Great piece, would love to see more of these collab convos. Just subbed Active Faults.
Though I haven’t watched much yet, nice to hear The Big Band seemed to allow for a bit more cultural expression than The Rap of China, which I gave up on after one episode because it felt too 和谐 & sanitized. Was Rap for Youth any better?
As one who frequented the shows of 二手玫瑰, RE-TROS, Hedgehog & Helen Feng’s various projects during the 00’s at smaller venues, it’s awesome & pleasantly disorienting to see them featured on The Big Band.
Great conversation, happy to see so many of the 'indie' rock names hitting bigger stages now (with all the reservations you mention, of course) !
What is so great about 五条人 is that on their older albums, they mostly sing in a dialect related to 潮汕话, which in a sense is even more obscure to mainstream listeners in China than Cantonese, but it was/is a part of their DNA, really reflecting people's lives far away from bigger, Mandarin-only spaces. They've been one of my favorite bands of the past couple of years, although I think the stuff they have put out after their success on this show has not been as appealing.
1. Is 正能量 seriously an official government stance? As someone in the U.S. who can only see what bits of Chinese content I can find and understand, I legitimately thought that was just a massive meme lol.
2. Is 瓦学 an actual thing too? I looked it up but didn’t really see anything. But yeah to me the whole 土味 stuff never sat right with me because some of it felt inauthentic or an avenue for rich ppl in first tier cities to cosplay or vicariously live a working class or seemingly poorer lifestyle. Maybe that’s not exactly right, but I’m fairly confident that some of that stuff would be subject to some serious scrutiny by The Discourse if it were exposed to western media forums like Twitter or something.
Great piece, would love to see more of these collab convos. Just subbed Active Faults.
Though I haven’t watched much yet, nice to hear The Big Band seemed to allow for a bit more cultural expression than The Rap of China, which I gave up on after one episode because it felt too 和谐 & sanitized. Was Rap for Youth any better?
As one who frequented the shows of 二手玫瑰, RE-TROS, Hedgehog & Helen Feng’s various projects during the 00’s at smaller venues, it’s awesome & pleasantly disorienting to see them featured on The Big Band.
loved this--I'd be open to reposting on chinatalk if you guys would let me!
Well done you two. Super interesting tête-à-tête.
Great conversation, happy to see so many of the 'indie' rock names hitting bigger stages now (with all the reservations you mention, of course) !
What is so great about 五条人 is that on their older albums, they mostly sing in a dialect related to 潮汕话, which in a sense is even more obscure to mainstream listeners in China than Cantonese, but it was/is a part of their DNA, really reflecting people's lives far away from bigger, Mandarin-only spaces. They've been one of my favorite bands of the past couple of years, although I think the stuff they have put out after their success on this show has not been as appealing.
this was awesome!
1. Is 正能量 seriously an official government stance? As someone in the U.S. who can only see what bits of Chinese content I can find and understand, I legitimately thought that was just a massive meme lol.
2. Is 瓦学 an actual thing too? I looked it up but didn’t really see anything. But yeah to me the whole 土味 stuff never sat right with me because some of it felt inauthentic or an avenue for rich ppl in first tier cities to cosplay or vicariously live a working class or seemingly poorer lifestyle. Maybe that’s not exactly right, but I’m fairly confident that some of that stuff would be subject to some serious scrutiny by The Discourse if it were exposed to western media forums like Twitter or something.