This time last year, New York Times music writer Ben Sisario came to China for a couple of weeks, returned home, and wrote two articles in the Times about China’s music scene. You can find the articles here and here. The articles were well written (as you’d expect), accurate and touched on most of the important events and people of recent times. I read the article, enjoyed the fact that the music industry in China was being spotlighted by such an important publication, then promptly forgot about it.
Last week, my partner came across an interview with Mr. Sisario written after SXSW on something called the Beta Blog. You can read the article in full here. I can’t find out anything about Andy Beta, but I found the interview interesting in a “I’ve-visited-China-for-5-minutes-and-understand-everything-about-it’s-music-scene” kind of way.
To give the guy credit, he gets a lot of it right, but he makes some pretty crass statements:
- throughout the ’90s other factors like the scarcity of imported records and the lack of a basic music infrastructure (venues, instruments, studios) kept it in a retarded state. (ouch!)
- The absence of new ideas in Chinese rock is partly due to a lack of confidence among the musicians (I’ve seen some pretty confident Chinese musicians over the last 24 months and there are quite a few demonstrating a myriad of new ideas, at least as many relative to the number of musicians as the US)
My own personal bugbear, on the other hand, was this wonderfully ill-thought out and frankly quite insulting little number:
- Westerners also bear some responsibility for the arrested development of Chinese rock. There is a large expat community in Beijing — and also in Shanghai and elsewhere — that has supplied the scene with many of its club owners, booking agents, artist managers, record label honchos, journalists and assorted hypemongers. These people provide guidance, pay for recording sessions, book tours, and have a hand in most other aspects of a band’s development and marketing, such as it is. They didn’t create the sound of Chinese rock, but they’re helping to keep it static
A word to the wise, Ben. Being one of the afore-mentioned Westerners and having lived and breathed the Chinese music industry for 3 years straight, plus knowing many people who have been doing that for a lot longer than me, I would refute this statement entirely and will forthwith try and defend our dubious honour. You are right: there is a group of Westerners here trying to make it big in the Chinese music industry and some of us are avaricious, culturally insensitive and here to make as much money as quickly as possible. On the other hand, the vast majority are working hard to build an infrastructure that is sorely lacking (a fact you refer to in your interview). We are giving more to the Chinese music industry in terms of blood, sweat and knowledge than many would imagine, and we do it without any immediate or even long term indication that there will ever be any payback. We do it because we love being here on the edge, helping to do something truly groundbreaking. We could be mired in a world of mediocrity, bureaucracy and interest groups at home, but we choose to deal with the inconveniences of living in China (pollution, overcrowding, language difficulties and cultural divides amongst others) in the hope of perhaps doing something a little bit special.
As in many of the industries here (banking, IT, architecture to name just a couple), we Westerners, as beneficiaries of centuries of education and freedom of information in our home countries, come to China with a wealth of knowledge that just isn’t readily available here. Even a 25 year old that has attended the odd festival back home becomes an expert here in China relative to the local music fan, who has only had access to mass gatherings as recently as this millennia. Thus, those with a bit of prior experience in a developed music industry can share this knowledge and help the scene in China to progress.
As is so often the case, the Chinese learn fast and work hard. They quickly develop systems and technologies that take from the West, but adapt to the local market, and many thrive. As examples, see the newly de rigeur social networking platform Kaixin001 or Aigo’s range of excellent MP3 players. I have no doubt that as soon as the seeds of profitability are sown in the music market here, the big entertainment companies will move in and dominate, but these same Westerners who are “arresting development” here, are actually building the blocks on which the Chinese music industry will one day sit.
The interview finishes well and in general, I find myself warming to the guy. I just leave wondering who he met when he was in Beijing and why did these Westerners leave him with such a sour taste in his mouth?