A quick guide to the Chinese emo revival
+ a free playlist to go with it
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In this issue: a special edition looking at China’s recent emo revival. 新年快乐！
Chinese bands have been making emo-influenced music for decades. As far back as 2006, Shanghai act TOOKOO put together a compilation featuring acts from across the country entitled 情绪中国, or Emo China. (The singer on the opening track? Xu Bo, who would go on to form Chinese Football — more on them below.) Yet around this time last year, there was such a rush of new acts making emo music in China that a lot of people in alternative music circles were suddenly talking about an emo revival.
One year on and many of those bands have toured, built followings across the country, and poured their hearts out on record. The below round-up is far from comprehensive — and relies on bands whose music has made it to international platforms — but here’s a rundown of a few of the acts to watch from China’s latest emo wave (plus an OG band who still wield a massive influence).
Listen along with the Chinese emo playlist here.
Chinese Football
Having formed 15 years ago, it’s fair to say that this band aren’t exactly part of the new wave of Chinese emo, but there’s really only one act to start with when it comes to the genre: Chinese Football. With a name and early sound inspired by American Football, the Wuhan band have since forged their own identity, building a reputation as one of the best acts in the country in the process. They might not be the youngest band on the scene any more, but there’s little denying their influence.
They’re also one of the few Chinese bands who can claim a significant following overseas. The group have toured Japan, Europe and the US, and in 2019 they also hit the pleasing milestone of opening for American Football in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong.
Last year they marked the tenth anniversary of their eponymous debut album with a special vinyl re-release and a celebratory gig in their home city of Wuhan. “Without exaggeration, Chinese Football has changed the course of our lives,” the band said at the time.
Side note: there are at least two other emo bands in China with similarly-inspired names — Teochew Football from Guangdong and Henan Football from, well, Henan — and late last year Chinese Football frontman Xu Bo appeared at an event in Hangzhou called Make Emo Great Again, which featured Tokyo-based band Japanese Football.
Chinese Cuju
Speaking of American Football, the band’s enduring influence on Chinese rock kids was demonstrated in the spring of last year when nine young Chinese acts came together to cover tracks from LP1. They wittily called the compilation Chinese Cuju, cuju being the ancient East Asian kicking game touted as a precursor to football. The record was released in March, around the time that American Football returned to China as part of a tour marking the 25th anniversary of LP1, and features a number of the bands who’ve helped drive China’s emo revival.
A number of the bands on the compilation are written about in a little more detail below, but the album also features notable (but not otherwise on Bandcamp yet) acts such as Tianjin University band 即时成像 and Guangzhou ‘emo-gaze’ outfit 憂鬱的亞熱帶 — track them down if you can.
Jimi’s Guess
One of the bands appearing on that Chinese Cuju compilation, Jimi’s Guess hail from Henan and are a big part of the recent Chinese emo wave. With a band name inspired by a combination of Jimi Hendrix and the Zhou Xun-starring film The Equation of Love and Death, the quartet reference the likes of Number Girl, The Bootlegs, and Modern Baseball as influences. A more surprising influence: pop singer Wang Fei — the band cover her cover of The Cranberries classic ‘Dreams’ on their self-titled LP.
There’s also this:
v是兔子wishtoday
Another band from that Cuju comp, and another from Henan, wishtoday were formed by three friends from middle school who felt they had nothing to do once they finished the gaokao, China’s much-feared college entrance exam. Their first experiments together were Green Day covers and hardcore tracks, and that energy has carried over into their current screamo-ish sound. Now a fivepiece, the group’s recorded material has an unpolished feel that’s not for everyone, but the band undoubtably have an ear for a good riff.
Midwest Emo Mahjong
Guangdong four-piece Midwest Emo Mahjong released their first record back in July, just under a year after their formation. Following a series of singles such as ‘Always Sad’ and ‘Desolation’ that showed they very much understood the assignment when it came to emo song names, their first record proper landed with a slightly tongue-in-cheek title: I’m not from the Midwest. Maybe not, but the band seem to have an intuitive understanding of the midwest twinkle sound nonetheless.
Kyojintachi
They might have a Japanese name and — according to their Bandcamp page, at least — be based in Japan, but this group originally hail from Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai. The Departed, as their name can be translated, brought together a number of ’90s rock sounds (and some low production values) on their DIY album Kyojintachi I last May, but the midwest emo influence was prominent among them and the band have been hailed as one to watch when it comes to China’s emo revival.
郁云EmoCloud
Another young Chinese emo band to keep an eye on, EmoCloud are a fourpiece from Shandong who — as their name suggests — are “obsessed with emo sounds”. Track titles such as ‘Ihatemyself.’ and ‘It’s raining all day in my heart’ seem to tick the standard emo rock boxes, but the group are capable of springing a surprise too. Songs such as ‘12’ and ‘#CRZluv&heartbreak’ — sandwiched in the middle of their recent debut EP I think I’ve forgotten now — demonstrate their willingness to experiment with the form. It’s emo, but not exactly as we know it — and that’s no bad thing.
The Beneficial Society
Like a lot of the acts spearheading China’s emo revival, Hangzhou’s The Beneficial Society are a band with members still in their teens. They released their debut album jointly on Chinese label Happy Records and Japanese imprint Ungulates last autumn, shortly before an October Golden Week tour of Japan. Describing themselves as an “emo/art-punk/screamo band”, the quintet tap into midwest emo’s typically engaging blend of catchy melodies and emotional lyrics, but also push beyond twinkle to take their sound toward emo’s noisier origins.
Related:
CherryTop
One of a number of young Chinese acts currently straddling the emo-shoegaze divide, CherryTop make instantly infectious rock music whatever genre tag you want to put next to it. The Guangdong group covered ‘You Know I Should Be Leaving Soon’ from LP1 for the Chinese Cuju comp, and you can grab their debut LP from February 2025 and last summer’s two-track Projection EP for pay-what-you-want downloads on Bandcamp.
wish you could swim
On the twinkle end of the emo spectrum, Shanghai’s wish you could swim are the latest act to release a record on Sango Records, the Wuhan and Kyoto-based label founded by Chinese Football’s Xu Bo. Initially an instrumental math-rocky act, the band have now added vocals and other elements to their sound, as witnessed on Wild Swim.
Elsewhere on Sango, emo fans should seek out AmovingmoviE, Autumn Rush, screamo outfit Bennu is a Heron, and fifth-wave emo acts bedroom angel and Postmodernhippie (the same artist).
Diels-Alder
We started with a relatively older band, so we’ll end with one too. Lanzhou-formed Diels-Alder were slightly ahead of China’s latest emo wave, releasing their first proper LP Archives, a full-length concept album that comprised “ten songs [which] correspond to the small glimpses in the lives of ten ordinary travelers” on a long-distance train journey, back in 2022. The band members themselves have since undertaken some travel, with the trio now “scattered across different coordinates”, yet fortunately they “remain on the same frequency” and were able to reunite to capitalise on the emo revival with last year’s Backlash EP and a series of gigs to promote it.
While perhaps not on the same level as Chinese Football, the trio have proven a key influence for many a younger Chinese emo act, with the likes of xmo in Pearl Market specifically calling out their importance.
Thanks for reading. You can find a free playlist of emo from China — featuring the new wave and some more established acts — right here.
Brilliant! Thanks for all the Bandcamp emo crate digging!