A group blog about Chinese tech, media and design
Many moons ago, Krish Raghav raised some serious concerns about a Radiolab episode on the emergence of the rock music scene in China. “Framing China’s musical lineage as ‘Revolutionary operas to John Denver’ is such a frustrating half-truth,” he said, “[and] positing ‘western’…
Continue readingCorrecting the record (and oriental gaze) on Radiolab’s China Mixtape episode
There’s been a raft of great coverage recently about how people in China are adapting to life under quarantine, especially the ways that they’re leveraging technology to entertain themselves at this stressful situation. Below is a recap of some of what we’ve seen (with a hearty shout-out to those who first reported on it).
Continue readingFinding Solace & Entertainment Under Quarantine: China’s Netizens Pave the Way
This early excerpt from Open All the Buddha Boxes chronicles the rise of two seminal Beijing bands, Hang On The Box and Chui Wan, as they carve out a space for themselves in and outside of China. We follow members of the two bands as they develop their sounds, identities and aesthetics, and we see how they affect and are…
Continue readingAn illustrated love letter to the Beijing underground music scene
From Pangbianr:
Rush blindly (猴急) into this Year of the Monkey with Primate Anxiety, a two-hour mix of fresh China tunes to soothe your deep neural networks during the transition. [N.B. Stream our mixes from 2011, 2012, 2014, and 2015…
Continue readingDon’t Miss Pangbianr’s “Primate Anxiety” Lunar New Year mixtape
From the blog of mainland Chinese blogger Flypig, this September 1 post and its comments describe some of the context around an instance of downloading pirated music — in this case, the anticipated “Still Fantasy” 《依然范特西》from Jay Chou 周杰伦, one of Asia’s most popular singers. The album was released three days earlier than scheduled after…
Continue readingsupporting Jay Chou: fans and leaks
Check out one of the most popular musicians in northwestern China’s Xinjiang province: Murat Muhtar. Thanks to Michael Manning on his blog The Opposite End of China, who has digitized and uploaded two of Muhtar’s videos. One selection is a typical music video of two beautiful people dancing together against…
Continue readingUighur dance party video
Our Taiwanese contributor Nydia Chen points out that the famous “Asian Backstreet Boys,” aka the “Backdorm Boys” 后舍男生, have a lot going on these days. They’ve become celebrities in China with many videos beyond the original “As Long As I Love You.”
They have their own blog, with all of their…
Continue readingAsian Backdorm Boys 后舍男生 update