Cantopop

Cantopop (traditional Chinese: 粵語流行曲) is a colloquial portmanteau for "Cantonese popular music". It is sometimes referred to as HK-pop, short for "Hong Kong popular music". It is categorized as a subgenre of Chinese popular music within C-pop. Cantopop draws its influence not only from other forms of Chinese music, but from a variety of international styles including jazz, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, electronic music, western pop music and others. By and large, cantopop songs are almost invariably performed in Cantonese. Boasting a multinational fanbase, Hong Kong is the most significant hub of the genre.^[1]

History

1920s: Shanghai origins

Western-influenced music first came to the Republic of China in the 1920s, specifically to Shanghai.^[2] Artists like Zhou Xuan acted in films and recorded popular songs, and was possibly the first Chinese pop star.

In 1949 when the People's Republic of China was established by the communist party, one of the first actions taken by the government was to denounce pop music as pornography.^[2] Beginning in the 1950s, massive waves of immigrants fled Shanghai to destinations like North Point in Hong Kong.^[3] As a result, many first generation Cantopop artists and composers hail from Shanghai.^[2]

1960s: Cultural acceptance

By the 1960s, Cantonese music in Hong Kong was still limited largely to traditional Cantonese opera and comic renditions of western music. Tang Kee-chan (鄧寄塵), Cheng Kuan-min (鄭君綿), and Tam Ping-man (譚炳文) were among the earliest artists releasing Cantonese records.

The baby boomer generation at the time preferred British and American exports, as well as Mandarin music. Western culture was at the time equated with education and sophistication,^[4] and Elvis, Johnny Mathis and Beatles were popular.^[2]

Conversely, those who preferred Cantonese music were considered old-fashioned or uneducated. Cheng Kum-cheung and Chan Chai-chung (陳齊頌) were two popular Cantonese singers who specifically targeted the younger generation. Connie Chan Po-chu is generally considered to be Hong Kong's first teen idol, mostly due to her career longevity. Josephine Siao is also another artist of the era.

1970s: Rise of television and the modern industry

Roman Tam, the godfather of Cantopop^[5]

The previous decade laid the ground for the creation of Hong Kong's new pop music. Many local bands mimicked British and American bands. Two types of local Cantonese music appeared in the market nearly concurrently in 1973: one type cashed in on the popularity of TVB's drama series based on the more traditional lyrical styles. The other was more western style music largely from Polydor Hong Kong. Notable singers from the era include Liza Wang and Paula Tsui.

Television was a new technological marvel, available mostly to the rich, and on-air content was highly valued and respected. Soap operas were needed to fill air time, and many popular Cantonese songs became TV theme songs.^[2] Around 1971, Sandra Lang, a minor singer who had never sung Cantopop before, was invited to sing the first Cantonese TV theme song, "The Yuanfen of a Wedding that Cries and Laughs" or "Tai Siu Jan Jyuan (啼笑姻緣)". This song was a collaboration between songwriters Yip Siu-dak (葉紹德) and the legendary Joseph Koo. It was ground-breaking and topped local charts.^[2] Other groups that profited from TV promotion included the Four Golden Flowers.

Samuel Hui, the lead singer of the band Lotus formed in the late '60s, signed onto Polydor in 1972. The song that made him famous was the theme song to the movie Games Gamblers Play, also starring Hui. The recording produced by Ricky TC Fung was a giant success that paved way to a whole new genre of foreign sounding Cantonese language pop tunes for others to follow.

The star of TV theme tunes was Roman Tam, whose singing earned much praise. Two of the most famous TV soap opera singers were Jenny Tseng, Liza Wang and Adam Cheng.^[2] The Wynners and George Lam also amassed a big fan base with their new style. Samuel Hui continued to dominate the charts and won the Centennial Best Sales Award in the first and second IFPI Gold Disc Presentations twice in a row in 1977 and 1978. Polydor became PolyGram in 1978.

1980s: Beginning of the Golden age

During the 1980s, Cantopop soared to great heights with artists, producers and record companies working in harmony. Cantopop stars such as Anita Mui, Leslie Cheung, Alan Tam, Priscilla Chan and Danny Chan quickly became household names. The industry effectively used Cantopop songs in TV dramas and movies. Some of the biggest soundtracks came from timeless film such as A Better Tomorrow. In part, the success came from progressive economical development. Sponsors and record companies became comfortable with the idea of lucrative contracts and million-dollar signings.

One great endorsement of Cantopop was the crossing over from the most successful Chinese female recording artist so far, "Queen of Mandarin songs" Teresa Teng. She achieved in both artistic strides and great commercial success by her original Cantonese Hits under the Polygram Label in the early '80s.

As Cantopop gained large followings in Chinese communities worldwide, Hong Kong entrepreneurs' ingenious use of the then new LaserDisk technology prompted yet another explosion in the market, leading to domination of the karaoke market by Cantopop.

The Four Heavenly Kings in a tribute to Leslie Cheung (2003)

1990s: Four Heavenly Kings era

In the early 90s, a number of Cantopop stars decided to semi- or fully retire. Those Cantopop stars included Alan Tam, Leslie Cheung, Samuel Hui, Priscilla Chan and Joseph Koo. These retirements came as they decided to emigrate from Hong Kong after the uncertainty caused by the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989.

Cantopop needed new talent to fill the gaps left behind. This led to the emergence of the "Four Heavenly Kings" (四大天王): Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Aaron Kwok and Leon Lai. They dominated all levels of media from magazines, TV, cinema to music. New talents such as Beyond would also emerge as contenders. Successful crossing over alternative music elements by Sandy Lam, Shirley Kwan, Faye Wong, Sammi Cheng were also important to the era.

The tension and economic instability from the 1997 handover also created a culturally challenging atmosphere for the industry. Establishment of Basic Law and language ordinances made the adoption of Mandarin official.^[6]

After 1997, following the gradual retirement of the Four Kings, there emerged the "New Four Heavenly Kings": Leo Ku, Hacken Lee, Andy Hui, and Edmond Leung. A new generation including Miriam Yeung, Joey Yung, Eason Chan and Kelly Chen began their stardom and continued it into the 21st century.

Faye Wong, an artist known in all of Greater China and overseas Chinese-speaking communities. After the release of this 1999 album, she was recognised as Best Selling Cantopop Female.^[7]

Twins at the height of the group's popularity

2000s

At the turn of the century, Cantonese is still dominant in the domain of Chinese popular music.^[8] Though the deaths of stars Leslie Cheung and Anita Mui in 2003 rocked the industry. The Four Heavenly Kings of Cantopop performed a tribute at the 22nd Hong Kong Film Awards.^[9] Along with the downturn of the economy, few can deny cantopop was at a low point in the early 2000s.

The industry was mostly in a transitional phase with overseas-raised Chinese artists such as Sally Yeh, Nicholas Tse and Coco Lee gaining recognition. As a result cantopop is no longer restricted to Hong Kong, but has become part of a larger Pan-Chinese music movement.

Since 2005 the industry has began a new upswing with many of the newer artists gaining in popularity. The four major companies that drive much of the Hong Kong segment appears to be Gold Typhoon Music Entertainment (EMI, Gold Label), Universal Music Group, East Asia Entertainment & Amusic and Emperor Entertainment Group. The more veteran singers like Andy Hui, Joey Yung, Denise Ho, Eason Chan, Miriam Yeung, Leo Ku along with newer artists like Janice Vidal, Twins, Justin Lo have played a major role in the upswing. Many are also on the rise including Hins Cheung, Vincy Chan, Stephanie Cheng, Kay Tse, Charles Ying, Jill Vidal. The new era also saw an explosion of groups such as at17, Soler, Sunboy'z, Hotcha. As this became a new trend in promoting groups, often many of the artists later end up going solo such as Stephy Tang, Kary Ng or Kenny Kwan.

Edison Chen photo scandal

In January 2008, Twins won the "Asia Pacific Most Popular Artist Awards" from Jade Solid Gold.^[10] Just one month later, the Edison Chen photo scandal would rock the Hong Kong entertainment industry. Local actor Edison Chen and a number of high-profile female celebrities like Gillian Chung, Bobo Chan and Cecilia Cheung, were caught in sexual acts with the explicit photos uploaded on the Internet. The scandal garnered the attention of international media including CNN^[11] and MSNBC.^[12] and The Guardian.^[13] The scandal raised a number of questions regarding legal issues and netizen's online rights that went far beyond the usual music discussion.

Characteristics

Instruments and setups

Early Cantopop was developed from cantonese opera music hybridized with western pop. The musicians gave up traditional Chinese musical instruments like zheng and erhu fiddle in favor of western style arrangements. Cantopop songs were usually sung by one singer, sometimes with a band, accompanied by piano, synthesizer, drum set, guitar, and bass guitar. They are composed under verse-chorus form and are generally monophonic. Practically all cantopop songs feature a descending bassline.

Lyrics

Cantonese is a pitch sensitive tonal language. The word carries a different meaning when sung in a different relative pitch. Matching Cantonese lyrics to Western music was particularly difficult because the Western musical scale has 12 semi-tones. Through the work of pioneers like Sam Hui, James Wong and Lo Kwok Jim, those that followed have more stock phrases for reference. Cantonese lyricists play a great part in advancing Canto Pop.

Classical Chinese lyrics

The first type is the poetic lyrics written in literary or classical Wenyan Chinese. In the past, cantopop maintained the Cantonese Opera tradition of matching the musical notes with tones of the language. Relatively few cantopop songs use truly colloquial Cantonese terms, and fewer songs contain lyrics. Songs written in this style are usually reserved for TV shows about ancient China. Since the 1980s, increasing numbers of singers have departed from this traditional, though some big names like Roman Tam stayed true to traditional techniques.

Modern Chinese lyrics

The second type is less formal. The lyrics written in colloquial Cantonese make up the majority with compositions done in modern written Chinese. TV shows filmed under modern contexts will utilize songs written with these lyrics. Most songs share an overriding characteristic, in which every last word of a phrase is rhymed.

The following is an example from the song "Impression" (印象) by Samuel Hui. The last word of every phrase ends with '–oeng'.

Foreign compositions

Since the 1970s, many western and Japanese traditional and pop compositions have been translated to Chinese. Historically the practice is done for business reasons of filling up albums and re-capitalizing on songs with a proven record. By definition hybrids are still considered Cantonese songs due to Cantonese lyrics, though the rights borrowed varies country to country. Songs like "Tomorrow sounds like today" (明日話今天) by Jenny Tseng, "Life to seek" (一生何求) by Danny Chan, "Snowing" (飄雪) by Priscilla Chan, and "Can't afford" (負擔不起) by Jade Kwan were originally composed outside of Hong Kong.

Industry

Cantopop stars

From the inception of Canto Pop to the late '80s, Hong Kong had seen many original talents developed to super stars status, each with unique singing style and easily recognisable voice. Due to emergence of Karaoke style of singing which displaced originality, CD piracy from the '90s that forced shorter investment cycles, pop idols that appear to have a better chance of generating revenue from different exploition modes became the target of development.

Usually talent is secondary to the success of a cantopop singer in Hong Kong. Most of the time, the image sells the albums, as it is one of the characteristic of mainstream music similarly mirrored in the US and Japan. Publicity is vital to an idol's career, as one piece of news could make or break one's future. Almost all modern cantopop stars go into the movie business regardless of their ability to act. They immediately expand to the Mandarin market once their fame is established, hence pure cantopop stars are almost nonexistent. Outside of the music sales, their success can also be gauged by their income from various sources. For example, according to some reports, Sammi Cheng earned HK$46M (around US$6M) from advertisement and merchandise endorsements in the month of January 2003 alone.

Labels

Due to rise of Canto Pop and the control of music piracy in Hong Kong from 1978, aside from already existing PolyGram and EMI in Hong Kong, Sony, Warner and BMG established their Hong Kong company one after another from 1979. Meanwhile, local record companies such as Crown Records 娛樂唱片, Wing Hang Records 永恆, Manchi Records 文志 and Capital Artists 華星,each invested heavily and became very successful local labels that compete well in the market. As TV drama theme lose favour from the middle of the '80s, market power soon drifted to the multi-national labels. PolyGram also established CinePoly (originally a JV with Cinema City) which remains a major local label until now with many top local artistes. After the sale of PolyGram to Universal Music in late '90s, the company name was replaced by Universal Music.

Since 2000, a number of local record labels have emerged such as Emperor Entertainment Group, East Asia Record & amusic and newly emerged former EMI's label in Hong Kong, Gold Typhoon Music Enterntainment Group (compositing former EMI Music Taiwan, Push Typhoon Records in China, Capitol Music Taiwan, Virgin Music Chinese, Gold Label Records and Gold Label Entertainment in Hong Kong). Sales are tracked at the IFPI HK Annual Sales Chart.^[14]

Criticism

Unoriginality

Cantopop has in recent years been criticised as bland and unoriginal, and most stars tend to sing songs with similar topics with emphasis on "maudlin love ballads". Even in its early form, Cantopop featured many songs edited or inspired by English or Cantonese opera songs, which persisted during the 1980s golden era. For instance, of the top ten Chinese songs of 1985, five were edited Japanese songs.

In the late 1990s, there was a shortage of creative talent brought on by rising demand for Chinese songs; meanwhile, China and Taiwan had nurtured their own local industries posing serious competition to Cantopop. Renowned local lyricist Wong Jim wrote his 2003 thesis on the subject.^[15]

One critic portrays the Cantopop industry as "favoring smiling saccharine pap over actual substance"^[16].

However, there are still many sideline musicians like Beyond (who emerged from the "band fever" of the 1960s) and Tat Ming Pair whose songs reflect the darker, less-expressed side of society. In recent years, the presences of The Pancakes, LMF, at17 etc added freshness to the industry. Their songs express youth attitudes and beliefs with similarities to cutie pop or hip hop cultures.

Disproportionate record company influence

As Hong Kong only has two television broadcasters and three radio broadcasters, they enjoy great influence with record companies' promotion of music, leading to narrow specialisation in the most profitable products - karaoke love songs - instead of allowing creativity to flourish.

The influence of record companies also means that they can use advertisements to easily create idols out of artists who otherwise may have little original singing talent, but bankable looks.

Artists

Male

Female

Groups

Major awards

Cantopop radio stations

See also

• Music of Hong Kong
• Hong Kong musical tongue twister
• Hong Kong English pop
• Chinese hip hop

References

External links

• Chinese Music Blog - Chinese music online community providing Chinese music discussion, album review, lyrics translation and romanization for non-Chinese speakers.
• C-Pop Fantasie - Online resource for c-pop, providing lyrics, downloads, video shows, and more.
• CHINA Music Essential Listening List - Amazon.Com's list of hip hits in contemporary Cantopop.
• Pop Saves Hong Kong, in Tofu Magazine #2
• Hong Kong Vintage Pop Radio
• Cantopop News Blog
• www.hkmusic.cn: Cantopop song listings (in chinese)
• www.mysongspage.com, lyrics and chords for Cantonese, English & Mandarin songs.