Image source@VisualChina
Text | Wu Yun, author | Summer
2023 is destined to be an extraordinary year. Despite the dilemma, people's pursuit of beautiful music has never stopped, and the music industry is also looking for new opportunities.
’s long-awaited live performances have finally returned, and enthusiastic fans have taken over major music festivals and concerts; the chain reaction caused by
chatgpt has once again made everyone in the music industry panic;
mainstream singers have sunk into the saliva song market, although they have been criticized Lazy and slack, but it is not the improvement of the quality and efficiency of the song market...
has come to the annual year-end inventory again. How should we look back on 2023, and how will we start 2024? It all comes back to the question, is our music better?
aigc hits the music industry, the next Stefanie Sun may not be a real person?
If people’s fear of artificial intelligence was still theoretical in the past, then the emergence of chatgpt has brought this fear from theory to reality.
At the end of January 2023, chatgpt, which was only two months old, had more than 100 million monthly active users. It is different from the previous "artificial mental retardation". In addition to having natural conversations with humans, chatgpt can also excellently complete basic auxiliary tasks such as coding and writing papers. The dawn of AIGC has emerged. Individuals, companies, and institutions have launched various training and research around AI, trying to be the first to reap the dividends.
Everyone in the music industry is also eager to try it.
In May 2023, "ai Stefanie Sun" became popular on social media. The so-called "ai Stefanie" is to apply Stefanie's timbre to other songs. These fake "ai Stefanie" cover videos not only easily have over a million views, but the production cost of a single song is less than 100.
It’s no wonder that Stefanie Sun herself said, “What I want to say is, what do you have to argue with someone who releases a new album every few minutes? It’s just around the corner that humans can’t surpass it.”
In June 2023, NetEase Cloud Music and NetEase Cloud Music x studio, an AI singer music creation software jointly launched by Xiaobing Company; in July 2023, Tencent Multimedia Laboratory released for the first time the self-developed AI universal composition framework xmusic. Pop singers can still distinguish themselves by relying on live performances and AI, but scene music, which is almost entirely behind the scenes, has already become the focus of major companies.
The powerful learning and application capabilities demonstrated by artificial intelligence can’t help but make people feel worried. To what extent can we be replaced by AI? How long will it take to complete this replacement? chatgpt has its answer.
Online performances have taken a back seat, concerts and music festivals have recovered, and livehouses have slowed down
In 2023, online performances will return the stage c position to offline performances.
Online performances that can break through the limitations of time and space have their own advantages and influence. The great success of Taylor Swift's live movie proves this in disguise. But for most people, online performances are just a substitute for offline performances. After three years of online performances, offline performances will usher in retaliatory consumption in 2023.
iResearch's "2023 China Performance Ticketing Industry Research Report" (hereinafter referred to as the "Report") shows that the supply and demand of the national performance market is strong in the first three quarters of 2023, with box office revenue of 31.54 billion yuan, which has exceeded the box office revenue for the whole year of 2019. Among them, large-scale concerts and music festival projects contributed most of the revenue. How popular are
offline performances?
html On May 9th, Mayday Beijing concert went on sale, and nearly 300,000 tickets for the 6 concerts were sold out within 5 seconds. Because the tickets sold out too quickly, a large number of fans who failed to grab tickets suspected that the organizers had colluded with scalpers to secretly raise prices. The incident became a hot topic and was trending on Weibo for several days. Grabbing tickets and supporting fans, large-scale concerts by leading artists have a very obvious market-boosting effect on offline performances.The support stick priced at 140 yuan at the Mayday concert sold more than 7 million yuan in sales on the online platform. tfboys’ Ten Years’ Date concert directly boosted Xi’an’s tourism revenue of 416 million yuan.
Unfortunately, the revival of offline performances has not reached livehouse.
In July 2023, Jingdezhen Renaissance live house, which had been established for more than ten years, announced its closure; Whale Circus stated that it would stop live house tours indefinitely after the 2023 tour. First, large-scale concerts and music festivals have diverted away audiences, and second, operating costs such as equipment and store rentals have continued to increase.
This year, the life of some livehouses is not much better than the past three years.
Some people leave and some come in, livehouse is also like the changing trends in the music world.
The music variety show continues the nostalgic atmosphere, and old artists return and become popular again.
Nostalgia is still the traffic password of music variety shows in 2023.
After Cyndi Wang and Lee Seung-hyun made their debut with songs and programs based on their stage performance, major music variety shows continued to bet on a series of nostalgic IPs.
After the first season of "The Sound of Life" was broadcast in 2022, it set off a "Hong Kong style" music trend. Therefore, the second season of "Continuous Sound" chose Taiwan's classic music IP.
For a long time, medieval Taiwanese music has been the pop music enlightenment for mainland audiences. Teresa Teng, Luo Dayou, Li Zongsheng, Taiwanese pop music that has accompanied the growth of several generations has naturally continued the glory of the first season of "The Sound of Life".
"Lang Jie", which has been criticized for not being as good as every season, has also set its sights on the nostalgia market and invited Miyori Mei, the performer of "Pure Land".
The second dimension may have been just a niche culture ten years ago, but now it has become a mass game.
Fans whose two-dimensional genes were awakened by "Pure Land" acted quickly. Just like the otakus who awakened their girls' hearts by "Love You", they also put Miyori Mei in the leading position. "Lang Jie 4", which was not optimistic at the beginning, is quietly harvesting traffic on the side.
The successful experience of "Sister Lang" will naturally be reused in "Brother Pi". Competent, idol, mainstream, non-mainstream, 80's, 90's... any male singer who might bring a wave of memories was moved to the stage. It’s hard to say whether
is creative or not, but many viewers do like this.
The nostalgic music will eventually be used up. How to find new music while nostalgic is perhaps a more important issue for the industry.
Breaking through defenses in middle age, the inside story of "The Voice of China", Mayday's lip-synching
I never expected that a middle-aged person would still encounter the collapse of his idol's house.
In December 2023, a video questioning Mayday’s lip-syncing at her concert put Mayday at the forefront. Video analysis shows that the lip-synced song basically overlaps with the studio version of the track; there is a big gap between the real song and the studio version of the track. Although many fans began to waver due to the well-founded comparative analysis, most fans still believed that their idols did not lip-sync. The change in
's public opinion came from lead singer Ashin's response to the long article, "Every time I sing this high note of 10 beats of e6". Due to differences in anatomy, men's vocal range is usually an octave lower than women's. E6 is the vocal range of a soprano, and Vitas is better at this range among pop singers.
Although there is no official conclusion yet on whether Mayday is lip-syncing, a large number of netizens have already switched to the lip-syncing camp because of Ashin’s response. Subsequently, Mayday made up for “10 beats e6” and did not open the full mic at the Paris concert. failed to change the situation.
Another collapse came from "The Voice of China" (hereinafter referred to as "The Voice")
In August 2023, a recording of Coco Lee describing unfair treatment in "The Voice" was exposed, and the "Voice" program team immediately stated The recording was maliciously edited. However, the matter did not end there. More and more former "The Voice" students came forward to complain about what they had suffered on the show. The stock price of Star China, the copyright owner of the program, fell in response, and "The Voice" also announced that it would be suspended.
Compared with the heartbreak of young fans when their idols’ houses collapse, middle-aged people with more experience seem to be particularly able to cope with the collapse of their idols’ houses.
Whether it’s Mayday lip-syncing or “The Voice” overturning, the audience is on the side of justice, and no amount of emotional filters are useful in the face of right and wrong.
plays meme songs and becomes popular while playing. Douyin bids farewell to the old era of divine songs
Internet divine songs. Only when you can play can you become popular.
's previous TikTok songs only needed to be brainwashing and ear-catching. Users would follow the emotions set by the songs themselves. Nowadays, conventional song routines have made users tired. Adding a touch of entertainment material that is easy to spread on the basis of brainwashing is the rule for the 2023 Douyin Divine Comedy.
At least 70% of the popularity of "Love Like Fire" among netizens is meme. Na Yina's deeds of pretending to be a foreigner in her early years made this song cast a layer of controversy and laughter since its birth; the subsequent battle between Na Yina fans and Sanmengqiyuan fans "Gu Ailing and Yang Mi" even made this song more The song's release has added a lot of traffic and topicality.
netizens followed suit and spontaneously sang a cover of "Love Like Fire" and choreographed it, unknowingly pushing the song to the top of the list through entertainment.
Let’s talk about Daolang’s return after many years of “Luosha Haishi”. This song is based on a warning and prophecy story in “Strange Stories from a Chinese Studio”. The story depicts a world where ugliness is beautiful and beauty is ugly. Precisely because of the irony of the story, netizens speculated whether Daolang wrote this song to express his feelings about being underappreciated in the Chinese music scene. Thinking that in his early years, he was not welcomed by the mainstream music scene because of his status as an Internet singer, this speculation added a bit of disgrace. reliability.
The true intentions of the creator himself are no longer so important. Once the artwork is completed, it has nothing to do with him. The song leaves enough room for interpretation by the audience. The more enthusiastic everyone is in participating in the interpretation, the wider the spread of the song will be.
From "Love Like Fire" to "Rakshasa Sea", netizens' jokes have also advanced, from entertainment for entertainment's sake to education and entertainment. I wonder if this way of playing jokes will continue into 2024?
Veteran artists have returned with their strength, and market traffic has been reconfigured.
Nostalgia is the traffic code of the music market, and it is also a springboard for established and powerful artists to become popular.
"Brother Phi 3", which firmly grasps the nostalgia, has invited three members of the "re-employment boy group" Chen Chusheng, Wang Yuexin and Zhang Yuan, who are already well-known. Although not all the members have arrived, the popularity of the "re-employed boy band" has indeed been surrounding the entire stage. The youthful memories evoked by "Did Anyone Ever Tell You" contributed to Chen Chusheng's first wave of traffic on the stage.
’s traffic is fleeting, and it must be strong enough to maintain its popularity. As the national champion of "Happy Boys" in 2007, Chen Chusheng still has the foundation. He contributed many wonderful performances of "Countless", "Walking Fish" and "Will Enter the Wine" on the stage, and finally became the first double champion in the history of the program. Identity made a successful debut.
Xu Liang, who was on the same show as him, also ushered in a long-lost second spring. As one of the top three online singers, his "Bad Girl" and "Objective Is Not Okay" accompanied the post-90s generation throughout their youth. When the memory of "charming smile attracts attention" sounded, fans gave him a reward with leading love value. Although
was eliminated in the later stage, it was this exposure that allowed more fans to know the success of his behind-the-scenes career. The music production company established after Xu Liang's transformation contracted major Douyin songs and made a lot of money. It can be said that his own situation proves his sentence "Your youth has not embarrassed you."
Whether it is Chen Chusheng, Xu Liang, or the aforementioned Dao Lang, their rise to fame relies on their own outstanding stage performance. He has the same musical prowess as always, and the emotional filter is just a bonus. But it cannot be denied that without the blessing of "nostalgia is justice", their road to becoming popular would be more difficult than it is now.
Indie music affairs are entangled, Lexia "Finally" Season 3
Compared with the discussion of the first and second seasons, the popularity of "Lexia 3" has obviously decreased.
Rock is a relatively niche music genre, and there are not many full-time musicians. It takes a long time for a band to go from fledgling to independent. Seasons 1 and 2 of "Le Xia" have invited almost all the big names in the industry, and there is not much left in stock. Even though "Le Xia 3" invited great stars such as Second Hand Rose and Long Kuan Jiuduan to dominate the scene, it is difficult for the audience's raised emotional threshold to fluctuate too much.
However, under the background of the music variety show at the same time, "Le Xia 3" still achieved the good result of winning the first place. The emergence of 's "Le Xia" series has allowed a number of outstanding bands to move from food and clothing to prosperity. It has also inevitably caused divisions within the circle, and various Internet celebrity bands and fandoms have continued to have controversies.
Niche culture seems to be unable to escape the fate of being co-opted by the mainstream.
In July 2023, Shijiazhuang officials stated that they would build a rock city. Shijiazhuang has a deep connection with rock and roll. First, it coincides with the semantics of "rock home town". Second, heavyweight music publications such as "Popular Songs" (rock version) and "I Love Rock and Roll" were born here.
However, netizens did not buy the adapted song "The Unkillable Shijiazhuang People" after the official announcement of Rock City; during the Violent Champagne Band's performance at Shijiazhuang Brown Sugar Livehouse, musician Ding Xiaolong was administratively detained for taking off his pants in public at the livehouse performance. , the venue was also closed for rectification and fined 200,000 yuan.
It seems that it is not easy to control the rebellious rock music.
embraces the mainstream market, and rock music has received more attention and opportunities. In the process, it is bound to sacrifice a certain part of its original personality. In the long run, the more people get into rock music, the more possibilities rock music will have.
So, will Summer of the Band get a fourth season?
There are only echoes of the idol era, as elective singers turn to the path of actors
tfboys "Ten Years Appointment" concert is more like a collective youth farewell party.
tfboys has not disbanded, but the three of them have already taken different development paths. Yi Yang Qianxi transformed into a powerful actor with his superb acting skills in "You Are Young" and "The River Is Red"; Wang Junkai is working in various major film crews, waiting for a successful film and television work to complete the transformation from a singer to an actor; Wang Yuan Then he chose to study abroad at Berklee College of Music to continue his studies in music.
"This may be the last time tfboys get together," one fan said.
It is the emotional meaning given by fans that made this concert reach unprecedented popularity. There are a total of 30,000 tickets for tfboys' "Ten Years Date" concert, and the number of viewers who expressed their interest in watching on the ticket purchasing platform has exceeded 6 million; the tickets were sold out as soon as they went on sale, and there are even rumors that the seats in the first row have been sold out. 2 million yuan a piece.
The tfboys group website closed down after the "Ten Years Promise" concert, which seems to be announcing that the era of cultivating idols has passed.
The second-generation and third-generation tf groups created by Fengjun in the
era have no longer attracted the attention of tfboys. Creating a national idol requires not only experience and skills, but also timing, and the entire draft market has changed.
A draft ban has brought the domestic draft market to a standstill. In 2021, after Shen Xiaoting, the unsuccessful member of "Produce Camp", made her debut through the Korean talent show "Girls Planet 999", trainees who have not debuted in China have set their sights on overseas markets. In April 2023, four of Leroy's artists debuted through the Korean boy group talent show "Boys Planet", and Leroy's stock price also rose sharply.
The "three little ones" went their separate ways, and the agency moved to overseas talent shows. From the idol era, only echoes remained.
The talent show singers who came out of "Produce 101" and "Youth with You" also embarked on the path of actors. Yu Shuxin, who has "Canglan Jue" and "Cloud Feather" by her side, has become a popular traffic flower; Koi Yang Chaoyue has also participated in many works such as "Listen to the Phoenix" and "Jiang Ye 2"; Wu Xuanyi, Kong Xueer and Jin Jinhan also changed their career direction to become actors. Students An Qi and Yu Yan who continue on the music path are almost only active in their own fixed music circles; only Liu Yuxin is still in the public eye, but her popularity is far less than that of her classmates who are engaged in actors.
Compared with the super girls and fast boys in the golden age, Chuangyou Camp and Qingyou have long been the springboards for becoming actors and have little to do with music.
Standing at the beginning of 2024
2023, it is still a year in which the music industry continues to forge ahead, but there are still not many surprises.
new technology appears, and the old era comes to an end. There is progress and regrets, there are shouts and tears. If you want to use a song to describe 2023, what kind of song should it be?
