Noise inGuangzhou: the cultural politics of underground popular music in contemporaryGuangzhou

Abstract

Popular music in Guangzhou can be considered as a noise that applies social and political power to challenge the mainstream aesthetics and ideologies, rather than a low culture that lacks aesthetics. The main purpose of this article is to examine the cultural politics of underground popular music in contemporary Guangzhou, drawing on the analysis of its lyrical and sonic meanings through three genres: campus rock/pop, Canton‐rock and urban folk songs. Different types of underground popular music in Guangzhou engender different spaces/places through the lyrical and sonic power, and map out the non‐commercial popular music in south China. These findings not only respond to the previous music geographical studies on lyrics and sounds/voices, but also extend the research areas of Chinese popular music.

Social media reconstructions of urban identity during the COVID‐19 pandemic

“…Qian et al (2012) have examined the resistance shown by its residents to the promotion of Mandarin agendas on local television programmes and have explored how residents negotiated their urban identity. In the same location, Liu (2014) has considered underground music as an urban subculture, challenging the mainstream aesthetics and ideologies and creating regional noncommercial popular music.…”

Flying with two wings or coming of age of copyrightisation? A historical and socio-legal analysis of copyright and business model developments in the Chinese music industry

“…This would not happen without the privatisation of ownership, with the co-existence of state-owned music affairs and the market-oriented pop music sector. According to C. Liu (2014), Cantopop and Manopop from Hong Kong and Taiwan were imported to fill the cultural vacuum (see discussion in Clark et al, 2016). During the late 1980s, Shaanxi folk songs (Northwest Wind) became the first prominent local popular music in China, followed by rock and roll.…”

“…It adopted a cultural adaptation model from 1979 to 1991 when copyright was not in place, exploiting well-tested hits in markets outside mainland China, namely to produce cover songs. It provides a necessary annotation to the golden 30 years of the Chinese record industry since the first 10 years were not subject to copyright regulation (C. Liu, 2014). I use 'cultural adaptation' instead of 'shanzhai', due to the persistent postcolonial discourse of a low-income country tactically learning from its western counterparts within an imbalanced world order (see Chen, 2018a).…”

Geography of Chinese rock and roll: cultural, political and economic forces intertwined

“…At the micro-level of performative scenes, the sheer proximity between producers and patrons in live houses indicates an equal status of both sides, inviting communication and making both sides contributors to a rock milieu. In cities, live houses stimulate what Small (2011) calls musicking practices, through which producers and audience members sense each other and imagine alternatives (Liu, 2014), and the space itself becomes 'formative of the sounding and resounding of music' (Leyshon et al, 1995;Wood et al, 2007: 424). Curators of live houses reiterate the terms 'consciousness', 'Rock and Roll ethos' and 'utopia' (interview 2014).…”