◎爱地人
In the Chinese music scene in 2023, which song is your favorite? Which concert have you seen that remains in your memory? What music incident have you had a heated argument with someone about?
Looking back at this extraordinary year at the end of the year, we experienced the sudden opening of the concert market, the spread of one divine song after another, and the unsolved case caused by "Rakshasa Sea City", as well as the " Mayday” concert and participated in the discussion. Although this year is not a big year for the music scene, unlike 1994 and 1999 in the history of the Chinese music scene - where newcomers emerged in large numbers and gods fought, it also left behind many wonderful moments, high-quality works, and the emergence of AI The group of singers. If we look at it from the perspective of the future, or 2023 is still the first year in a sense...
The album is no longer mainstream
but it still represents the upper class
We first focus on December 15th, because it represents Two female singers, Yuan Yawei and Xiaoxia (Huang Qishan), currently the top singers in the Chinese music scene, released their annual albums on this day. Coincidentally, on December 15th, many new and old singers such as "MC Hotdog", Lu Guanting, Guan Haode, etc. also released their own solo albums - no wonder some people jokingly call this day the album day of this year's Chinese music scene. In the next few days, singers such as Jam Hsiao, Deng Jianchao, Jude, Yu'er, Cao Yang, Jiang Yiqiao, etc. also launched their own albums in an environment where singles are king, making the music scene at the end of 2023 lively. .
It’s not surprising that so many singers choose to release albums at the end of the year. There are two main reasons: First, after entering the New Year, singers will gradually be busy with New Year’s Eve and other activities, and the record market will enter a hibernation period. , will not gradually recover until March - so singers will rush to bring their albums to the market as soon as possible at the end of the year. On the other hand, many singers are considering applying for Taiwan's "Golden Melody Awards". The registration principle for the "Golden Melody Awards" is for albums that were first released in Taiwan within the previous calendar year - so singers will adhere to the deadline at the end of the year and register before the deadline. Release your new album to qualify for next year's registration.
Although new albums have been released frequently at the end of the year, it is an indisputable fact that albums are no longer the mainstream of the Chinese music scene. Jacky Cheung's world-record-selling success with "Kiss Goodbye" can no longer be repeated.
If you open several major domestic music apps, you will find that singles are often mixed in the album category, so that it is impossible to find an entry that only displays albums. Especially the younger generation of fans are accustomed to the listening mode of digital music. The habit of listening to songs from the first to the last song has long been replaced by various big data recommendations, playlists and random modes.
Even so, the format of the album, at least in a professional field, still represents the summary of the singer’s music in the stage, and also represents the true music business card. Therefore, in addition to singers such as JJ Lin, Cyndi Wang and Huang Qishan who came from the golden age of the recording industry, making albums is the main line of their music careers. These contemporary popular artists will also release carefully produced full-length albums.
This also shows that in today's Chinese music scene, although albums are no longer the mainstream carrier of music, they still represent a kind of quality and style, represent the most complete and systematic musical expression of a singer, and are the most upscale music carrier in the music scene.
Another thing that needs to be pointed out is that the definition of album is also changing. For example, Eason Chan's "chin!up" contains a total of eight works. Twenty years ago, it could easily be regarded as a record between a mini album and an album. The album Xiao Jingteng released at the end of the year only had six works. Other albums by singers such as Ma Jiaqi and Chen Zhuoxuan also have between four and five songs - they were considered standard ep albums in the past, but now they are also called albums.This makes people wonder, how will the album format change in the future?
There are quite a few audio variety shows
But none of them are hits
There are still many audio variety shows in 2023, but none of them can reach the level of hits. Some programs that had high hopes before ended in disarray.
The main theme of the audio variety show in 2023 is still the continuation of IP. Programs such as "The Voice of China", "Summer of the Band", "Our Song", "Endless Sound" and "Time Concert" have all been successful in history, but they have not continued their glory in 2023. Among them, "The Voice of China 2023" also involved some negative news revealed by Coco Lee's family, causing the program to be suspended in the middle of the broadcast, and there has been no news of re-broadcasting since then. This is the first time in the history of domestic audio variety programs.
"Summer of the Band", which was suspended for a year, made a high-profile comeback this year. However, since the program model is not innovative and the participating bands lack the topicality of the previous ones, there is not much specialness in the entire season. Except for the song "Big Dream" that touched the hearts and lungs of countless ordinary people, the discussion of other stages only stayed among a small number of music fans who paid attention to this show.
As for programs such as "Time Concert" and "Our Song" that have gained recognition based on emotion in the past, because the selection of singers and the adaptation of works do not have much new ideas, the programs have entered a state of aesthetic fatigue. "The Endless Sound" first held "Treasure Island Season" in 2023, and then launched "Family Time" at the end of the year. However, due to the lack of themes and distinctive lineups for the 2022 "Hong Kong Philharmonic Season", the level of discussion so far is far less than before.
In addition, this year's "Stage 2023" promoted by Tencent Video and "Youth Project" produced by Mango TV are both programs focusing on young musicians and new forces in the future. However, not only did the two programs leave no impressive players or topics during the broadcast, even the annual champion who reached the end received no attention at all. Among them, "The Youth Project", which was broadcast simultaneously on two platforms, was even moved out of the weekend prime time slot by Hunan Satellite TV after it was broadcast for a period of time - which also shows that the ratings are far from reaching expectations.
Although the "Drama Good Songs" launched by Youku has a distinct theme, it still entered the conventional music variety program mode during the production process, resulting in a lack of balance between the two points of TV dramas and music, making the program become an ost version (acoustic music) of "I Am a Singer". So not long after it was broadcast, there was already a lack of discussion.
To sum up, the music variety shows in 2023 have reached the most bottleneck of the bottleneck period: the lack of innovative concepts and forms; the selection of guests is too narrow-singers often participate in several music variety shows at the same time a year; in addition In the past few years, the selection and arrangement of works have not been refreshing. All these factors have brought the current audio variety show to a turning point where it must change.
What's more important is that although there are so many music variety shows this year, there are none that can truly break out of the music industry.
The competition for divine songs is fierce
The regular army reduces dimensionality to attack
In the Chinese music scene in previous years, the field of divine songs seemed to be an existence parallel to the music industry: many singers did not come from professional music systems; many divine songs were also shoddy, and some were not only vulgar, but also vulgar. .
This year, although there are still the kind of divine songs that only live on short video platforms, behind more of the divine songs, there is a shadow of professionalism. It can also be said that the traffic brought by the short video Divine Comedy is so valuable that mainstream singers have begun to pay attention to this important channel. Since the beginning of the year, songs such as "Let the Heavy Rain Fall" by Wang Sulong and Joey Yung and "Wumeizi Sauce" by Li Ronghao have begun to spread on many short video platforms. They either appear as BMG (background music), or have been covered and adapted in various ways. For songs like "Umeko-chan", the spread of the work has been aggravated by discussions triggered by music critics.
These two most representative songs of the year are actually from the singer’s albums and collections. Their original intention was not just to be played on short video platforms. Even "Wumeizijiang" itself is not the title song of Li Ronghao's album. But precisely because the melody of the song is pleasant and suitable for mass communication, coupled with the catalysis of certain factors, these music industry-level works began to sink into the short video market. When professional musicians sink into this market intentionally or unintentionally, those vulgar short video divine songs in the past quickly handed over more market share.
In addition, singer Huang Qishan's "Toward the Cloud" released at the beginning of the year, and "It's Mom, I'm Daughter" she and young singer Xilinnayi Gao sang at the CCTV Spring Festival Gala are also the annual divine songs in 2023. These songs are also not specifically released for the short video market. "Mom, Daughter" itself is a mother-daughter, party-type song, but it became famous overnight because of its pleasant melody and touching lyrics. These also show that the ultimate characteristic of music communication is the high quality of the songs themselves.
Of course, in addition to the attributes of the music itself, the spread of short video divine songs also has a very important condition, that is, the help of Internet topics. For example, Daolang's "Rakshasa Sea City" was interpreted by some netizens some time after its release. This interpretation was also continuously relayed through the Internet, which triggered a huge discussion on the entire Internet, making this song originally difficult to be interpreted. Songs that are believed to have viral properties have become iconic hits in 2023.
In addition, an old song "Yi Siao Jiang Hu" from a few years ago also became popular in 2023. The reason is that the "Subject Three" dance used this song as background music. With the craze for imitating the "Subject Three" dance appearing across the Internet, this magical modern Chinese-style work has become a divine song that will be heard in the streets and alleys in the second half of 2023. Its influence has also spread to other countries and regions, so much so that when the Russian Royal Ballet came to China for its "Swan Lake" tour in December 2023, the actors all danced "Subject Three" when they returned for the curtain call. "Subject Three" is a representative of the counterattack of local culture in the music world in 2023, and the communication booster behind it is inseparable from the visual attributes of short videos-this is also one of the characteristics of divine music in this era.
In any case, it is a good thing that short videos are becoming more professional, which means that more professional companies are beginning to enter this field. Like "Possible", which also became popular on the Internet this year, its producer is "Galaxy Ark", which is well-known in the industry - good money will finally drive out bad money.
Concerts are held every week
The popularity is followed by cold water
The music performance market in 2023 can simply be described as magical.
On March 26, with Lao Lang's "Time Flow" concert held at the Cadillac Center, Beijing's first concert with a capacity of 10,000 people started after more than three years of stagnation. In the same week, Li Ronghao's Nanjing concert, Mao Buyi's Hangzhou concert, Zhang Jie's Guangzhou concert and other large-scale concerts also kicked off. The blowout period of concerts in 2023 has begun.
Soon, fans discovered the fact that happiness comes suddenly, but what comes with it is the trouble of happiness - every time when the tickets for the performance are pre-sold, they all happen to be sold out in seconds. This situation has quickly reached the point where there is no distinction between singers - no matter what singer they are, as long as they hold a concert in a venue with tens of thousands of people, it will be difficult to get tickets. This also quickly raised questions about the real-name system for concert tickets, how to deal with scalpers, and whether the procedures of the ticket sales platform are reasonable.
Since it has been in a state of stagnation for three full years, after the concert market restarts in 2023, not only fans will consume "revengely", but singers will also tour "revengefully". Singers and bands such as Wu Bai, Liu Ruoying, Liang Jingru, Zhang Xinzhe and "Mayday" not only perform across multiple cities, but also often perform multiple shows in one city, sometimes adding additional shows due to supply and demand. Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, as well as first- and second-tier cities such as Nanjing, Hangzhou, and Changsha, are no longer able to meet the requirements of the entire market.So Joker Xue toured the concert to Quzhou, Xinzhe Zhang went to Tangshan, Angela Chang went to the county-level city of Yiwu, and Jay Chou also went to Hohhot, Taiyuan and other cities - these cities were not originally considered by performance companies. This sinking phenomenon of concerts also shows how popular the concert market will be in 2023.
Due to the fierce competition, singers have also come up with unique tricks, especially at the guest level. For example, Li Yuchun’s second concert in Chengdu invited Wu Qingfeng; Li Ronghao’s guest at his Hangzhou concert was Eason Chan. The appearance of such top-notch singers as guests has virtually boosted the box office of the concert. What's more special is Wu Bai. Since he was often upstaged by fans during the performance, Wu Bai later simply stopped singing in the key sections and gave the opportunity to the chorus of all the fans in the audience. For a time, this also became his concert style.
However, after the Golden Week in October, due to excessive consumption in the previous half year, the performance market began to gradually cool down: some singers' concert tickets even appeared to be unsold, and Huang Zitao's concert tickets even attracted a lot of money due to the huge plunge. Much ridicule.
The performance market in 2023 finally turned in another direction because two music bloggers questioned that "Mayday" did not really sing at the concert. Although the market supervision department has intervened in the investigation, it has not yet been determined whether "Mayday" lip-synced. The resulting questions about whether back-up singing counts as lip-synching and whether "Mayday" has back-up singing have poured cold water on the previously booming performance market.
chatgpt is popular
Does the music industry need AI?
If you want to choose a keyword for 2023, then chatgpt must be one of the important options.
In 2023, with the technical improvement of chatgpt, AI began to enter the lives of ordinary people from the concept, and the music circle also quickly felt the invasion of AI. Since the middle of the year, many Stefanie Sun versions of songs such as "Hair Like Snow", "Dusk", "Tropical Snow Rainforest", "No Place to Conceal" and other songs have appeared on station B - not to mention that these songs were not sung by Stefanie Sun, and some of them were even songs she had never thought of. Songs that I can sing. In fact, the singer of these songs is only AI Stefanie who was trained and guided by AI technology after collecting Stefanie’s data. In addition to ai Stefanie Sun, there is also ai Huang Jiaju. It is precisely because of AI technology that Wong Ka Kui can also sing Eason Chan's "Bicycle" which was not released during his lifetime - this is quite a bit like Guan Gong fighting Qin Qiong.
Even musicians themselves are beginning to get involved in this field. On March 14, 2023, Chen Shanni released a new single "Teach Me How to Be Your Lover". The single was sung by her under the guidance of her AI model, rather than being recorded directly by herself. Yin Guang, the former "King of Temple Street Singers" in Hong Kong, also used AI technology to complete a song "Dear Myself", a duet sung by himself and AI. For a time, this song became the year-end hit in the Hong Kong music scene; because of this, he himself has the potential to become the king of Hong Kong music this year.
In addition, Tencent Music Entertainment Group also announced its cooperation with Wang Leehom's "Hongsheng Culture" in 2023, and jointly created the first officially authorized "all AI" singer in the Chinese music industry-ai Leehom. His cover of "letting go", from the single cover to the music video, was all produced by AI. Another important music platform, "NetEase Cloud Music", also has its AI Music Laboratory, which customized the AI sound for Taobao's official IP mascot, Tao Xiaobao, and completed the AI divine song "Zun Dujiu Jiang".
Although the future of AI music is still unclear, the unchangeable fact is that this will become a new battlefield.
(The author is a famous music critic)
Source: Beijing Youth Daily
