Crowd Lu released his album Seven Days yesterday. There’s a lot of things frustrating me with C-entertainment, particularly Cpop lately, which ranges from the way the market is being taken advantaged of, to the way Chinese people abroad seem to look down on their own culture, dissing it for not being trendy enough, and then saying it’s copying others if it does dare to diversify. Why does such a big country with so many languages, so many minorities, so many different centers of entertainment from Changsha to Shanghai, not to mention very different entertainment influences from Hong Kong and Taiwan need to pigeonhole itself in style?
But there are constants that never fail to make me smile, and Crowd is one of them. So today, in a cathartic measure, I’m posting everything that does make me smile in C-entertainment.
Crow Lu – Oh Yeah!!! MV
This video was so nerdy and geeky that it was cool. And the song was pretty hip and stylish in a retro way.
Benji: Whatever. Japan and Korea can have idol groups, but China will do things its own way and one day will lead the world in its own unique way of music-making. I came to Cfensi today, and while I’m usually critical of Mainland produced stuff, I was actually somewhat impressed with the music I’ve been hearing. I like how Cpop has its own unique flavour and I love how they incorporate traditional Chinese instruments. That’s innovative and something I haven’t heard in other Asian music.
*Sigh* Trying to make C-entertainment happier for myself is soooo hard.
@Benji
I think Taiwan has had a pretty good balance between serious singers and personality singers. They managed to keep alive people from Jay Chou to Jolin Tsai to Fahrenheit.
Mainland, on the other hand, was only to maintain artists who could do it all themselves – singer-writers because of lack of publicity and production in terms of idol artists.
I really hope that those singer-writers could thrive in spite of all the changes of c-entertainment. Hint, Long Danni.
Yeah…I don’t think I’m especially fond of the “Crowd” name, either. =_=
Though…the guy on the left of the doorway at the start of the video looks like a younger version of my cousin, strangely… ><
Hm…but Chinese music is only seen as not being sufficiently "trendy" because, well, it's not really an idol-based industry. I suppose it's not really 'meant' to be trendy. The majority of musical acts are singer-songwriter solo artists rather than boy bands or girl groups. This is most evidently the case with Taiwan especially, which is arguably the centre of the Chinese music industry. Chinese music focuses more on the musicianship of an artist, whereas the Japanese and Korean music scene is very much lead by the personalities themselves, talented or not.
On a favourable note, I guess you could say that the Chinese music scene is less shallow or superficial than the others, but even then, there's no denying that in terms of music production, artist development and marketing, South Korea and Japan are significantly further ahead than China, Taiwan or Hong Kong.
…and now to stalk my cousin's facebook for old photos…
CROWD? What another dumb English name. Some Chinese can be as crazy as odl American hippies when it comes to picking weird names.
He is awesome. I listened to him a lot this week when C-entertainment was pissing me off, and it pissed me off a lot. I wish I could see him better in the album cover though. His first one could make me smile just looking at it. It was just so…him. Oh well, that’s what this MV is for. *plays it again*
Oh Yeah! Crowd Lu is awesome. I like the song alot