The beginning of the Deng era in China brought a ban on the Revolutionary Operas and an end to the appeal of martial revolutionary songs. New musical formats developed and provided a soundtrack to the rapid economic, social and political changes that were sweeping the country. Chinese popular music, strongly influenced by modern American music, has evolved into a variety of unique formats and has greatly impacted the cultural life of the entire country. Music, by nature, is a difficult medium to centralize and regulate. Although the Communist Party attempted to co-opt the subversive power of popular music, it was unable to prevent the development of marginal but eloquently appealing alternative styles. With the extension of economic reform after 1992, pressures of economics and marketability have inflicted censorship where even the long arm of the Chinese government could not reach.
Modern popular music in developing countries tends to incorporate both indigenous and Western elements. This combined imitation and adaptation of foreign styles has characterized Chinese popular music. These genres, while relying upon Western technology and instruments, such as synthesizers, guitars, and drums, have innovated upon Western music using pentatonic melody schemes and traditional instruments. While many of the resulting musical products seem haphazard hybrids, a few show greater creativity and artistic value than either of the original musical styles.
Popular music in most cultures is commonly derided as "vulgar" and catering to the lowest of mass tastes. In Communist China particularly, the music industry is extolled to raise the capacity of the common people to appreciate "high" culture rather than satiating them with the "low" culture they prefer. The relationship between artists, the consumers and the music industry is complex. The music industry must produce music that the public will be willing to listen to, and if they fail to do so, they will not draw a profit. On the other hand, the music that the public consumes inevitably reflects the values of the musical producers. The artist is forced to walk a thin line between what he or she wishes to create, what the consumers will buy, and what will not offend the industry. This calculation is complicated by the presence of an invasive government that either owns or closely regulates the music companies.
Amongst the politically complicating factors of music is its potential for interpretation and reinterpretation. Song lyrics, like poetry, tend to be unclear in their meaning and thus subject to being considered symbolic of things entirely removed from what the writer had originally intended. This fluidity of meaning, or recontextualization, enhances the use of music as an instrument of political opposition. For example, in 1986 lyricist Chen Zhe and composer Su Yue wrote a song called Xieran de fengcai ("The Blood Stained Spirit"). They claimed that it was intended as a commemoration of national suffering and a promotion of democracy. The Chinese state, however, decided that it was rather a patriotic ballad in praise of the PLA soldiers who fought in border clashes against Vietnam, and adopted it as an anthem for the PLA. Ironically, it was later used in Hong Kong to symbolize the sacrifices of the 1989 student demonstrators. (132)
Early forms of popular music developed in China as early as the late 1920's. Mainly centered around Shanghai, this music was associated the disreputable Shanghai night scene. It was later branded by the Communist Party as pornographic "yellow music" (huangse yinyue) based on its romantic content and its association with the heterodox Shanghai underground. "Yellow music" was stylistically similar to jazz, combining pentatonic Chinese folk melodies with Western instrumentation and harmony. Film, radio, and records distributed this music throughout China and Southeast Asia, although Shanghai residents comprised the bulk of its following. The leading figure in "yellow music" was a Shanghai composer named Li Jinhui, who was prominent between 1927 and 1936. In addition to writing movie soundtracks that he later adapted into popular records, Li established his performance group, the "Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe" (Mingyue Gewutuan). Li and his troupe also recorded hundreds of records for foreign record companies, such as EMI and RCA/Victor, and many of his songs such as "Sister, I Love You" (Meimei wo ai ni) and "Peach Blossom River" (Taohua jiang) became hits. (133)
The crises of the 1930's resulted in another, more politicized genre of popular music, which resembled "yellow music" in style but not substance. Many of the songwriters for the new genre traced their musical origins to the "Bright Moon Song and Dance Troupe." The plots of number of films produced between 1933 and 1937 confronted contemporary problems such as the threat of imperialism, the Japanese invasion, and the daily struggles of the working class. (134) A number of songs taken from these leftist films enjoyed relatively wide popularity. (135)
It was also during the 1920's and 1930's that the Communist Party first began to produce its own political music in the form of qunzhong yinyue ("mass songs"), or geming gequ ("revolutionary songs"). The Party labeled these songs "from the people" and based on traditional folk songs. Stylistically, however, they drew more from European martial music and resembled the energetic, mobilizing "mass songs" emerging during the same period throughout the world, including in Russia and in American labor unions. Geming gequ were characterized as,
...broad, diatonic, march-like, major-key melodies cast in simple strophic forms and designed to be sung in unison, accompanied with Western-style harmonies by whatever instruments might be available.(136)
The civil war and the War of Resistance against Japan undermined the development of the popular music, although each side produced and distributed music advocating their ideological position. By the time of the Communist victory in 1949, the production and distribution of popular music had been sufficiently fragmented by war as to facilitate its elimination by the Party. The policies stipulated by Mao Zedong at the Yenan Conference became the law of the land. Geming gequ became the dominant musical form. Some Western classical and Chinese traditional music was initially permitted, although those forms were also eventually denounced respectively as "bourgeois" and "feudal". Revolutionary Opera later joined the qunzhong yinyue as permissible for radio broadcast.
Following thirty years of being awakened daily by the martial strains of "The East is Red" being blared over the village or work unit loudspeaker, the people of China were prime for some musical variety. In the first few years following the launch of the Deng reforms, some American music trickled in, along with a slew of soft pop ballads from Taiwan and Hong Kong. However, modern musical equipment was widely unavailable in China, and production of popular music in modern styles was predominantly controlled by the government. This government sponsored tongsu yinyue (literally "popularized music") imitated the style of the imports from Taiwan and Hong Kong, and the tightly controlled content was limited to patriotic songs and the occasional love song.
A shift in pop and rock in China occurred in the mid 1980s, with the rise of Cui Jian, and soon thereafter a first wave of innovative new musicians exploded onto the Beijing scene. This yaogun yinyue, as rock music came to be called, was loud and rebellious in its lyrical content, its musical style and its subculture. It existed primarily underground, although yaogun songs became easily available through bootleg tapes and backdoor distribution. The crackdowns of 1987 and 1989 included a reaction against yaogun musicians, and even many of tongsu singers were targeted in the tightening upon the content of musical products. 1992 witnessed a resurgence in popular music. In addition to the increased level of governmental tolerance, the reforms have since 1992 permitted a number of independent foreign musical companies to freely produce Chinese music for distribution throughout China, so that the once marginalized yaogun music has become increasingly mainstream.
In contrast to mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan have for over forty years been exposed to the influx and influence of Western, and particularly American, popular music. In these consumption-based economies, culture was easily commodified. With their strong economic and political ties to Western powers, external influences in the popular cultures of Hong Kong and Taiwan reached levels unparalleled in the rest of Asia, with the possible exception of Japan. Until recently, the KMT government of Taiwan placed relatively strong censorship over cultural products through its Cultural Affairs Department and Government Information Office. (137) Nevertheless, the constant flow of American soldiers and businessmen through Taiwan resulted in a vibrant entertainment industry based upon pirated American records and books. The American Armed Forces Radio also broadcast popular American songs throughout Taiwan, and American films were similarly available.
Both Taiwan and Hong Kong thus developed popular musical styles with their origins in American music. Out of Hong Kong emerged a genre of music that favors sugary, soft harmonies over a beat, and that normally features attractive, young, and highly promoted "stars" who sing on the innocuous subjects of adolescent love and angst. This musical style, often referred to as "Canto-pop", gained popularity with Overseas Chinese throughout Southeast Asia, and strongly influenced indigenous musical development throughout Asia. Much of the music that has emerged from Taiwan resembles Canto-pop in style and substance. (138) Its musical format and style was detailed by Brace (1991),
The popular music from Taiwan and Hong Kong...typically has the following characteristics: smooth, flowing melodies, which usually have no direct or obvious relationship with traditional Chinese melodic construction; a type of vocal production which was described as the "middle way" (a term carrying a positive connotation) between Western full, ringing vocal style and Chinese folk song style; lyrics emphasizing feelings of love between young men and young women; a relatively height level of technical sophistication, from the standpoint of studio production; and an easy, dance beat background (provided by the instruments most commonly used in Western popular musics), which Americans might commonly associate with "light" disco-inspired dance music, or with the popular music style commonly known as "easy-listening." These singers normally do not write their own music or lyrics: the pieces are generally professionally written.(139)
In the late 1970s, Gangtai, as culture from Hong Kong and Taiwan is called in China, first began to be available in the mainland, and it received the same degree of enthusiastic popularity as it had throughout the rest of Asia. The earliest infiltration of Gangtai including smuggled and copied tapes of the popular Taiwanese singer Deng Lijun (also known as Teresa Teng). (140) "Xiao Deng", as she was known (in contrast to "Da Deng", or Deng Xiaoping), became quickly and almost universally popular, especially among youth.
The appeal of Gangtai music in mainland China partly stemmed from the universality of its appeal. Audiences throughout the world have related easily to watered-down, highly personal themes of love, family, and identity set to light, inoffensive music. China was no exception to this rule, and the appeal of Gangtai was facilitated shared cultural sensibilities and language. The novelty of the music style in Gangtai, with relaxed rhythms in contrast to the shrill or martial tunes used in Communist music, combined with its romantic lyrics to convey a sense of leisure and escapism that had long been absent from Chinese life.
After the repressive cultural policies of the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four, this music seemed a wondrous breath of fresh air. The people were tired of hearing the same things over and over again. They wanted something new and different, and [Gangtai] was new and different. (141)
Moreover, Gangtai music was devoid of heavy-handed ideological motives such socialism, modernization, and revolution that characterized mainland Chinese music. (142)
The state-controlled Chinese music industry initially viewed Gangtai music as a competitive threat, both commercially and ideologically, and the government actively sought to discourage the spread of Gangtai music's popularity. Although not explicitly banned, imported cassettes were not easily available, and Gangtai was not allowed on the radios. It nevertheless managed to proliferate through the exchange and copying of tapes by individuals who had acquired them from foreign and overseas Chinese tourists and from Chinese travelers returning home. As one Chinese explained to an American researcher,
Gangtai popular music was the first to enter the mainland. At first, it was spread "half-openly." It did not appear on radio programs, but people borrowed cassettes from friends or visitors, and copied them. I would go to my friend's house, and if I heard some music I liked, I would borrow that tape and copy it. I never listened to the radio. It only had folk songs. I only used the cassette part....Only later, when it was seen that money could be made, did the government get involved with [music]. (143)
Before long, the government realized the potential to tap into the appeal of Gangtai music for political and monetary profit. As early as 1979, state-sponsored musical products began to show the influence of Teresa Teng and other Gangtai musicians. (144) The mainland music industry continued to shift over the following years, mainly combining the stylistic patterns of Hong Kong and Taiwanese music with nationalist and Communist lyrics. The influence of Gangtai music became so great that many Chinese have issued complaints about being "musically colonized". (145) Jia Ding, one of the most prominent songwriters employed by the state music industry, described the influence of Gangtai music in his own work and life, and similar sentiments have been expressed by most other tongsu songwriters.
The first time I heard Deng Lijun's songs was in 1978. I just stood there listening for a whole afternoon. I never knew before that the world had such good music. I felt such pain. I cried. I was really very excited and touched, and suddenly realized that my work in the past had no emotional force. (146)
By 1984, Chinese popular music had evolved into tongsu, which was highly commodified and relied upon primarily upon the mass media for its distribution. This in part resulted from economic reforms which dictated that state-owned enterprises, including music production companies, could no longer rely upon government subsidies and needed to generate profit. Thus, the Chinese musical interests had to conform somewhat to popular tastes, which entailed following the Gangtai model of musical style, although still mostly maintaining an orthodox Communist slant in the lyrical content.
Tongsu music cannot be separated from its political and ideological content. Songwriter Li Lifu observed,
In China, songwriting can't be without some kind of objective. For tongsu songwriters...the first, and most prevalent, comes from the government: using pop songs as tools of political propaganda. For example, there's a anti-bourgeois liberalization campaign, so everybody writes anti-bourgeois liberalization songs, or now there's certain political changes, so everybody does that, or at one time officials are saying that too many people are saying Chinese are bad, so "Why don't you write that Chinese are good!" (147)
Tongsu is unequivocally dominated by the government. Not only are "sexual songs, nihilistic songs, morbid songs, violent songs" and any songs that may hint at political dissent strictly forbidden; government officials encourage songwriters to address "healthy" topics such as patriotism, stability, normalcy and praises of the CCP. (148) Many songs were specially commissioned by government agencies to promote particular campaigns or events, and the remainder were expected to conform to, reflect and promote social and political orthodoxy. Some freedom was permitted, and a few very tame love songs were occasionally produced. However, these proved to be targets of criticism during the campaigns against spiritual pollution and bourgeois liberalism in 1983, 1987, and 1989. Writers and singers were motivated to avoid any hint of sensuality in their work.
For example, the tongsu song, The Valiant Spirit of Asia (Yazhou xiongfeng) was commissioned to promote the Asian Games of 1990 in Beijing. (149) The amount of money used by the government to prepare for and promote the games met with public disapproval, and the song sought to justify the expenditure and rally popular enthusiasm. The song reportedly was not very well liked, but government-controlled airtime mandated that literally every resident of urban China heard the song repeatedly, which is the case with any government supported song. The Valiant Spirit of Asia was composed by Xu Peidong and its lyrics were written by Zhang Li, both of whom were leading tongsu writers at the time, and it was performed as a duet by popular singers Liu Huan and Wei Wei. Its lyrics, as translated below, transmitted a thinly veiled promotion of the ideals of nationalism and regionalism, as well as a sense of Asian unity and cooperation represented by the games.
Our Asia, the mountains are its exalted head
Our Asia, the rivers flow like warm blood
Our Asia, the trees are like a full head of hair
Our Asia, even the clouds shake each other's hands
The wilderness is tied to the green-belt,
The fields weave a swath of patterned silk
As the wind of Asia springs up for the first time
The valiant spirit of Asia shakes the sky
Our Asia, the rivers and mountains are so lovely
Our Asia, its products are also abundant
Our Asia, its people are the most hardworking
Our Asia, its athletes are even more admirable
We will entertain guests from the four seas
We will make friends on five continents (150)
Another, more blatant example of ideology in tongsu music is found in The Great Undertaking (Chuangye), which was produced as part of the "revolutionary disco" or "red beats" style that became popular in the mid to late 1980s. Many of these remixed old revolutionary songs such as "The East is Red" and Revolutionary Opera to disco beats. Others composed completely new songs, but with the older motifs of sacrificing self for the country and revering the party and Chairman Mao.
We want to make that plain like a spring, gushing oil Bravely working, no fear of shedding blood and sweat In our hearts thinking of Chairman Mao When the work is bitter and tiring, it's all the sweeter Our happiness is fighting evil winds at the world's edge Boring into the earth with that big drill With our own hands we'll break through the rock Chairman Mao leads us forward The revolutionary future is so bright (151)
The control of content and style in tongsu is facilitated through a segmented highly hierarchical structure of production, each stage of which is managed by state-owned and state-operated production units. Composers and lyricists produce songs produce songs on a contractual basis for television stations, film studios, and audio-visual publishing companies (yinxiang chubanshe). The companies then select, edit and sometimes censure the compositions; they then hire professional singers through state-run song and dance troupes (gewutuan). The companies also hire supervisors, arrangers, and recording engineers, rent out state-owned recording studios and record and produce the music. (152)
The process thus takes all artistic and ideological control away from the performers. Songwriters possess some control, although limited due to the necessary self-censorship. The songwriters consisted of a relatively small group, in 1990 there were about twenty of any renown. Mainly in their thirties and forties, from the "lost generation" of the Cultural Revolution, and mostly male, the songwriters all received formal music training. All referred to the influence of Gangtai music in prompting them to first start writing pop songs. Many had started writing in the modern style the early 1980s, when government still viewed popular music as a threat rather than a tool. After the mid-1980s, the government began to embrace popular music and produce tongsu; songwriters have since mainly worked as employees of state-owned production units such as CCTV and various song and dance troupes, although some work independently.
Despite the persistence of official oversight, songwriters play a central role in the selection, recording and broadcasting along with the writing of songs. They moreover exercise some autonomy in composition. Although most songs are written as propaganda, songwriters also write for personal expression or to encourage certain artistic trends, as with the "Northwest Wing" music and the "jail songs" trends. (153) Most songwriters apparently disliked writing propaganda songs, but did so nevertheless out of motives of economics and career advancement. One songwriter explained,
If my songs don't make money, I starve. I won't have new cloths, won't be able to get a haircut. So, I do two kinds of work. It is not all alike! I won't sign my name to songs I write just to make money, but that's what I do if I run out of bread and butter, don't have any beer, any Marlboros…(154)
In 1984, CCTV first launched the shows, "National Youth Singers Television Competition" (Quanguo qingnian geshou dianshi dajiangsai) and "New Year's Party" (Yuandan wanhui), both of which featured the performance of tongsu singers. (155) These shows ushered in the era of televised singing contests, which have provided the main format for the dissemination of tongsu music. The contests mentioned above constitute two of the largest and most popular singing contests; other televised shows include the "Spring Festival Celebration" (Chunjie wanhui), and the "National tongsu Song Contest" (Quanguo tongsu gequ), and "A Hundred Pop Stars" (Baiming Gexing) is an annual concert which is televised live. (156) A handful of large contests are held annually and broadcast throughout the country. There are also countless smaller singing contests, both as featured television shows and as parts of general variety shows.
The structure of the singing illustrates the lack of artistic autonomy permitted to individual tongsu singers. Singers do not compose their own songs, and content is strictly limited. Musical styles or lyrical contents that deviate from the established norm are rarely, if ever, allowed on the shows. Singers perform individually, and anonymous background performers are arranged by the music or television companies. Even the hairstyles and clothing of the performers are selected by television officials, and performers are also coached on what movements and hand gestures are appropriate. During the competition, a number of singers perform, and at the end prizes are awarded according to adherence to the standards of content, style, singing, and performance gestures.
Public enthusiasm for televised singing contests has proven tremendous. The size and scope of the viewing audiences, particularly for the more famous, nationally broadcast contests, are impressive. For example, the National Young Singers Contest broadcast on CCTV between April and June 1986, was estimated to attract an audience of 700 million people, or 68.4 percent of the population. One viewer wrote to inform the station that, of a survey he conducted of 100 neighborhood families, "89 watched the Western singing final, 96 the national final and 99 the pop final." (157)
