In Continuum.

Music, On Hindsight

I fear for my generation, I really do. I fear that when the next generation of humans - or the generation after that - look back upon my generation, they are going to wonder what kind of drugs we were taking when we indulged ourselves in the kind of music we listen today on our radio. The worst part is that all of us are completely sane, and most music lovers are not drug addicts at the same time, like the Hippie culture back in the late sixties. Most of my generations today are perfectly fine human beings, without an ounce of drugs running through their veins. The truth is, the people who truly made music, were also the drug addicts of the past. Every living legend today took drugs one way or another in the past, because it helped them to think clearly by not thinking clearly at all. I know on the surface, that sentence did not make any sense at all. But maybe that's why it makes a lot of sense, especially in our world today, which emphasizes more on sex appeal rather than anything else. Of course, the basic principles still apply - you must be free of drugs, and a virgin. With these basic criteria met, you don't really need talents to make it big, anymore.

I was watching a video the other day which featured John Mayer doing a random gig at an underground pub called Fat Black Pussy Cat with Cheryl Pepsii Riley - who is an amazing singer by the way, and he opened the set by saying something about how 2007 is coming to an end, and this year in music has taught us that you don't have to have a lot of talents to make it big in the industry. You just have to suck in an unique way, and everybody is going to love you anyway. In contrast, the people standing on that stage were the same people that spent their whole lives working on music that is not going to gain a lot of public appeal in relative to the kind of music they play on the radio, but they are still making the music anyway. It may be a sort of blind passion, or a fool's love for something, but that is how music should be in the world of artistic expression anyway. He asked for applauses from the audience, and the people exploded into a deafening round of applause that made my speakers spit out funny noises. But I guess, more than the money, that is what these musicians are working for - the applauses at the end of each night.

A couple of days ago, I was just surfing through the limited channels in my living room when I came across the MTV Chinese channel. Before that actually happened, I was still a guy that had a little bit of hope for music, simply because of what I have been listening to these days. Even in the context of the Chinese music industry, I have recently heard some Indie material coming out from my hometown, and before that fateful afternoon when I turned to that channel, I was still proud to call myself a Taiwanese. But after viewing what seemed like a three minute long musical Hell, I have concluded that I am ashamed to be a Taiwanese in that respect. There he was, in his cowboy gears and bursting into a diner, singing his latest single from his latest album. The supposed king of Chinese music was making a fool out of himself with the worst song I have heard in a very long time.

I've never actually liked this guy, disliking him for his lack of originality and style. After all, this man is the same person that recycles his chord progressions on the piano like one would recycle an empty milk bottle. Every one of his songs sound the same, and everything is so predictable that you might actually find more excitement in an office space. But still, his music is still fine if you ignore the technical aspects of it. They are fine to the ears, but definitely not something that is going to be remembered by myself in the years to come. Then of course, he dug himself a new hole and jumped into it with his new single, which happens to be the most hideous thing to hit my eardrums as of late. Even the noise coming from the construction site downstairs and the renovation works on the sixteenth floor will be numbed through time, but I don't imagine myself to be numbed by this song anytime soon. Though strictly speaking, it really isn't a song to begin with.

Throughout his musical career, this native Taiwanese has never ever tried to reinvent himself. That is to say, his songs usually follow a very distinct pattern throughout every album, using the very same equations and formulas as before because they worked. It is possible to have a greatest hits album compiled, and you wouldn't have noticed the difference in his style because they are all pretty much the same. I remember my friend from the army giving me his live concert CD to listen to, and I noticed just how repetitive and boring his music really is. Almost every slow song began with the piano, and half of those songs began with the same chord while the other began with a different chord. So the progressions were the same throughout every song, and I was able to predict the next note before actually hearing them, because they sounded completely the same to me. But of course, you cannot blame a man for staying on the safer side, not daring to take the jump out into the unknown. If one is comfortable here, you cannot tell him to move elsewhere, because it just wouldn't make sense. Reinvention really is a choice on the musician's part, and it is up to him or her whether or not he wants to change his musical directions throughout his career. If your fans are going to love you for who you are, there really isn't a need to change your route. After all, not everybody can be like Radiohead and their fanatical followers.

This guy supposedly started the whole R&B revolution in Chinese music, though to call his material R&B would be quite an insult to the genre itself. After all, R&B stands for "Rhythms and Blues", and I don't suppose you can find a trace of "Blues" in his bullshit. His music - at least his latest single - should be classified under "Retarded & Brainless", because that's what it really is to me. If you are going to be eternally boring to me, that's fine. I mean, if you are going to be rolling about in the same puddle of mud for the rest of your career, that's really your problem. You still have your blind fans following you like you are some kind of deity, though you really no more than an average guy with an average look and an average talent. I did enjoy the material from his first two albums. In fact, some of the first songs I learned on the guitar were his songs, but that soon took the wrongest turn and plunged down to the deepest pits when I realized that this man cannot be bothered to produce good music. He is probably the most pretentious singer in existence. At least those retarded boy bands know that they are retarded, he thinks that the world loves him - but obviously not. After all, a fool who knows his limitations, isn't really a fool.


As if his career in music isn't pretentious enough, he attempted acting for a period of time. His first film role was in a Japanese anime adaptation about illegal underground car racing, pretty much like The Fast and the Furious series, really. He was supposed to be the hero of the story, the underdog who drives the fastest and gets the girl at the very end. I saw that movie in camp when somebody brought the DVD, and I must say that a piece of wood would have done a better job in acting than him. Every single time he appeared on screen, it just felt so incredibly boring and dead, that I would have found more excitement in counting the number of corners in the room where I was in. It was his first film role, and anybody should be forgiven for the first try. So he was forgiven for that movie, and I dearly hoped that he wouldn't make a fool out of himself by appearing in another movie. But of course, his ego was bigger than his brain - much bigger.


Appearing for the second time in Zhang Yi Mou's The Curse of the Golden Flower, his second big screen appearance turned out to be a bigger flop than the movie itself. Despite the Chillywood - my term for the Chinese movie industry - A-list actor and actress helming the movie, it was inevitable that the movie failed on every possible aspects. I have watched the movie, and I am thus qualified to review the movie, and I must say that it was probably one of the most boring movies I have seen in some time. Everybody who has watched the movie locally loved the fact that he was in the movie. But all his blind fans didn't realize that next to the true actors and actresses, he just looked like a guy that was trying way too hard. He didn't have much emotions to speak of, though he did improve from his wooden performance in the race car movie as mentioned before. Still, I don't suppose improving from a piece of wood to a pile of hardened clay says a lot about somebody's acting skills blossoming. He was still pretty dead on screen, and I remember James Berardinelli - one of my more trusted movie reviewer out there - dissing his acting skills on his blog. Of course, his ego grew even bigger and attempted to direct a movie only recently. I haven't watched that, which is why I shall not comment on his directing skills. But after that attempt, he came back to what he does best - pretend to be a good musician.

I remember Sara telling me that his new song might not be my cup of tea, but I am probably going to find the lyrics incredibly funny. The truth is, I don't even care about the lyrics to this retarded song anymore. That cowboy outfit is one thing, the hideous melody is another. If this is his attempt to reinvent himself, he might do better in being a male prostitute. The song makes no sense, and bastardizes the country music genre from the States. It was his attempt of breaking new grounds, but the result turned him into some idiotic man with a fedora, dancing around a food diner as if he is the coolest thing that has ever happened to mankind. Maybe not the best in terms of music, but definitely the most ridiculous. Like I said, it is the most horrible song I have heard in a long time, but his fans are still going to go crazy about his songs. That's the way the general public are these days anyway. Without the influence of drugs, they are still equally stupid.

I wonder why the truly good talents in the Chinese music industry are not being recognized for their works. A friend of mine is an avid fan of Cheer Chen, a female singer-songwriter from Taiwan who recently came down to Singapore for a concert. My friend is the kind of guy that loves metal, but for some reason he does have a soft spot for Cheer Chen's music. So I checked out some of her songs over at Youtube, and was pleasantly surprised at how good her music is. Other than her, there are other bands and artists in Asia who are equally good, or better than the mainstream music in so many ways. Corinne May is probably the best local singer I have heard in a while, and even she isn't nearly as famous as a lot of other local acts. I mean, the local music scene is saturated with teenagers rocking away on their guitars, turning up the distortion knobs on their amplifies and singing songs about teenage angst and love loss - the whole mediocre and cliche package. My friend introduced me to a singer called Vienna Teng a while ago, and I rediscovered her just this afternoon with the track "Blue Caravan". Astounding material, just simply beautiful. So my question is, why are these truly good musicians not making it big while the pretentious people like Jay Chou, are?

For the future generations, our offspring and their offspring, please do not judge our music as a representation of who we are as a generation. There are people now who are making good music, and people who also appreciates good music. We are still alive, and we are still loving every second of our underground venture. Not all of us are blind and deaf to the mainstream music, because some of us are still sane and objective enough to say "No" to bad music. So the next time you look back on hindsight at the history of music, do yourself a favor and skip this period of music in the mainstream. This period of time is definitely not worth your time at all. Representing all the lost teenagers of my generation, I apologize for the sorry state of music that we are experiencing now. Sorry.

Worst song, coupled with the most retarded video, with the silliest musician.