Exploring The Unpopularity and Evolution of C-pop Music

Pop music is always a part of the culture of a place. Beyond and Leslie Cheung represent the 80s and 90s pop culture. But nowadays, most young generation listens to Korean pop music and western music more than the local Chinese pop music (C-pop). But what is Chinese pop music? 

Chinese pop music (C-pop) are from countries where have a large number of populations using Chinese language, mainly China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, and Malaysia are also one of the countries on the list, but because of the multicultural characteristic, C-pop has a limited market in these countries, some singers who are Singaporean or Malaysian would move to China, Hong Kong or Taiwan to find better opportunities. C-pop included mandopop and Tai-pop. The Cantopop was very popular in the 1980s and 1990s, but after this period of time, in the 21st century, Taiwanese singers like Jay Chou, and singer from mainland started to gain more fame. And since 2007, the Korean girl group Girls Generation made their debut, the K-pop started to be popular worldwide. Using the famous Korea boy band ‘BTS’ as an example, they made their debut in 2013, but they already have 17 MV (music video) have more than one hundred thousand hit rate. But only three C-pop singers have more than one music video get over a hundred thousand hit rate on youtube. This essay will mainly focus on Cantopop and Mandopop because one of them is the start of C-pop and the other one is taking the lead now in C-pop, because of the low usage of Taiwanese Hokkien, the Tai-pop are less popular than the other two pop, mainly listen by Taiwanese only. This essay the reason why C-pop becoming less popular in the past decade.

The first part of the essay will talk about the history of C-pop because before analyzing the reason why C-pop becomes less popular, we need to know why C-pop was popular in the 20th century, it can give a better understanding of the background of the problem. And researching the change of C-pop music industry can let us understand how the change of world introduce C-pop to the world also other competitors to the Chinese. The method of people listen to music also affect the industry because the companies earn profit by selling music, so the method people listen to music affect the way the company sells and promote their music.

Firstly, this essay will introduce the history of C-pop. Most audiences of Cantopop are Hong Kong citizens and citizens around Guangzhou like Shenzhen because most of the citizen share the same mother language, Cantonese. But Cantopop is mainly based in Hong Kong, so the essay will only focus on the history Cantopop in Hong Kong.

In 1974, Cantopop had the most important moment of the history, this will be the start of Cantopop famous era, in this year there were two people released two songs that shock the whole Chinese music industry,Sandra Lang released a song composed by Joseph Koo, called ‘Between tears and laughter’(《啼笑姻緣》), and Sam Hui,Kwun-kit debut his album ‘Gwai ma Seung sing’(《鬼馬雙星》) with the movie that share the same name. And from that moment, The most glorious era of Cantopop has begun. After that, the Cantopop industry grows rapidly. Some singers that are more well-known like, Leslie Cheung, Alan Tam, and George Lam. And from the 1980s, the new Cantopop singers that debut at that time starts to mix foreign music style with the local music style, for example, Sandy Lam used R&B. And at the same time, Mandopop joins and become part of the industry. Taiwanese singer Teresa Teng is the best example.

From the 1990s to the 2000 band become more popular in C-pop, Beyond is the most successful band among that time. Hong Kong have the four heavenly king (Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai) and Eason Chan, Mainland has Faye Wong, Taiwan has the biggest part, the most famous singer and band for nowadays almost debut all in this period, for example, Jay Chou, A-Mei, Mayday...etc.That is the golden age of C-pop, after that, the Canto-pop didn’t have any impressing movement or singers debut, most of them are only popular among a certain age group in a specific region.

The method that people listen to music changed in these years too. People used to listen to radio programs to know a new song, people can’t decide what songs to hear. The Commercial Radio Hong Kong founded in 1959, people hear western music on the radio, such as the Beatles. In the 1970s, the economy of Hong Kong had an increasing trend at the same time, people have spare money for entertainment, such as buying albums or supporting their favorite singer, and also television. Television uses widely in Hong Kong families, then the other entertainment was formed, television drama, which also helped the music industry because now they can make theme songs for the television drama. Although the radio program in the 1980s and 1990s provided songs from other countries, such as Japan and America, still the radio controlled what music can the people listen, so C-pop can still keep in the trend. And the method of how people listen to music has changed rapidly in these decades. But after the internet has been invented, people started to go online, and the can listen to music on Youtube, they can listen to music all around the world, there are more competitors for the C-pop singers.

Except for the way that people know about new songs, the way that people store up their songs also changed a lot. Sony develops the first walkman in 1979, and the CD player, mp3 player. Until now we listen to music from the app on our phone, like Spotify and Apple Music. Before the internet become popular among the world, people would buy an album just to listen that one or two songs that they really like, but people stop to buy albums since the technology nowadays don’t need a solid thing to store music, you can store a million songs on your phone, just a click when you can hear any music you want. The change of method that people listen to music caused a huge change in the music industry, the physical albums are no longer be the trend of the music, if people can listen to music on youtube, without paying any money, why would they they waste money to buy a album that they might only know one or two song? In conclusion, the change in the method that people listen to music made a huge loss for the C-pop. Since the C-pop started to develop in the 1980s, when the album is still the main income, they can’t keep up to the rapid change of technology, because as a business, every time they change their direction of operating a business is complicated. But K-pop is started to begin the develop after 2005, the company already know how to use the internet to promote their songs.

Although music app like Spotify and Apple Music pay and buy the right of using the music, there are more people outside listen to music by downloading them illegally online. According to a survey by The Chinese University of Hong Kong, they interviewed seven universities in Hong Kong, and receive three hundred and twenty-one reply, over 89% of students used to download music online illegally. The main reason is convenience. One of the students mentioned: It (pay money to buy music) depends on the quality of the song. But even the albums and songs that they think is in a low quality are something that people worked hard to make. People don’t have the awareness of intellectual property, they download music freely from online, but people who worked hard for the music, for example, the lyrics writers, composers are ignored. Unlike the singers, singers can earn from going to shows and do concerts, these workers can only earn from the copyright, the amount of album and mp3 official resources selling are their income, even you think physical album is no longer useful, people can still buy digital album or buy an account on the music app. But most people just ignored and download it directly. Professor Leung Wing Chi Louis, has said in an article: music and videos are free for the public, just like air. The younger generation has already get used to free TV programs and free radio. But media are also a product.’ He said MP3 need to charge because unlike TV can put an advertisement, MP3 cannot put an advertisement. Finally, the style of the songs in this decade is not the same as the past. In the past around the 90s, the theme of Pop songs are mainly about love, society, friendship. These topics can attract the adult age group and the singer himself or herself, including outlook, and their music style, attract the younger age group, for example, student.

But nowadays in the 21st century, the young people student in the past become adult, of course, they listen to new songs but also they will stay close to the singer that they like in the past. But the new singers can’t get the support from these age group of people, the style of the song and the promoting method is the main reason.

The theme of the songs is confusing, take the first song “Say meow meow” as an example, the meaning of the lyrics is basically: Said meow meow. The rhythm is interesting and easy to remember, but the lyric itself has no meaning at all. Just like the Kpop, the rhythms are easy to remember and they don’t understand the lyrics because most of it written in the language of that country, for example, Kpop mostly writes in Korean so fans from other countries might not understand the meaning of the lyric. But the singers of the song usually only have a single instead of an album because they don’t many resources like the Korean music group to produce an album. Most of the new singer of C-pop only one song become famous, they have ways to earn a profit, at least they can’t have a concert.

The adults have a high expectation of music because singers or bands in the 90s or 80s have a higher quality. The popular songs nowadays is obviously way different from the old ones, of course, there are new singers that are still following the original style of C-pop. And they will fix their mindset and think that all the new music nowadays are all like this because they don’t have time to prove though, they are already busy working or handling their life so they don’t have time or mood to explore new singers that they would like. And the new generation listens to these songs since they were small, so they think these music are good and don’t like the music from the 80s and 90s. But only like and comment on social media is not enough to make those singers rich. Student or the younger generation don’t have much finance income or even don’t have finance income, they can’t support singers and bands on buying their albums or going to the concert. Companies are not willing to train new singer and bands now because they won’t earn profit from the new singers, so they put their resource on the old generation of singer.No new singers in the market, some old generation of singer started to retire or start a new business, there is a huge gap because no human resource fill in.

In conclusion, the reason that causes C-pop is dying the threat from outside countries after the internet has been popular in society, the change in the music industry also affect the whole C-pop industry. Physical album no longer is the trend of music producing and illegally free mp3 music flood on the internet and causing the profit of the company decrease, also decreased the willingness to investigate new potential singers. Due to all these factors, the future of C-pop is not as bright as the other popular Pop like Kpop. The threat from other countries’ pop and the shortage of human resources in the music industry are also making the situation worse, but still, there are some people believe that this is just the presage of a storm, I believe C-pop would take the world by storm again one day.