province. Many bands in this period sang English songs, and their works were not as grand and critical as those in the previous two eras, but they paid more attention to their inner feelings. Also because this generation has got too much information, as an information-overloaded generation, the traces of imitating foreign bands are heavier. However, in terms of musical aesthetics and technical accomplishment, they are generally higher than the previous two generations. Enjoying the bonus of university enrollment expansion, many musicians at this stage have gone to university or even higher education.
Today’s China band is facing a very different reality from the 1990s. The instruments and equipment used by the band are more and more advanced, and all kinds of playing techniques are also more and more advanced. In the new era, the band has more convenient access to more diversified world music elements and knows more. However, the overall originality and creativity of the band have declined. In Zhang’s view, this dilemma was brought about by the times. When the Tang Dynasty, Panther and Cui Jian were in their teens and twenties, they rebelled in adolescence. At that time, the environment was oppressive, and young people were looking for space and opportunities to express themselves. Now, the acceptance of the whole society is very high, and young people feel that they have got everything they want. They don’t need anything more profound, just being myself is enough. However, being yourself brings only a sensory impact, and the criticism of society has lost its direction.
future
The ears are waiting for exciting sounds.
Since the beginning of the new century, the living space of independent bands and rock music in China has been greatly improved. Live House performance bars and large-scale commercial music festivals have started to emerge in major cities across the country, which has also brought more opportunities for the bands to display. At this time, the number and types of bands are more than before.
Has the band’s summer arrived? For Zhang to be, "the summer of the band" is an illusion, and it is still in winter, only through this period of time. "All people who make music are one crop after another. This crop has passed, and the next crop may be able to get up. Everyone is a paving stone. If the predecessors have not paved the road, there will be no way for future generations. " If you want to welcome the summer of a real band, you can only wait silently. "My ears have been waiting, waiting to hear the sound that excites me."
In Zhang Yadong’s view, the future development of China band still needs a star, and how the outside world promotes it is not as effective as a real star in this field. "I expect China band to have Cui Jian, Tang Dynasty and Panthers in the new era, and only this influence will bring the most direct effect." Zhang Yadong said that the band is not without a market, but no one has achieved that point. "As long as it is done, the band can have it in heaven, not to mention summer."
We can’t expect a variety show to promote the development of music. Zhang Xiaozhou thinks that what really promotes the development of the band is consumption, listening to their music, not just downloading it for free, buying tickets to watch performances and buying records, and "consumption produces beauty". Zhang Xiaozhou believes that "summer of the band" is just a romantic rhetoric, a relatively successful variety show, selling feelings and even "selling miserably" (complaining about the hardships of forming a band) is just the need of entertainment consumption. In fact, the number of bands in China is one thousand times that of the last two eras. "Band culture is not a cultural product of integration, nor is it just a star-making industry. It is the result of some kind of democratic education and multicultural development. From this point of view,’ summer with bands’ is only one aspect of the overall mental outlook of young people in this era, a’ healthy and uplifting’ side that can be accepted by the mainstream public. However, we can’t say that the whole people only know Cui Jian, the Magic Rock Three Masters and the Panthers of the Tang Dynasty, and that era was a prosperous time of rock and roll, which was still a relatively closed era after all. However, prosperity is not necessarily related to individual creation, and genius will always break through the overall characteristics of the times and even create the times. Of course, genius is unfettered, ignoring the trend, regardless of spring, summer, autumn and winter. "
Liu Wei, chief reporter of Beijing News, edited by Tong Na and proofread by Lin Zhao.
