Why does so much good music come from Japan...

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

... and not from China or Taiwan? Is there Chinese avant-garde music that I'm just not aware of, or is it simply Faye Wong and a legion of horrid pop singers?

― Leee (Leee), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 00:45 (twenty-three years ago)

i've done tons of thinking about this topic for years now. i also extend the question to germany.

my uneducated answer has something to do with the fact that both of these countries were demolished in the war and had to completely reconfigure their cultures. 50 yrs to recreate your culture is warp speed.

my brain is mush right now, and i'm sure some of you intellectual theory buffs can extend or refute my ideas

― JasonD, Tuesday, 12 November 2002 01:30 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't know about Taiwan, but China has this big whole Communist thing going that sort of stifles Western influences. Supposedly. I'm a bit rusty on that particular area of geopolitics.

― Nate Patrin (Nate Patrin), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 01:47 (twenty-three years ago)

I grant the Commie angle of China, but Taiwan is sort of an interesting amalgamation of Germany/Japan and China; Taiwan is basically an expatriate country that also had to scrap together a culture (from what I know of Taiwan history, which is nothing), but then again it was also an authoritarian state until relatively recently, more interested in carving an international economic niche than music (but then wouldn't this apply to Japan?)

― Leee (Leee), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 02:35 (twenty-three years ago)

i remember reading about a massive illegal dance scene in china where trad chinese songs are incorporated into techno.
and what about techno and house in germany? ilm (and me) luvs kompakt et al!

― minna (minna), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 05:51 (twenty-three years ago)

Why would anyone expect the music of Japan to be anything similar or comparable to that of Taiwan or China?!? Seems to me Japan has far more in common culturally with the United States or Europe than it does with China.

― Kris (aqueduct), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 06:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Leee- give some examples of yr encounters with each of the countries music and explain why you think japanese music is better.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 11:07 (twenty-three years ago)

I was thinking about this too - the countries with indisputably the biggest pop music traditions (USA, UK, Germany, Japan) are also the four countries who have caused the most disasters and suffering outside their own borders in the last 200 years

― dave q, Tuesday, 12 November 2002 11:54 (twenty-three years ago)

Go to Japan and be bombarted by - no, not Momus records - but crap J-Pop ''n' Rock. It gives me a headache just standing in a Wave or Towers Records store. There's just as much good and bad music as there is in other countries.

― nathalie (nathalie), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 12:17 (twenty-three years ago)

the countries with indisputably the biggest pop music traditions (USA, UK, Germany, Japan) are also the four countries who have caused the most disasters and suffering outside their own borders in the last 200 years

They also happen to be, roughly, the top four world economies. Pop music tends to be advanced in advanced capitalist societies. We should call it Cap music.

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 13:13 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually I totally withdraw that last statement after Googling.

The world ranking of economie. China is now number 2. Fuck, I didn't realise they'd overtaken everybody already! So it's a good question -- how long before great Chinese pop music?

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 13:19 (twenty-three years ago)

Per capita GDP is a different story, but by that measure we should be expecting great music from Switzerland and Norway...

― Momus (Momus), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 13:22 (twenty-three years ago)

burzum to thread!!

― mark s (mark s), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 13:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't have anything really intelligent sounding to say to this, but, uh...

Cornelius fuckin' rocks!

― nickalicious, Tuesday, 12 November 2002 15:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Beijing opera is awesome. From what I've heard anyway.

― sundar subramanian (sundar), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 20:46 (twenty-three years ago)

Leee I assume you aren't talking about domestic pop markets but why people in the West are so familiar with the Boredoms/Cornelius/Fushitsusha/NobukazuTakemura/etc. axis of artists. In Korea, despite my efforts, I've never found an equivalent to this sort of thing and I have a feeling that it roughly ties to the nature and role of deviance in these areas. Or at least how the US perceives it, Japan has always been seen more than any other place in Asia as this zany transmitter of strange grotesque-cute production.

― Honda (Honda), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 21:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That's a better way at organizing and expressing my question, Honda. I was in China a few weeks ago and I rilly didn't get much exposure to the music there, so it's probably more of a question about exporting the music beyond Chinese borders.

But then I reconsider the Chinese-Americans involved in music today, and all I can think of is that awful Coco Lee and her clones. Yet, I have to add a caveat that'll undermine this whole thread: I don't go out of my way to find any pop music that was performed by a Chinese person.

― Leee (Leee), Tuesday, 12 November 2002 21:51 (twenty-three years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.