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Trying to get into Chinese Music ?

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Blueingreen

Blueingreen

Member
I love expanding my musical horizons and digging out new Artists and Musicians worldwide that I otherwise would never would have discovered conventionally. I've been a huge fan of Japanese music in the past purely based on the variety, there's tons of incredible hidden prog rock/ funk/punk/Jazz gems that whenever I stumble upon them it's like christmas.

I've been attempting to indulge in Chinese music seeing as it's the most populous nation in the world there can hardly be a shortage of musicians? And even though I'm really fond of the traditional Chinese Music (especially the guqin) correct me if i'm wrong but I find that so much of Chinese music is just saturated with sappy love ballads I mean it's just relentless my god.

So I was wondering if anyone could recommend me some great Chinese musicians/Artists any genre is fine I'm quite broad in my music tastes just no sappy love ballads I hate those in English let alone a foreign language.
 
S

squall23

Member
Are you looking for Mandarin or Cantonese music? Because Cantonese hit the synth phase of music long before the mainland did, too bad the Hong Kong music scene isn't anywhere close to it's greatness when compared to it's glory years in the 80s-90s.
 
V

vern

Member
Listen to 花房姑娘 probably my favorite Chinese song.

I also like cheesy as shit songs like 伤不起 and 最炫民族风 and 兄弟难当 they really make you wanna dance.

姑娘我爱你 For the lovers out there in the northwest

红豆 is legit good if you like pop/rnb music from the 90s, reminds of something boyz 2 men would have sang if they were a Chinese woman.

And for Cantonese songs can't miss the classics like 喜欢你， 天各一方 and 月半小夜曲。
 
M

Mephala

Member
Blueingreen said:
So I was wondering if anyone could recommend me some great Chinese musicians/Artists any genre is fine I'm quite broad in my music tastes
Click to expand...
I have some suggestions-

just no sappy love ballads I hate those in English let alone a foreign language.
Click to expand...
I have no suggestions.

>_>
I don't know chinese well enough to understand most of it. A lot of the songs I know are what my family enjoy when they went to K so it is mostly just popular love ballads or maybe some war ballads.
 
T

TofuEater

Member
Try these artists:


Mandarin:
Jay Chou - I listen to him the most, albums are different styles from pop to rap
Mayday - rock/pop
JJ Lin - pop mostly
SHE - pop

Cantonese:
Eason Chan- older songs are better and are mostly pop
Beyond - several excellent songs here, pop/rock
Mr. - does rock mostly
G.E.M - has some catchy songs, does a cover of one of beyonds hits.
 
A

alvis.exe

Member
Oh man.

Mandarin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Melody_Awards

Cantonese: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Solid_Gold_Best_Ten_Music_Awards_Presentation

and

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTHK_Top_10_Gold_Songs_Awards

Check out the singers and albums from that list and explore from there by looking at nominees for each year. CPop will largely be dominated by Taiwanese and HK singers with some Malaysian/Singapore thrown in but mainland China is slowly getting in on the action and producing popular music of their own. On the Taiwanese side, Jay Chou, Leehom Wang, JJ Lin, A-mei, and Jolin Tsai are perennial favorites who have been around forever. Jam Hsiao is more recent but pretty popular too. Then there's Mayday, Sodagreen, SHE for bands. No idea about mainland singers.

For HK, I'm not familiar with the newer singers but glancing at those lists I recognize Eason Chan, Nicholas Tse, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Hacken Lee, Wakin Chau, Andy Hui, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, Joey Yung, and Leo Ku. Of those, I'd say Eason and Nic have a lower percentage of love ballads in their repertoire.

And this is just the popular stuff I have no idea what the indie music scene is like lol
 
A

akilshohen

Member
Khalil Fong is good if you like R&B. That's about as far as I've gotten, but I haven't seen him mentioned here.
He's on spotify too.
 
Q

Qvoth

Member
Chthonic for Chinese black metal with some traditional folk instruments, the lead singer is into Taiwanese politics nowadays so they haven't released anything new in a while I think

Jj lin's 关键词 (keyword) is really beautiful imo, heard it 1st on EE's stream, I'd appreciate it if someone else can recommend songs that are similar to it
 
B

bobbytkc

ADD New Gen Gamer
Imo, the Chinese music scene is small because the money in the industry is small, so everybody does the safe thing. The Chinese market don't really spend money on music. Kind of like the movie industry to be honest. It is kind of sad really.
 
The Scrivener

The Scrivener

Member
I'm English but I know of this fine woman:

Xuefei Yang

Classical guitar but not how you know it (Chinese I guess, and not "western".)

The album Si Ji is great but it's not on Spotify. But some of her other albums are.

I studied classical guitar for a while and found her really inspiring. Kinda like Blues is to Pop, but for the classical lineages.
 
Blueingreen

Blueingreen

Member
DrDamn said:
Liu Fang - more traditional Chinese music. She plays the pipa - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pipa

Saw her once in concert in the UK, beautiful and mesmerising. #ProbablyNotWhatYouWereLooking for. :)

She's on Spotify.
Click to expand...

She's a virtuoso on that instrument bloodu hell can she play


DocONally said:
I'm English but I know of this fine woman:

Xuefei Yang

Classical guitar but not how you know it (Chinese I guess, and not "western".)

The album Si Ji is great but it's not on Spotify. But some of her other albums are.

I studied classical guitar for a while and found her really inspiring. Kinda like Blues is to Pop, but for the classical lineages.
Click to expand...

definitely going to check this out.

bobbytkc said:
Imo, the Chinese music scene is small because the money in the industry is small, so everybody does the safe thing. The Chinese market don't really spend money on music. Kind of like the movie industry to be honest. It is kind of sad really.
Click to expand...

I thought this was changing I keep hearing about the evergrowing chinese middleclass which is why you see Hollywood making more movies to appeal to that market.
 
C

clay_ghost

Member
alvis.exe said:
Oh man.

Mandarin: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Melody_Awards

Cantonese: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jade_Solid_Gold_Best_Ten_Music_Awards_Presentation

and

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTHK_Top_10_Gold_Songs_Awards

Check out the singers and albums from that list and explore from there by looking at nominees for each year. CPop will largely be dominated by Taiwanese and HK singers with some Malaysian/Singapore thrown in but mainland China is slowly getting in on the action and producing popular music of their own. On the Taiwanese side, Jay Chou, Leehom Wang, JJ Lin, A-mei, and Jolin Tsai are perennial favorites who have been around forever. Jam Hsiao is more recent but pretty popular too. Then there's Mayday, Sodagreen, SHE for bands. No idea about mainland singers.

For HK, I'm not familiar with the newer singers but glancing at those lists I recognize Eason Chan, Nicholas Tse, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Hacken Lee, Wakin Chau, Andy Hui, Aaron Kwok, Leon Lai, Joey Yung, and Leo Ku. Of those, I'd say Eason and Nic have a lower percentage of love ballads in their repertoire.

And this is just the popular stuff I have no idea what the indie music scene is like lol
Click to expand...
JJ is a Singaporean. 😣
 
L

LiquidM

Neo Member
I'd like to recommend some rock/heavy metal bands from the 90s

Tang Chao (Tang Dynasty)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_Dynasty_(band)
Their first two or three albums are superb. Then their bassist died in a motorbike accident, and the band never recovered from it. Such a shame.

Hei Bao (Black Panther)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Panther_(band)
Again I can only recommend their first two or three albums.

Beyond
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_(band)
A hong kong rock band, very popular in East Asia.
 
T

Ty4on

Member
Cui Jian, ~80s rock. Most well known for Nothing to My Name which was the unofficial song of the Tiananmen square protests. He performed for the protesters too and this seems to be a recording of that.
I like Fake Monk for being so different with its rhythm and use of Chinese instruments.

I don't mind them that much, but I understand the frustration with love ballades. I haven't really gone through a lot of modern canto/mando pop because of that.
Qvoth said:
Jj lin's 关键词 (keyword) is really beautiful imo, heard it 1st on EE's stream, I'd appreciate it if someone else can recommend songs that are similar to it
Click to expand...
I love how he ends most lines with si/zi/ci or shi/zhi/chi.
 
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