I debated whether or not to post this, but most album releases seem to be heading towards a vicious battle at end of the summer rather than the beginning, and thus in this dearth, Li Yifeng will have to do. Li Yifeng is with EQ Records, not a large company but one with a great creative team that made Ma Tianyu famous, so the album should be good, and I’ve liked all the songs I’ve heard so far. In fact, I’m guessing that Hua Yi’s Cong Haonan, despite a much better voice, probably won’t have songs that are as good on his debut album, also released recently. The two companies should do a merger of some sort, and I’m already wondering why there is a big Hua Yi logo smack in the middle of this MV.
Kan Chuan
The Girl I Loved Before
hi there, your a good singer, and a cute guy
He’s good.
Go watch 090405 Ju feng xing dong Show,
he was a special guest on it with some other dancer guy.
He sang his song ‘kan chuan’.
I think his pretty good singing live (Y) i liked it better. <3
I think breaking the American market by singing in English is just a very bad idea. For one thing, Americans don’t want to listen to Asians try to sing in English. Their accent, however slight it may be, is going to be a problem. Personally, I’d much rather listen to good Chinese songs, even though English is my native language. My favorite artist is Jay Chou, who doesn’t sing in English at all, but I’m a white American. From what I’ve seen, the Korean industry is also trying too hard to appeal to Asian fetishism in it’s attempts to break the American market. It makes them seem trashy.
I know Chinese songs won’t appeal to very many Americans, but why do they need to? China is a big country with a large audience for it’s own music. If their artists are going to sing in English, what incentive is there for the Chinese to buy their albums instead of those of people who speak English as their native language? There are already lots of good singers who perform in English, but there aren’t as many good artists who perform in Mandarin because the industry hasn’t grown as much.
I also don’t see the incentive to listen to covers over the originals unless the covers are really good. With covers and foreign composers, there’s no one looking for songwriters who can make the industry evolve into something unique compared to other music industries. It took people like David Tao, Jay Chou, LeeHom Wang, and Ashin to make MandoPop into what it is. There are obviously people in Mainland China who can write songs, so let them write songs.
good music requires teamwork…good composer, good lyricist, good producer, good singer, etc. Without any of them, it’s fail. For example, Chen Chusheng’s “you mei you ren gao su ni.” Wonderful song, lyrics, and singer, but I strongly dislike the producer of that song because otherwise, it would’ve been perfect…I would listen to any of his lives over the recorded version with those strange metal sounds.
mainland has capable composers, capable lyricist, capable singers, etc. What they lack is an efficient system and environment for those people to get together and produce music. That’s the job of the music company, and unfortunately, mainland music companies are not very developed right now.
Btw i am not trying to be anti-chinese music, i support it too. I was just trying to express my views on the situation lol, I seem to have a different view to chinese music from most of the viewers hahaha.
@cfensi
singing in many languages is a good thing. BoA and DBSK singing in japanese only helps them to be more famous across the world. That is why so many korean artists are singing in english now days, trying to break the american market.
p.s I think DBSk and BoA are pretty famous in korea too. They also have korean version of their songs.
@idarklight
Ryowook amazing singer! I personally like kyukuhn’s or yesung’s voice most, because they are so powerful when they belt. Ryowook’s voice is more sharp, high and clear, a bit light michael jackson’s. Kyukuhn and yesung’s vocies are slightly lower with more bass, but both can sing very high as well as low.
I don’t think china lack good composers or singers. It occurs to me, there is a lack of really good sounding music at the mo. I still find myself listening to chinese music of the 1980-1999 period. Richie ren-心太软(one of my fav), 张信哲-爱如潮水, 新不了情，动力火车-陌生的夜， 林志炫-单身情歌， 周杰伦的老歌，王力宏-kiss goodbye
But that just might be because i am old……..born in the 80s….
At the moment the artist I admire most is Yoga lin, i love his version of 走钢索的人。
Cfensi,
agree with your comments, I would have written the same thing.
Shoups,
China isn’t lacking good songwriters (both Zhang Yadong and Cui Jian said this and I believe them). What Nei di need is the confidence to use their local composers and music producers in any genres, so they can test the market and get some feed backs from the fans (good and bad) and the anti-fans (sigh*).
This is how they would learn.
well, at least he(or his voice) deserved it more than Ma Tianyu, who admitted himself that he can’t sing…but on the other hand, I’m more drawn to Ma Tianyu. His simpleness is just too hard to not like.
I guess I thought you (cfensi) was mainly arguing that mainland composers are needed to perserve the Chinese-ness of the music instead of just singing other people’s songs. I’m more just of, why use old composers from far away when you can find new ones at home when they have the same quality but a huge price difference?
oh, and from a business perspective, using local, company affiliated composers both save money (because of contracts) and builds loyalty. A good example is Hunan TV and Dragon TV. Hunan TV signs with the talents it discovers, builds them, makes them popular and then use them to then promote itself. Dragon promotes unrelated talents, and after those talents are being promoted, they don’t really help Dragon much.
Actually that’s pretty much what I was trying to say.
In the specific case of EQ, I think Li Yifeng has already hit the jackpot. EQ has good composers, and has air of creativeness around the company. And I don’t understand why specifically Li Yifeng needs better composers. He doesn’t even deserve better composers than what he’s got. With other companies, like Hua Yi, they should find composers and build up a composing team.
shoups:
Imo, China has more singing talents than it can currently handle. What it needs is composers. Yes, buying foreign songs will solve that problem in the short run, but it is not the solution. I don’t think China lacks talented composers, they just need to be more known, more recognized, and able to make money. By diverting the money elsewhere, the mainland composers will only starve. This isn’t saying that outsourcing is bad, but that instead of using already famous composers, why not use new, hidden talents?
It’s the same with the films industry. It frustrates me that they would use the same old face over and over again. Yes, the already famous actor/actresses may be proven successes, but doing that will only stall the industry. Especially at the rate at which mainland entertainment is growing, it needs new blood. Discovering new talents is always better than using old ones. Plus, it saves money.
The problem with SJM’s cover is that minus Ryowook and Zhou Mi, there isn’t enough vocal to show except after intensive tweaking by the computer. Covers also pose the problem as above – why rob money from up and coming composers and lyricists to give 10x more to an already established composer when both have the same quality of music? I personally liked SJM’s newer songs in their album better. Like Ai Ni Ai Ni and Yi Shun Jian.
@swingsily
I’m not overly fond of Cong Haonan yet…his vocals seem like a weaker, albeit more soothing version of Zhang Jie’s voice.
Not going to remark on the first paragraph, because I don’t want to debate on the very convoluted history of Chinese decay during the Qing Dynabsty and Nationalist corruption. You stretched things very far from the subject of music.
I really, really don’t want to talk about Korean entertainment on this site when I already find it hard to find time to post on Chinese entertainment, but let me just say, that I think SM’s “success” was bought dearly at the expense of Korean music. Most of what BoA does is in Japanese, and now TVXQ is going the same route. Instead of spending time building up Korean music, they sang in a language their countrymen can’t understand, in a style that is more palatable to Japanese audiences and not their own. All for monetary gain.
I’d love for BOBO to be more recognized outside of China, but never at the expense of what they could contribute to Chinese music. Jay Chou released a compilation album of his music in Japan, and I’m sure it didn’t do as well as the songs SM has crafted just for the Japanese market, but I doubt Jay Chou cares. He likes spreading his Chinese music, not giving different markets more of what they have.
I think you misunderstood me completely. Why do chinese people send their children to study abroad? why do we import Sony electronics? why did china lack behind before the second world war? it is all because we refused to learn from others………they had guns, we fought with swords. Employing a japanese composer does not equal fire the old ones, they can learn from him………I think even collaborating with a very good composer is a way of learning.
There is nothing wrong with SM, they seem to be doing really well to be honest. DBSk, Super junior, Shinee and BoA all big names in asia. I think it is money well spent….they achieved success…
My point with SJM was that cover songs is a good way to compare singers and singing abilities…….nothing to do with improving chinese music industry.
@Swingsily – Thanks for the vid! I’ll edit it into the post.
@shoups
1) EQ has good Chinese composers already. Why the heck would they get rid of them to pay for Japanese ones?
2) To use a trite analogy: You’re not teaching the man to fish. You’re asking the man to pay huge sums of money for the fish. This is not learning from others. Korea’s SM buys from foreign composers that work outside Korea and don’t even know the names of the artist they’re working for. So basically spending lots of company money to pay for foreign composers on the slim chance they may help you somehow in polishing up your own composing skills is not a good trade off.
3) If I were to somehow be able to compare economics to music creativity, your logic is still flawed. Foreign investments pump money into China. In your scenario, China is using their money to pay for already finished products outside of China (the music). It’s a classic raw materials in exchanged for finished goods scenario, and China’s on the losing end.
4) Foreign investments in China have very negative affects as well. Because already established brands are in China, it’s hard for local brands to emerge and compete.
5) How does SJM showing off their vocals help Chinese music grow and expand? For that matter, how does SJM help the Chinese music industry, period?
I dont disagree with cfensi. i just think getting a japanese composer could help our own music industry as the japanese music industry has been around a little longer than the chinese modern music industry, learning from them could improve us too. Also employing a japanese composer could enble him to have some 徒弟who can help the music industry. This method seemed to work for chinese economics as we enabled other country to invest in china and now china is becoming more powerful, so i think the same idea can be used in music too. There is nothing wrong with learning from others.
I think cover songs are a good way to compare singers as well as seeing artists singing abilities. I thought super junior M’s cover of 至少还有你 was really well done, and showed their vocal range and singing abilities.
i can’t agree with Cfensi more.
EQ is pretty good and i hope HaiQuan can promote more and more mainland guys.
BOBO said that they would make the coming album C style.
CongHaonan’s songs r not bad,but i think he needs a better song if HY would like this guy to be the 2nd SunNan or even to outdo him.
I just said I like EQ’s songs, and their composers. They don’t need Japanese composers or cover songs. EQ already has some of the best Chinese composers in the biz, who don’t copy other country’s styles. Their own songs made Ma Tianyu famous even though Ma Tianyu’s vocals were even worse when he started out.
Your suggestion is everything I hope the Chinese industry doesn’t turn toward. Getting foreign composers/ doing cover songs. The best thing about idols in the Chinese industry, is that it builds a crop of composers since the composers will have people to compose for.
And I hate cover songs in general. Unless they’re like Faye Wong, whose voice is so ethereal she can improve on Dolores O’Ridian’s already awesome vocals, or sung because they’re paying tribute, it adds nothing to the world of music and is more or less a money-making tactic that saves the company cash and time.
挺帅的
歌也不错
唱的还可以。。。
why don’t they just employ some famous Japanese song writer to write a couple of songs to get his career started? or do few famous cover songs….
Really? I haven’t listened to it yet, but I plan to listening to them both around the same time.
Hua Yi music has been getting better with each release, which makes me very hopeful for BOBO’s upcoming album. I think by their third album Hua Yi should be pretty good all-around.
I thought Cong Haonan’s album was pretty good. I did think it was pretty ridiculous of them having him sing fast songs when that’s obviously not his type of songs…they should’ve saved those songs for BOBO. Especially 我不是偶像, except with different lyrics.
http://cache.soso.com/music/meks/album/347040254.html