Popular Music in Mainland China: 1950 to 1980
Although popular music continued to thrive in Taiwan and British-colonial Hong Kong for the next two decades, it gradually disappeared from the mainland after the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, when the new government was quick to associate it with low aesthetic tastes and decadent lifestyles. In fact, one of its first actions was to label the genre as "Yellow Music" (huangse yinyue)-the color yellow is associated with eroticism and sex in the country, since huang, the Mandarin word for "yellow", also means "erotic".
After 1950, pop songs in China were replaced by songs with revolutionary, anti-western imperialist messages and political propaganda glorifying the Communist Party. Nonetheless, Shanghai-style popular songs known as shidaiqu ("songs of the epoch") remained popular in Hong Kong and Taiwan during the 1950s and 60s, and later, in the 1970s, gave birth to Cantonese popular songs, later known as Cantopop.
Pop songs from Hong Kong (Xianggang in Mandarin) and Taiwan, collectively known as gangtai songs, along with Western and other Asian popular music, also made their way to the mainland after 1978 (Moskowitz 2010: 19-20). Many Chinese mainland listeners immediately took to the gangtai styles because they were sung in Chinese and because they liked the overall aesthetic approach, even if officials from the Ministry of Culture were horrified to find that people were attracted to the soft and breathy vocal style of singers like Deng Lijun (Theresa Teng) (1953-1995), which typified the delivery style of gangtai songs (Jones 1992:29; Baranovitch 2003:11-12). Supported by the fashion-conscious urban youth, circulated widely by private-run cassette shops and further disseminated by young singers who performed in private concerts in many cities and rural places, gangtai songs gained a strong following across the mainland despite its underground status. Deng was, in fact, the most celebrated international Chinese pop star of the 1970s and 1980s in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Her songs represent an important shift from music that served the Communist Party and the Revolution, to music as a vehicle to express personal emotions and sentiments (Lau, 2008).
Popular Music in Mainland China: 1980 to present
During the mid to late 1980s, after several years of gangtai and songs imitating overseas styles, new genres started to emerge in mainland China, mainly Chinese rock, Northwest Wind, public welfare songs, and prison songs. From a Western point of view, however, Chinese pop songs in the 1980s did not display great creativity in their harmonies, instrumental arrangements, performance, or production. Some local adaptation and innovation are nonetheless evident in the use of Chinese traditional elements and meaningful lyrics. A case in point is Cui Jian (b. 1961), regarded by many as the 'father of Chinese rock', who despite being criticized by a BBC reporter for showing no innovation in technique, is still regarded as pioneering by Chinese musicians and listeners. In an interview in 2006, Cui said: 'Because you cannot put borrowed things into the same soil that [originally] fertilized them, you have to consider in what kind of soil you could build your personality. It depends whether you can find a supporting point in your own environment to survive. You find that which belongs to you' (Cha Jianying 2006: 152-153). The fresh social experiments typified by Cui's music were, however, brutally stopped at the end of the 1980s after the Tian'anmen Square democratic movement of 1989, when the government once again increased control over music production (Jones 1994; Xia Yanzhou 2005, interview).
From the 1990s onward, pop song in China has gradually moved closer to the pop song genres in Anglo-American countries, although soft and sweet songs reminiscent of the early Chinese pop song style remain popular, as do some with strong Chinese traditional styles and dance songs influenced by the latest Korean pop hits. In the last few years, pop songs that combine strong dance rhythms and melodies have been particularly popular in urban settings, including a number referred to as shen qu, 'divine' songs (Stock 2016).
[1]In the current pop music landscape, ethnic minority musicians have also been much welcomed: the multiple languages these musicians command-their mother-tongue, Mandarin Chinese, and English-as well as various colorful music resources from their upbringing, enable them to create attractive and stimulating new fusions. Chinese rap has also gained in popularity recently, not least because of the huge following of the online music talent show 'The Rap of China', launched in summer 2017. Mainstream pop singers have recently started to incorporate rap elements into their pop songs for more sonic variety and overall 'hipness.' Yet, authorities remain cautious about direct references to sex, violence, or a 'negative' worldview, and recently acted to ban several rappers who, they thought, offered poor role models to the Chinese youth.
The long, straight legs of Wading birds, such as the Grey heron, provide great bones for flute making.
