The Trend IMO

Watching 20th Golden Melody Awards, I just realised that the Hip Hop genre in Taiwan's Mandopop is becoming a little less popular. When Jay Chou brought it out during the early 2000s, everyone was learning how to wear hip hop, sing hip hop, dance hip hop.

Now don't get me wrong, I still think hip hop is strong in Mandopop, cause one thing about Mandopop, as I've mentioned before, is that it has no specific genres. Their singers sing everything from rock to jazz in just one album. And that is not popular with "Western" genre singers. And yes, that was my gripe with Mandopop, though I'm a little more forgiving now. It's all this idolising factor, I think, that cause everyone just follow everyone.

But the trend is changing. Maybe it already has been changing, just that I haven't really paying attention. My eyes was a little north in a peninsula somewhere. But since last year, alternative and indie has started to rise up. Alternative as in alternative rock.

Yup, if I'm not mistaken, rock and indie are coming back, stronger than China Blue last time.

How do I know?

• Lee Hom's music creations have always been following the trend, though of course he does create his own style like "chinked-out" in his Shangri-La 心中的日月 and Heroes of the Earth 蓋世英雄 albums...but his latest Heartbeat 心跳 had more rock.
• The nominees for the Best Newcomer Award in the recent GMA consists of 1 pop singer, 1 ballad singer, 1 jazz singer, and 3 pop rock singers.The one who won, Crowd Lu 盧廣仲, is an indie rock singer.
  
• 1 rock group was nominated for Best Singing Group.
• Modern rock band Mayday 五月天 won the Best Band Award.
  
• Sandee Chan 陳珊妮, a pop rock singer won Best Female Singer. A-Lin, another pop rock singer was nominated for the same award.
  
• Mayday's song "你不是真正的快樂 You're Not Really Happy" got nominated as Song of The Year.
• 2 pop rock albums nominated for Best Album of The Year Award.
• A-Mei's new album AMIT has a heavy rock influence.
  

Now I'm wondering. Are Mandopop artistes getting more angry? Rock, as you know, is used to express all the frustrations, anger and what other angsty kind of feelings.

Don't get me wrong. I have a soft spot for rock. But I like rock that thinks. Not the ones that just throw tantrums. That's why I kind of like soft and alternative rock more.

So, is Mandopop moving into the angsty emo rock? Or just rock?

I don't know. What I know for sure is that Mandopop is also moving from the idol singers phase into singer-songwriters (again), so I think Mandopop will be churning out some more solid singers, or at least solid songwriters.

But I don't think any other genres like dance pop, R&B, hip hop will fade away. You can say that they just take a backseat for a while.


Yup, as I see it, rock is the new pop.


On a Kpop sidenote:
IMO, Girls' Generation 2nd mini album was just. normal. Wait a minute, why am I listening to pop now? Aished.

On a general sidenote:
I realised it's no joke to maintain an entertainment site right now. And Wordpress is as slow as a mule, so I will continue to write my opinions here. Wait till I get the time and better myself in Korean and Mandarin.