The sounds of modernity in Chinese pop music

Abstract

In 1940 the Chinese hit "Rose, Rose, I Love You" was released by Pathe Records in Shanghai and subsequently remade into numerous cover songs outside China. That a locally produced song could catapult onto the world stage was as much an endorsement of the music as it was a result of western orientalism. By all musical standards, this song was western style; the song’s only reference to China being the title “China Rose” or its phonetic equivalent “May Kway.” Its international popularity reinforced western perceptions that Chinese pop music is derivative of Western norms, a notion that still persists. This paper calls those assumptions into question by exploring musical developments in the post-Mao era. In contrast to music of the earlier Shanghai era, the rock band Ershou meigui [Second-Hand Rose] localizes elements of Western rock music. Formed in the early 2000s, Ershou meigui has been praised for its unique brand of “national” (minzu) rock style in which the band privileges Chinese regional musical elements. This paper explores issues of modernity, individuality, agency, creativity, cosmopolitanism, and performativity against the backdrop of China’s emergence as a modern nation and global force. What is the nature of Chinese modernity and musical creativity? How does this new hybridized form become a resource that enables musicians to construct, shape, and imagine meanings for post-socialist China? How do musicians reposition themselves in the age of Chinese consumption and cosmopolitanism? Most importantly, I investigate how pop musicians mediate the dynamic relationship between fast-changing China and the world around them.