CHINESE RECORD LABELS

Modern Sky; Maybe Mars (Their site is listed by Norton as a "Mass Infection" attempt and blocked); Jingwen; Tree Music; Scream; Rock (台湾); ZKewen CSCAV

WinGo Music Media; Icing Culture; So Rock!; Xing Wai Xing 星外星; Jiuzhou 九州; StreetVoice (台湾)

Unfortunately, like the artists and bands themselves, websites for Chinese record labels tend to come and go like the wind. Finding a website on a newer album is no guarantee that it'll still exist by the time you remember to look it up! A lot of what I've bought lately has become associated with ZKEWEN, 中国科学文化音像出版社有限公司, but releases from 2015 and 2016 their website (listed as either www.zkewen.com OR www.zhongkewen.com) isn't coming up. Of all those listed, I'd still say Modern Sky is the most consistent in delivering quality regardless of style. I've yet to find anything on Pettis´ Maybe Mars which exceeds what my youngest bro calls "upper class mediocre" and tend to shy away from it. Jingwen has a big, old back catalog dating back to the 1990s, though newer stuff is also out there and usually interesting. Tree Music got my hopes up in 2014 but seems content to do for chamber pop what Maybe Mars does for rock. Scream is mostly hard rock and metal, though not entirely. Rock Records and XingWaiXing appear to put out syrupy pop and commercial music with their exceptions of interest to me. CSCAV has a distinctive logo of split blue semicircles facing in opposite directions and stacked on top of one another (I can't generalize about music with the logo on their albums). SoRock! appears to have gone out of business after producing a lot of middling rock albums. The Jiuzhou logo looks a bit like a bass clef and is on lots of different styles of albums. It's entirely possible that I'm fundamentally misunderstanding the Mainland's music business by equating record labels with publishers and distributors in the West. Note also that as this site's focus is on alternative Chinese music, the bigger and official music production companies as SOEs are hopefully excluded.

"SURPRISE! CHINA HAS ROCK MUSIC."-ARTICLES (THESE ARE A THING, IN WHICH THE WEST PERENNIALLY PEEKS INTO THE EXOTIC YET FAMILIAR WORLD OF THE PRC'S SOUND OF FREEDOM)

The book Red Rock seems authoritative, but I haven't read it yet. Academicized in 2001 ethnography book in Efird's chapter "Rock in a Hard Place" and later in a chapter with an almost identical name by de Kloet in a 2002 edited volume on Media in China tread similar paths. Wikipedia knows a fair bit, but please patronize less obvious sources! Quora should stay current. The Economist toed the waters, so you know it must be very serious and worth your time. The Guardian digs, man. PBS has a Frontline video.

If lists of 10 are really the only viable marketing scheme on the internet today: A 2016 list on Gigwise . A list of historically significant Chinese rock songs. Another woefully incomplete list. Some unfounded pessimism.

My general complaint about most of these lists, chapters, and links is that they're not necessarily "about the music," and even when they are, they tend to favor a "winner takes all" promotional bent that in the West has perpetuated the moribund careers of classic rockers nowadays charging $100+ for reunion tours and giving rise to touring tribute acts, while virtually all other, more obscure but likely also more interesting music can hardly sustain a cross-country tour (or afford to produce another album) at their creative peaks. If the world is ready to embrace Chinese music, I hope it can handle more than a few artists and bands, neatly packaged for easy Western consumption! Supporting a great but less popular artist literally puts food on his/her table and stems the urge to give up and get a day job. Need examples? See the Manifestos 1, 2, 3.

MORE TOPICAL ARTICLES ABOUT MUSIC IN CHINA

http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-rock-adv-snap-story.html A pretty expansive summary of concert venues and festivals divided by sponsorship.

Wall Street Journal talks EDM biz in China

The Chinese are colonizing our children's taste in music!

MUSIC VENUES AND FESTIVALS IN CHINA

MAO Livehouse closed in Beijing Independent musicians' plight in Hong Kong

Midi Music Festival ModernSky Lab Strawberry Music Festival NPR on Pettis' D-22 & XP

Basically, check the websites below for places to see live music. I can't keep up with the openings and closings.

ENTERTAINMENT WEBSITES FOR CHINA

The Beijinger Shanghaiist eChinacities TimeOut Concert-specific: Beijingdaze

IF YOU CAN READ CHINESE OR WANT TO GOOGLE TRANSLATE THE GIST, TAKE IT FROM THE SOURCE!

Douban Be careful buying cds on Taobao; on more than one occasion the seller just sent a burned CD-R of what I ordered. A "musicians' service" site called YYQ. In Taiwan, this site appears official and very general.

Home Favorite Music Favorite Record Labels All-Time Favorites Sounds Portal Japan Korea SE Asia