Yes, this is an indie-filled day. This is another “indie” band I’ve wanted to post on for a long time and today there was finally a bit of news on them even though it wasn’t much. They will be in Beijing on 12-6 performing at People’s University for 800. Fusion, for those who haven’t heard of them are a four 1985-born guys who became the first mainlanders that Taiwanese music mogul Jonathan Lee signed in 2006. They’re more known outside China than in I feel in (you can buy their album at YesAsia, probably only because it was recced by their company), and they’ve not really been promoted very well at all. I’m not sure that this latest gig of theirs is going to do them any favors but at least they are active. Somewhat.
Their band’s leader singer Leakey and the blonde guy, Tao write almost all of their songs although one track in their debut album was written by A-yue Chang, which is the one I’m posting a video of since the other song with MV wasn’t one of their best, imo. At least you can get a sense of their style and Leakey’s unique vocals. A-yue Chang raps in the vid too.
@shoups
ohh. they are from fujian. i can hear fujian accent. that is why ive always wondered why they dont have typical beijinger accent. but then i thought maybe its just the way beijing rock sounds like. they are a cool band.
but i would put them second compared to BIZ. i also thought BIZ was from beijing, but then after hearing the last song of their album, they were doing a small rap in shanghainese. and sang about how they are shanghainese.
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=BIZ&in=4551&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=217&rn=1&di=2054061404&ln=2000
http://image.baidu.com/i?ct=503316480&z=0&tn=baiduimagedetail&word=BIZ&in=20791&cl=2&cm=1&sc=0&lm=-1&pn=229&rn=1&di=378380361&ln=2000
i support them! lol i think they are pretty original in china. China need bands like this.
I dont think they have fujian/taiwan/mi nan 话 accent…..in 123 their accent sounded beijing lol despite coming from shanghai.
‘my way’ reminds me of ‘yellow’ by coldplay!
Well, they do have a little blog in Simplified Chinese:
http://blog.sina.com.cn/fusionband
The fact that it’s Simplified kind of gives it away that they are from the Mainland, since Taiwanese prefer Traditional script.
There’s only a little bit of info in English, mostly in Merry’s “onedayinmay.net” blog and I posted streaming links to their album here:
http://chinesemusicblog.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=4789
As Merry’s pointed out on their blog, their name doesn’t Google well.
What kind of info do you want? I don’t really think there is that much info in English. It’s mostly from their baidu bar.
is their name fusion band?
cus i tried to look up info on them (in emglish) but the search results are all irrevelent
some help!!!
dublin.ohio@yahoo.com
Okay I completely take back what I said. I did a little bit better of a search and this is their real baidu:
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?z=0&ct=318767104&lm=11&sc=0&rn=50&tn=baiduKeywordSearch&rs3=0&rs4=0&word=fusion&pn=0
It looks pretty alive and kicking, with lots of people posting on their 12-6 concert.
Oh and for those wanting to know what songs to try, this was a poll on which song on their first album people liked best, but not a lot of people picked 123
http://tieba.baidu.com/f?kz=505520519
You can even download this MV in high quality:
http://www.rayfile.com/zh-cn/files/25c8155c-b6ea-11dd-bdbe-0014221b798a/
I still stand by what I said about the rest of the mainlands stars but hats off to Mr. Jonathan Lee. Hopefully they’ll make a big splash with their new album.
Really? I feel that sound…whatever you what to call it, is more prominent in Taiwan. I’d imagine with 50 years of isolation from the mainland it would sound different. It is sometimes very hard for me to distinguish that accent from other accents on the mainland though, but I’m not an expert.
there’s no such thing as a Taiwanese accent… it’s a pretty general Southern accent. In Chinese, it’s called “Hong Kong-Taiwan accent” But really, Hokkien=Fujian dialect…so wouldn’t it be a Fujian accent instead?
Well, the Japanese industry has been around for almost what? Forty years? Compare to China’s like maybe ten years (not including songs from the PLA) It’s obviously the most advanced. Also because its market is much bigger than both China and Korea, means that odd funky little music groups can in fact flourish because they can make a living based on even a small percentage of that population buying their music. Korea and China aren’t close to the maturity and diversity of the Japanese music scene yet. China however has a lot of room to improve since it can do a lot of things to make that market bigger, like being more strict on pirating and increasingly bringing more people out over poverty. It’s not like it’s stagnant…that is the general trend. Plus, the incentive for more foreigners to go to China makes it more likely that Chinese music will diversify. I wouldn’t worry about that. But these things take time.
Oh and yeah, that site is very good…I’ve linked to it before in a post, but it’s not updated a lot now so it’s not in my English-language sites section. Hiphop.cn is really good with introducing hiphop artists btw. Really like that song though…I love “Homie” too. Btw…do you know how to get songs off that site?
I think the accents for mainlanders vary a lot. Sometimes they sound very Taiwan-esque. Wu Jianfei for example, has that Taiwan accent, I feel.
These boys are all from Shanghai btw.
BTY, they are Mainland Chinese??? Their accents didnt sound like Mainland Chinese to me. It sounded more like Taiwan Mandarin
mmm, I rather like his voice. Its really unique. Im sort of getting sick of all the typical cookie cutter C-pop bands nowadays. Its rather hard to find alternative Chinese bands though. Could you recommend any good ones? I would love to see a Chinese Reggae or Funk band or even an alternative rock band similar to Asian Kungfu Generation. Japan has an awesome, deep, and flourishing alternative music scene ranging from Japanese jazz, reggae, to funk and more. China or Chinese speaking regions really need to improve on that. Really getting tired of typical C-pop now. Just found this really awesome Korean Reggae band if you want to check it out. heres a song of theres
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcza_B6nmSY
Also, found a blog on Chinese Hip Hop. Check it out here
http://www.dongting08.com/search?updated-max=2008-03-20T18%3A26%3A00%2B08%3A00&max-results=5
They had a song by MC Lot Z which was in Shanghainese which I thought was just awesome. Has a very fresh and light almost upbeat reggaeish tone to it and its Shanghainese! Tell me what you think
Yes, but I don’t know if being in other people’s concerts, awards, etc are the way to really go in China…I don’t see them making as much headway as other Chinese bands, like BIZ for example. They should be able to have a solid fanbase by now in China, which I don’t see. I don’t really see much of a fanbase in Taiwan either. The number of English-language speakers who know about them is probably much higher than those who know them in China, which is not exactly good considering most of their market is in China. For a group under Jonathan Lee, they’re really under the radar.
I keep seeing this with the mainlanders under Taiwanese companies, and people think it’s good for them, because they are actually known to English-speakers, etc, like Jade, so they seem more successful to us. However when you look at the bigger picture, they’re not as successful as their counterparts under the mainland companies, despite previously having the same amount of popularity. They’ve become less known in China, which probably needs to be where they concentrate on if they can’t actually make names for themselves in Taiwan, or sell that well there. It’s not so much the fault of the Taiwanese companies who manage it…there’s just not that communication going on or something. Jade Liu had great songs, including help in MVs from other artists in HIM, and yet she still didn’t do that well in Taiwan. I’m not quite sure what it is.
However, I do defer to your knowledge of them, which is probably greater than mine. I tend to look at things too much from an business vantage point, and for indie, that’s not really the way to look at things. I really hope their second album does gain them some progress. Thanks for the link btw and I love your site. It was an interesting read and I’ll need to go back there someday.
Goodness, I hardly think they’re a failing band yet! They’ve been doing Nokia concerts with sodagreen, ran down to Hong Kong to accept a Metro Radio award for best new band, and sang in the concert for Tanya Chua in Beijing this summer. They’ve been working on their second album all fall; I image we’ll see it in early 2009. The question is if they can build all this into a solid fan base; I hope to see them hitting the campus circuit after the new album comes out, really. But I continue to have great hopes for them. You can hear/read a radio interview with them (with dubbed English) here:
http://english.cri.cn/4026/2008/05/04/191@353538.htm
Well, Yesasia has some reviews as well as their CD in stock. I honestly don’t know where to turn people to for information about them. Their baidu is so empty.
As for recs, I like track 2 Summer Run and track 5 鸡肋 best in addition to 123 but I don’t know where you could listen bc they’re not at youtube.
I love this song, it’s pretty unique.
The leader singer’s voice is special as well, is there anyway to find out more about them? or is there any recommendations to any other good song’s of theirs?
I assumed they were from Taiwan too until I started browsing Baidu Bar’s mainland stars section one day and saw their name.
I pretty much assume anyone who gets sold on YesAsia is from Taiwan. I think YesAsia doesn’t really know what’s selling, just like a lot of shop owners…they stock what’s recommended by them from companies, and Taiwan’s companies are better at doing that. I feel like Chinese companies really don’t care about promoting outside China at all sometimes. Hua Yi and Chengtian and pretty big so their artists do get sold at YesAsia, but they’re always out of stock.
Now that there are a bit more of mainlanders signed with Taiwanese companies, it blurs a little bit.
I’m really starting to get depressed at seeing all the mainland artists fail under Taiwanese companies though…Fusion, Jade Liu, Wu Jianfei. I also feel like the new band A OK is going to fail.
Taiwanese companies are good at promotion just not in China and mainlanders under them are not popular in Taiwan either. It think it has something to do with them not being able to appear on variety shows in Taiwan because that’s how Anson and Ding Dang got known and actually were able to sell albums. Hopefully they can turn this around because Jade and Wu Jianfei used to be much more popular in China I think and it’s sad seeing them get less popular.
Just <3 them :)
Ah that’s my favorite Fusion song! Listen to it all the time but I’d never seen the video before, so thanks for that!
(Errr… until very recently, I had just assumed they were from Taiwan.)
Yep…I really was grasping at straws to post this. I mean, People’s University? Wtf? It’s not even Beijing University or Qing Hua University. Still, I’d give anything to go there now.
sdlkfjslkdf Fusion!!!!!!