Down the rabbit hole: an alternative Spring Festival soundtrack
+ what was China listening to in 2022?
Hello and welcome to the latest edition of Concrete Avalanche, a Substack about music from China. Thank you for reading.
A special issue for you here as China heads into the Spring Festival holiday, a time when most artists will be sitting around over-eating, getting interrogated by relatives, and setting off large amounts of firecrackers and fireworks, rather than releasing interesting new music.
Below: genuinely enjoyable Lunar New Year tunes, a look at what China was listening to in 2022 and (ahem) rabbiting on about recommended Substacks.
Ninja Tiger: the year that was
The Year of the Tiger was brutal. But at least there was some great music to get us through it all.
In case you missed it, here’s my round-up of the best music to come out of China in 2022, featuring Sleeping Dogs (funk), Wang Wen (post-rock), J-Fever and friends (hip hop), Hualun (beautiful instrumentals) and lots more.
Some other end of year lists to peruse if you haven’t already:
What about what people in China were listening to? Well, hard to be comprehensive when you’re talking about a population of ~1.4 billion, but here are some end of year lists from the notoriously discerning user review site Douban:
For another view, streaming platform NetEase held its annual music awards in late December and declared these ten albums to be the hottest of 2022: 薛之谦《无数》, 李荣浩《纵横四海》, 邓紫棋《启示录》, Taylor Swift《Midnights (3am Edition)》, 华晨宇《希忘Hope》, 赵雷《署前街少年》, (G)I-DLE《I NEVER DIE》, h3R3《故事商铺·上》, 法老《退潮》, and KKECHO / REDBOI《MOVE IN SILENCE》.
Hop to it: what to play right now
Chinese New Year tends to come with a cutesy soundtrack. If you’re looking for something a bit more interesting, Do Hits’ compilations are always my go-tos at this time of year. The Howie Lee-led collective — known for blending alternative club beats with traditional Chinese instrumentation — put out two Year of records and they’re both interesting, fun listens that offer a much-needed update to the standard Spring Festival playlist (the Monkey one is fun to dip into any time of year really, given its Sun Wukong sampling).
And they still feel pretty fresh, five or so years on:
Speaking of Howie Lee, here’s his take on the classic ‘Spring Festival Overture’:
And here’s his rework of another New Year regular, ‘Dance of the Golden Snake’:
(He also dropped a new record on January 9th that’s well worth a listen.)
Update: As if there wasn’t enough Howie Lee in here already, he’s just released a new song for the Year of the Rabbit. It’s a gorgeous track, though so far only seems to be available on NetEase.
If you insist on something rabbit-themed, here’s a brilliant blast of a track from Boojii, a discontinued art rock group led by 33 (also a key part of Duck Fight Goose and a renowned electronic producer in her own right as 33EMYBW).
Here’s a quick playlist featuring some of the above.
Further reading: China Substacks to follow
If you happen to be on holiday for the New Year or have some downtime coming up, here are some highly recommended China-related Substacks for you to dive into:
document stories created and published by Chinese visual journalists, artists, and filmmakers. “China is a complicated, multifaceted society that deserves to be understood from diverse points of view,” they say. “By showing the country through the eyes of Chinese artists and journalists, we seek to offer a more nuanced look at the country.” is “not your average travel blogger” and provides a much-needed on-the-ground Chinese perspective on some key stories in the country, whether it’s a look at Dali’s status as China’s ‘digital nomad’ hub or explaining the symbolism and sentiment surrounding canned peaches in the midst of Beijing’s Covid surge. pledges to dive into “Chinese pop idols, their often angry fans and pompous reality shows”. The excellent first issue came out on Monday and there’s also a useful glossary of Mandarin fandom terms to explore.Speaking of the pop world, hopefully you’re already familiar with the fantastic
. You probably also already read the original Substack and the brilliant (for outstanding insight into Chinese politics and Chinese internet culture respectively).tracks consumer trends and more in China, often with a focus on younger generations, providing useful context beyond all the headlines about Chinese consumers. Here’s a recent one examining Year of the Rabbit campaigns.And
does what it says on the tin with regular biiig run-downs of China stories.This is just a brief snapshot really. For more, here are Semafor’s recommendations.
Exit music
Go on then: here’s a cheesy Chinese New Year track — old-school Britpop-rockers Super VC doing a version of ‘Happy New Year’. 新春快乐 all!
Just updated this to include yet another Spring Festival track from Howie Lee, this time a brand new Year of the Rabbit piece that he dropped shortly after this was published.
Haha thanks Jake! Appreciate you spreading the word. Means a lot.