text | Linghu Boguang
I believe that many netizens should have seen the news about "Chengdu Disney" some time ago, which is probably like this. There is a domestic music variety show called "China's New Rap 2024". One of the contestants called Nomi to participate, but he failed to even pass the audition and was eliminated. The mentor who eliminated him was Chinese rap music veteran Xie Di.
Nomi was not convinced, and because they were rappers like that, he wrote a song called "Thank God". There is a lyric in it called: Emperor Xie, I want to diss you, Emperor Xie, I want to diss you.
Because the lyrics and the MV are quite evil together, it somehow became popular. Then the community where he filmed the MV was nicknamed "Chengdu Disney" by netizens. As a result, a lot of netizens went to the community where he filmed the MV to check in, disturbing the public. , making memes, internet carnivals, etc. Anyway, it is like most popular internet events.
Bo Guangjun also wrote an article analyzing this matter before, but mainly from the perspective of Chinese hip-hop music. But I never expected that this incident would have a follow-up, that is, I never expected that Nomi would become famous. She has more than 3 million fans on a certain platform. Her newly released songs became popular and she became one of the most popular hip-hop singers in China.
Even though this variety show has not aired yet, netizens said that the winner has been eliminated.
I saw this and listened to the songs he released, which are "Dead Trees Bloom" and "Apu's Missing" that netizens praised. These two songs are indeed good, but they are not so popular, but Combining previous events and current journalism, I suddenly understood something.
Nomi’s popularity is simply the most ironic, funny, magical and interesting phenomenon of this era. That is post-modern deconstruction, and the current world of Internet fun people, abbreviated as: Xiaoliang, give him the whole job.
Nomi became famous. Is this the darkest moment of Chinese hip-hop? Funny
In fact, from the perspective of our journalism and communication, the popularity of short videos and the emergence of algorithm push have made everyone pay more attention to the information cocoon of their own hobbies. When Cyndi Wang's "Love You" became popular, many comments said, "It was playing in the streets and alleys at that time."
The so-called "playing in the streets and alleys" exactly reflects that the media at that time was mass media, and most of the time we passively received information. Naturally, that includes songs. One advertising song such as her "Ringringring" is very famous precisely because we hear it repeatedly on TV.
This kind of media that forces the audience to accept is conducive to the construction of collective memory, which is the so-called Ye Qing Hui.
But today, when can we build collective memory? I think apart from movies and TV programs with a wide audience (such as the Spring Festival Gala), there are probably only hot lists on various video platforms. Considering the poor situation of the movie market in recent years (such as the popularity of "The Richest Man in Xihong City" before the epidemic), The Spring Festival Gala was of poor quality.
The latter seems to be the only way for collective memory to emerge, and considering the algorithm, it is obvious that only the most unpretentious, divine songs that directly stimulate the senses have the possibility of becoming popular.
It's not just "Thank God", we have seen that the so-called "Sister Riding the Wind and Waves" and "Brother Braving the Wind and Waves" are looking for various old singers to come back to the world. In fact, they are taking advantage of our collective memory, but they have become popular again and again like Cyndi. Finally, what are we left with?
may be able to give these singers some attention, making it easier for them to break out of the circle when they make new albums. But the times always belong to young people, even Cyndi Wang, the sweetheart leader, is already 40 years old. When the top Cai Xukun can only play tricks, the Chinese music scene may really be gone forever.
Let’s go back to Nomi’s popularity. This is a typical process of modern journalism, or short video learning, becoming popular.
At the beginning, Nomi's song "Thank God", the lyrics of the song, and the matching pictures are indeed a bit magical. In the era of algorithmic recommendations and the Internet, any person, thing, event, or emotion may become famous. It is very normal for Nomi's song to become popular.
After all, netizens are all fun-loving people nowadays. Everyone makes jokes for a while, and the excitement will pass. On the Internet, we cannot say that every day, every month, anyway, there are indeed Internet celebrities and hot spots that become famous for a while, and then quickly become popular. Well, isn't it like Zhang Yuanying twisted her hips before?
See Chinese hip-hop music from "Chengdu Disney"? It's normal for it to be popular, why is it going viral
If things only come to this point, singer Nomi and the song "Thank God" will only be one of the Internet memes that thousands of netizens on the Chinese Internet use to make meme, and then quickly become outdated. But here comes the question, why has the number of singer Nomi’s fans soared, and why she has been popular on the Internet for so long, and at the same time she has become a favorite among Chinese hip-hop singers.
In fact, the big reason is that Nomi is a hip-hop singer. In addition to the whole music, he also has two brushes. At the same time, his personality is very consistent with the current development of China, which is divorced from the countryside. Although he works very hard, he can’t get ahead, and the result is a bit boring. The kind of persona that makes people live a bad life.
In the final analysis, using works as the starting point, life experience as the foundation, and life as the guide has resonated with a group of people.
If you are interested, you can listen to his songs "Spring in the Dead Tree" and "Apu's Missing". The lyrics are okay and the music is average. It's okay but not as good as the fans. But the main thing is sincerity, which is very consistent with the superficial fun of people going crazy, but behind it is the guidance of the bitter people of Liangshan.
Music needs to impress people. It can be as dramatic, gorgeous, and swinging as David Bowie, with a mixed taste like a complex wine. Personally, I am also a fan of David Bowie. David Bowie is a A good song can match several good pop songs, or it can be made like Jay Chou with a bubbly cola flavor.
Compared with rock giants, Jay Chou's diversification is mainly reflected in albums, and occasionally in single songs. Compared with pop, some of Jay Chou's songs can be regarded as "composite pop", which realizes the innovation and reliability of musical concepts. The listening quality is not inferior to that of European and American popular bosses.
At the same time, it can also be a singer who acts sincerely and combines brainwashing melodies with touching lyrics, that's enough.
There are not many changes in the representative pop songs of each era. Only those who "go against" popular music styles can become pioneers and lead new trends. Creation has been simplified and popularized, and we have entered an era of national creation. In 2021, there were 1.145 million Chinese songs. It’s not that there are fewer high-quality songs, it’s just that there are too many crude songs.
Short videos are on the rise, and music has become an accessory to videos. As long as the chorus part of a song can be heard, or even just the chorus part, it has a chance to become popular. Compared with movies, television, and games, music is too simple. Just like painting has not seen new styles for a hundred years, music is almost exhausted. There are no new styles and not much room for improvement.
The peak era of music creation has passed. People romanticize an era, which means that that era is over. What is left may be that music becomes an art form, also known as music, and becomes an entertainment product that is always around the public.
View popular culture from "Nomi's popularity"? Postmodernity, deconstruction and the carnival of fun people
To put it bluntly, aesthetics is a product of the times, and aesthetics is a visual experience, both of which are plastic. What everyone cannot accept may be because it is not done well, or it may be that the aesthetic process has not yet reached its stage. Which one is better can only be left to the future public to evaluate.
Just like how we now evaluate Nomi’s popularity, many people think it is rubbish, but in the end, a group of people just like it after having fun. Can we compare it? There is no such thing as "my aesthetic is above yours" in aesthetics. It is an evolution, because people who lived in the era of 1800 saw the things of 1800. Their visual experience and aesthetics are the same as those who lived in the era of 1800. We will be different in 2023.
So what people like now is not "good" or "bad", but "what is right for the moment".
Why should art workers promote aesthetic advancement? Because their responsibility is to explore new aesthetic boundaries in advance to ensure that the people a hundred years from now have things they like to see, so these people must maintain an updated aesthetic level that is divorced from popular aesthetics. From this aspect, you can There is no doubt that their aesthetics are "high-end" for now, but will their aesthetics really become the direction of the future?
It’s hard to say, nine out of ten may fail, but people can’t stay where they are. Failed exploration is also part of future success.
Finally, we will extend this matter to Chinese music. In theory, consumer choice can feed back to the market, thereby influencing creators to roll up music. In fact, on the one hand, more than 90% of people in music have always been laymen, and on the other hand, pop music has some good-sounding routines, which has led to the common evaluation of music that if it sounds good, it is good.
Looking back at most people's memories of the golden age, the works in their memories are quite mixed.
Jay Chou is good, but I don’t know what’s so good about him. I know he is a genius and he writes songs with great care, but I can’t explain where his genius comes from and his unique creativity. In this way, if things go on like this, we will have a perfect model of bad money driving out good money. We don't know what's good about it. It sounds good but it is good. That is too easy.
Creators with a professional background are told: You only need to use what you learned when you started to fool them, and only in this way can you afford to eat. Whether it is popular or not is not because of high technical skills, whether it is interesting, or whether it is exquisite or not. Fire is a metaphysics, an algorithm, whether the two sentences are touching enough, whether the choreography is eye-catching enough, and whether it is effective. No fun or jokes.
There have been so many so-called Internet celebrity singers and Internet celebrity songs in recent years. Coupled with the development of technology, productivity has skyrocketed. But in this way, the prerequisite for having a negative impact on the market is to popularize music education? Improve your appreciation skills? How can there be such cost and realistic basis?
So netizens and audiences are not wrong, there is no need to tear each other down and there is no chain of contempt. As long as it sounds good to them, it's good, and I don't think there's anything wrong with that. Of course, this does not deviate from your point of view, and I support you up to this point. The sound of music itself is a kind of intuitive feeling. If you feel it is wrong before you learn something, what you think is good is actually not good. What you learn is good only after you learn something. I think this Very unreasonable.
Moreover, what people want to appreciate is not only music, but also art, literature, drama, movies, games, and all kinds of things. Do they need to be specially studied to be qualified to appreciate them? It's obviously impossible.
Just like Nomi, after becoming famous, can it really influence Chinese hip-hop music and Chinese music?
That Chinese music should have died long ago, because at that time, I was no longer a Nomi, and the whole world was full of music people!