The rise and fall of Cantopop

I attended the Beyond concert in Beijing in late May 2005. This venerable Hong Kong rock band, the only rock band to make it into mainstream Hong Kong pop culture, is wildly popular in Mainland China. It was in Beijing that I noticed and grew to love their tunes. As in any place in Asia, music is always within earshot, whether in a hair salon, supermarket, fast-food restaurant, public park, even on sidewalks. Chinese males of all ages can usually recite a couple dozen their favourite Beyond tunes in butchered Cantonese. At karaoke houses all over China, Beyond's rock ballads are still among the most requested songs. STILL popular, you ask? I say "still" because Beyond's main songwriter and vocalist, Wong Kar-kui, died in a freak stage accident in 1993! While the band kept writing songs, recording albums, and touring until "retiring" this year (though we all know that it's possible for Hell to freeze over), the band clearly isn't the same without Ka-kui.

In Hong Kong, there is no such love of Beyond. Aside from construction workers, bus drivers, and aspiring rock n' rollers, most Hong Kong people consider the band passe, and we all know that Hong Kong people are deathly afraid of being seen as passe. I'm not a connoiseur of music, but I do know that Beyond's tunes are original, their lyrics meaningful, and their performances burst at the seams with soul, spirit, and energy. For what, then, do Hong Kong music fans spurn Beyond's music?

Cantopop. Trashy, teeny-boppy, formulaic, meaningless and annoying marketing ploys that today's kids love. It really makes me cry to see how low Hong Kong pop culture has stooped with the likes of the Twins (who aren't even real twins), Boyz, Edison Chen, Cecelia Cheung.. the list is endless. These days, pretty boys and pretty girls who wear flashy clothes and dance and sing have edged out those with real singing talent, not to mention those who write meaningful songs. In fact, I wouldn't dare call these people "artists", and would call them "singers", at best, but of course, not all of them could sing. I think it would be more appropriate, perhaps even a bit generous, to call them "performers".

Perhaps an indication of the decline in Hong Kong's entertainment industry is its relative decline when put alongside rival Asian entertainment industries. Beginning in the 1970's, Hong Kong exported Cantopop all over the region - Chinese people (as well as non-Chinese) in Taiwan, China, Southeast Asia, and beyond bought HK artists' albums and attended their often sold-out concerts. These days, however, performers from Taiwan, South Korea, Japan, Singapore, and even Malaysia, Canada, and the US rival Hong Kong's home-grown Cantopop performers in popularity, even on their home turf! Has the quality of Hong Kong's output declined, or has the competition gotten stronger? I think both.

Hong Kong's music scene was not always this trashy. There was a time when audiences were treated to some truly brilliant singers and songwriters. Sam Hui, for example, was a wildly popular popstar who wrote a wide range of songs like "尖沙咀 Susie" (Tsim Sha Tsui Suzie") that parodied Hong Kong society, love songs like "印象" ("Impression"), and other classics such as "沉默是金" ("Silence is Golden"). James Wong (黃霑) was the quintessential songwriter who wrote songs and lyrics for such classics as "上海灘" ("The Bund"), "獅子山下" ("Below Lion Rock"), and "忘記他" ("Forget Him"). Then, there were singers with unforgettable voices, such as Anita Mui, Alan Tam, Leslie Cheung, and Roman Tam.

Gone is the heyday of Hong Kong pop culture. Marketing began to dominate the scene, and has almost entirely edged the artistry out of the picture, though there are still some rare talented singers like Eason Chan and Joey Yung. The beginning of the end should have been obvious. In the 1990's, four singers were annointed the "Four Great Sky Kings", but if you ask me, only Jacky Cheung ever deserved the designation - the other three were mediocre talents by comparison, one better-known for his acting, another for his dancing, and the third.. I don't see the appeal at all! And yes, there are many cross-over "artists" in Hong Kong, i.e. singers who act in TV and movies and actors who record albums - many appear to be equally untalented in both singing and acting. Now, large entertainment conglomerates such as TVB and Emperor Entertainment Group own stables of talentless hacks who are carefully packaged and sold to ignorant youths who don't know any better, as well to TV audiences who only have 4 TV channels to choose from, one of them being the perennial snorer, CCTV, and another that seems to show horse racing half of the time. Although diminished since reached its peak, this trashy incarnation of Cantopop will be here to stay because Hong Kong people need their own homegrown pop culture - no matter how much it "borrows" from outside influences - and it has become part of Hong Kong peoples' identity.

Well, Sam Hui said it best: "Silence is Golden."