| Editor of Akagi Bottle
| mia
The Chinese music scene in 2023 will be "fragmented".
On the one hand, the classics are making a comeback again in an unexpected way. 's "Lady Luxury", released 14 years ago, became a craze among contemporary young people for the first time, landing on the annual music list; "Easy with Beauty", released 23 years ago, led to alternative deconstructions on the Internet: "I don't have a k", "Dinosaur Resistance" Hot memes such as "Wolf" are all the rage in short videos.
The other side is the turbulent form of content creation and the disappointing market acceptance. html At the beginning of 2020, "Love Like Fire" took advantage of the linkage between the dance area, the game area, and the ghost and animal area, and collided with annual dramas such as "Hurry" and "The Three-Body Problem" in "cross-dimensional"; at the end of the year, "A Smile" became the popular online dance "subject three" "The BGM makes people worried whether it will "appear in the Spring Festival Gala".
What is separated is not only the listening aesthetic, but also the musician's creative aesthetic that extends to the creative end: Li Ronghao's "Wumeizi Sauce" is widely circulated, and its straightforward and simple lyrics have caused controversy among music critics. The traffic of works such as "Snow Distance" and "I Really Didn't Sleep" surged in 2023, and their creators were "verified" by netizens as the "New Four Kings" of the music industry. Of course, there are also albums with profound meanings such as Daolang's "A Few Folk Songs", which have aroused public entertainment interpretation. In the
performance market, the "small goals" promised by the industry in 2022 have been exceeded beyond expectations. The online payment rate of streaming media has grown steadily, and major platforms have paid more and more attention to the operation of streaming media communities. At the end of the year, the public's attention shifted from the ticket market to the quality of performances. The Mayday lip-synching incident set off a new era of nationwide "counterfeiting".
Looking at the entire Internet industry in 2023, it is surprising that ByteDance’s revenue is closing in on Tencent, and Pinduoduo’s market value has surpassed Alibaba. The drama of changing times will be particularly intense in the second half of 2023. As the music industry that is inseparable from the Internet industry, the gains and losses in 2023 are hidden in every ups and downs of the huge wave.
Aesthetic revival, young people's new craze
"Renaissance" in the Chinese music scene happens every year, and this year's important representative is claimed by Phoenix Legend . "Phoenix Legend" has been on the hot search in the cross-night period a few days ago, setting a new high in ratings for Hunan Satellite TV that night, and breaking into Troublemaker on the cross-night stage at Station B. In the latest list of the top 100 up masters in 2023 announced by station b, he was also shortlisted again. A video titled "I went crazy first to respect the Phoenix Legend Chifeng Music Festival" released in September this year received 5 million views on station B.
How did the Phoenix Legend, which has mastered ratings and reputation among young people, suddenly break into the hearts of young people and attract a large number of "Phoenix descendants" in the past two years?
Behind this is the change in public aesthetics. After has been suppressed for several years, people's pursuit of sports, outdoor and health care is unprecedented, especially among young people. Baduanjin, mountain climbing and fitness have become an unprecedented trend.
Therefore, in a market where the proton group of "Fengshen" takes sunshine, health, and abundant blood as the mainstream aesthetics, the Phoenix Legend, which sings about the grassland, praises nature, and compares its singing skills and good character to its idols, is in the minds of young people. Among them, the past label of "earthy taste" has quickly faded away, and the aesthetics of the parents' generation have revived and become the mainstream aesthetics. This change in aesthetic trends has also been written into the film and television variety market in 2023. The emergence of domestic physical variety shows has become an example of this aesthetic change.
"New Four Heavenly Kings", sinking aesthetics to dominate the era of "appreciation of ugliness"?
The "new four kings" of the Chinese music scene have become a hot topic in the first half of 2023. Among the new four kings of the music scene in 2023 selected by netizens, they include capper, Jiang Yunsheng, Hua Chenyu, and Xiaogui Wang Linkai. "Snow Distance" by
rapper capper, with its unique swallowing method, novel shape, straightforward lyrics, and catchy melody, has been used more than 537,000 times on Douyin so far.Another rapper, Jiang Yunsheng, with his song "I Really Didn't Sleep", used simple lyrics and amazing values to make the listener find it difficult not to wonder, "Although she gave me roses, I really didn't sleep last night." She, my dear, you have to believe me and buy you lipstick to make amends... She took a taxi and took me back to the hotel. When I entered the room, I told her to go back." The lyrics recitation video has been retweeted more than 322,000 times on Douyin.
If netizens including Capper and Jiang Yunsheng as the "New Four Kings" are an obvious joke, then the other two professional singers Hua Chenyu and Xiaogui Wang Linkai are quite "angry". The former is called the "god of the Huayu music scene" by fans because of complaints from the outside world; the latter's remarks about being out of the circle on the performance stage and the scene of "Thai pants are spicy" are repeatedly recalled by netizens.
Behind the phenomenon of the "New Four Kings" is the public's gradually increasing requirements for the quality and connotation of music content, and even the "harsh" aesthetic brought by fans' inherent impression of musicians. In the Internet era, netizens' The information sources and dimensions of musician judgment are further improving.
If several singers from various variety shows are somewhat ruthlessly mocked by netizens, then incidents in which regular soldiers intentionally or unintentionally enter the center of the topic will occur frequently in 2023. Since the beginning of the year, songs such as "Let the Heavy Rain Fall" by Wang Sulong and Joey Yung, "Wumeizi Sauce" by Li Ronghao, and "Toward the Clouds" by Huang Qishan have been circulated on the short video platform. As of press time, several hot songs have been circulating on the short video platform. The views on the Douyin platform were 1.8 billion, 4.93 billion, and 4.98 billion respectively. In a previous article,
Entertainment Unicorn analyzed "Wumeizi Sauce", which was released at the end of 2022 and suddenly became popular in February 2023. "Wumeizi Sauce" was successful from a market perspective. At that time, Jay Chou's work "Mojito" was played less than 2 billion times on Douyin. The number of views on Douyin's "Mojito" surged to 2.6 billion in 30 days. A large number of users of the short video platform are happy to use it as video BGM.
"Wumezijiang" is widely circulated, but its straightforward and simple lyrics have caused controversy among music critics. When a singer with certain musical attainments accidentally enters the track of divine music production, will it be a dimensionality-reducing traffic blow, or will it be an attempt that cannot be called a multi-party victory? Some music critics also gave sharp opinions. These pieces of music works that suddenly awaken the group to carnival are a kind of emotional consumption that follows the trend for "consumers", but it is a disaster for creators. Blindly catering to the sinking market will only cause the creative aesthetic to regress and stagnate, leading to homogenization and even rampant plagiarism. In the process of creating
, the creator has already made his own choices, and such choices will be more reflected in the hit list in the future.
Music variety shows are weak, streaming media returns to "purity"
The industry consensus in 2023 is: The overall performance of music variety shows is mediocre, and even some music variety shows are dismal. People seem to be allocating their energy to outdoor travel, concerts, and music festivals.
Except for the reappearance of Meiyi Reya, the original singer of the second-dimensional divine song "Pure Land", in the famous stage scene of "Riding the Wind", which gave domestic entertainment a bit of "second-dimensional shock", there are very few out-of-circle scenes in music variety. Variety shows such as "Our Song", "Eternal Sound" and "Time Concert" performed mediocrely. "Summer of the Band 3" is back again, but it's no longer as stunning as before. Halfway through the broadcast, "The Voice of China 2023" suddenly stopped broadcasting due to the nationwide crusade caused by the Coco Lee incident and did not resume broadcasting.
There are several young pan-music variety shows with a pioneering spirit, such as "Stage 2023" and "Youth π Project". The former even brought several sets of stunning stages, while the latter was moved out of prime time by Hunan Satellite TV after being broadcast for a period of time. The first music variety show "Drama Good Songs" with OST as the focus was innovative in its model, but it did not generate much buzz. The program quality of "The Everlasting Treasure Island Season" is stable, but it is not as distinctive as the Hong Kong Philharmonic Season and has a capable lineup, so the discussion so far is far less than before. The
online music comprehensive performance is mediocre, but the music streaming platform can be said to have further clarified its development direction in 2023. The paid membership of Tencent Music and NetEase Cloud Music has been growing steadily.For Tencent Music, revenue in the first three quarters of 2023 was 7.004 billion, 7.286 billion and 6.569 billion yuan respectively. Net interest rate remained at a high level of 17.78%, far exceeding the same period last year. NetEase Cloud Music's total revenue in the first three quarters of last year was 2 billion, 1.9 billion and 1.97 billion yuan respectively, which can be called stable. However, its gross profit in the third quarter increased by 60.8% year-on-year, which was the highest growth rate among NetEase's main businesses.
A more obvious phenomenon is the further differentiation of online music payment and social entertainment service business . In the past, the two were more two-wheel drive. In the past two years, social entertainment services have declined steadily. According to Tencent Music’s financial report, its social entertainment service revenue began to lose to the online music service sector in the second quarter of this year. NetEase Cloud Music’s social entertainment service revenue experienced negative growth for the first time. The reason is mainly due to the loss of users caused by other pan-entertainment service platforms. So this year, whether it is Tencent or NetEase Cloud, social entertainment services such as live broadcasts and karaoke are gradually withdrawing from the main camp. However, the number of paid users, which seemed difficult to grow in the past, has taken up the banner and achieved good results. In addition, ByteDance’s soda music is slightly dull in 2023, and Byte is focusing on promoting tiktok music to overseas markets.
can see that the destination of streaming media platforms is to return to "pure" functional products and community culture carrying platforms. As listeners' awareness of paying further rises, this trend will become more obvious.
performances revitalize cultural tourism, and "real singing" takes over the performance market for the year-end kpi
2023. It started with "it's hard to get a ticket" and ended with "the crusade against lip-synching". So far, there is no official conclusion on the Mayday lip-synching incident, but the public's attention to the performance market has shifted from ticketing to quality.
According to data from the China Performance Industry Association, there were 342,000 domestic performances in the first three quarters of this year, with a cumulative audience of 111 million and box office revenue of 31.54 billion yuan. As of the end of November last year, the number of commercial performances and box office nationwide had increased by 278.76% and 453.74% respectively year-on-year.
Compared with the rapid growth of box office, there are repeated negative incidents. During the National Day, the "Zhongyuan Midi Music Festival" repeatedly appeared on the hot search topic list. According to reports and feedback from music fans, many music fans' belongings in the camping area were "stolen", including "laptops in the suitcases." The Midi "zero-yuan purchase" incident was ridiculous, and the local government, which hosted the music festival for the first time, failed to catch this "vast wealth."
Behind it is reflected that large-scale music festival IP not only has many commercial values and emotional blessings such as youth appeal and utopia for music lovers, but also the uncontrollable side of hosting large-scale music performances has emerged due to the occurrence of various events and has also been conveyed to the outside world. This is the double-edged sword behind the strong binding between music festivals and local cultural tourism business cards.
And as the market concentrates on digesting the content of top concerts such as Jay Chou, JJ Lin, Wu Bai and others, the performance market will return to normality in terms of content and quality. This trend has actually already occurred in 2023: Huang Zitao's two concerts were combined into one, in-field tickets were reduced by 10 times, Zhang Yixing's tickets were sold at 30% off, Liu Yuxin was sold at nearly 10% off, etc.
After the lip-syncing incident was exposed, both good and bad organizers will be further eliminated by the market, whether it is a concert or a music festival. At the same time, the sudden carnival in the performance market is a temporary phenomenon that has been accumulated for a long time. The performance industry in 2024 will inevitably trend To rationalize and normalize.
ai "Stefanie Sun" and others are becoming popular, is it anxiety or novelty?
Finally, the music technology field in 2023 will usher in the most intense collision. From emergence to adaptation, from panic to co-creation, AI took less than a year. The issue of generative AI subverting content quality and infringing on genuine content has also passed the most intense discussion stage in 2023.
In China, all kinds of creative content are active on site b. ai Stefanie Sun and ai Jay Chou quickly became topics of conversation. Abroad, the first "divine song" "Heart on My Sleeve" composed by AI was boycotted and removed from the shelves by record companies and streaming media. The record companies took legal action against it, and streaming media platforms including Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal The AI works have been removed one after another.
The attitude of musicians is polarized . Some, like Universal, sneer at unauthorized copyright infringement, while other musicians voluntarily join this large-scale co-creation on the premise of a win-win situation. In October 2023, tme and Wang Leehom Studio jointly launched the first officially authorized "all-AI singer" AI Leehom, providing a possibility to resolve the copyright dispute brought by AI.
html In June, the Grammy organizers announced an update to the selection rules. Among the rules, "AI songs are eligible to participate in the Grammys" sparked a huge controversy. Then the Grammy chairman quickly added: Human beings must be the necessary creators of the songs.But the penetration of AI into the country is continuing. Tencent Music's music streaming media has launched new features such as ai lyrics posters, ai song covers and ai vinyl players. NetEase Cloud Music has also launched a private DJ function to provide users with song recommendation and intelligent explanation services. It also adds functions such as personalized recommendation, intelligent explanation, and song interpretation. Although
is still in its early stages of development, the arrival of the AI era has promoted the improvement of listening experience and the further deepening of community culture on online music platforms.
In 2023, the music industry will steadily improve in the tide of the times. In 2024, online will usher in a new upgrade, and the offline market will enter a stable period. We look forward to the industry producing more phenomena and content worth looking forward to.
