时间：2022-05-14 11:03:02
At 2 AM on August 12, as Chen Jiesi steps on stage at the Subland nightclub, a dark, noisy venue in the Friedrichshain zone of Berlin, neither she nor the roughly 500-strong peak-time crowd in front of her know quite what to make of one another. Not only is this 27-year-old Chen’s first time outside of China, she is also one of the first Chinese DJs ever to perform in this city, arguably the electronic music capital of the world.
“I think they booked me because having a Chinese person on the bill was a novelty for them. But after I’d finished, the promoters tried to book me for another show, and people wanted to take photos with me. They said I was the best performer that night,” said Chen, a neuroscience researcher at Sun Yat- sen Medical University in Guangzhou by day.
Summer 2012 has been something of a watershed for the more globally ambitious of China’s electronic dance music (EDM) DJs. Chen, or “DJ JCC,” is one of several to embark on a European tour in recent months. In mid-August, a “delegation” of the country’s top DJs visited Germany and Switzerland, with some of them performing at the Street Parade in Zurich, an annual outdoor party that this year saw an estimated attendance of 950,000.
Since EDM arrived in China’s big cities two decades ago, it has remained a decidedly “underground” affair, hidden away in obscure venues far from the country’s burgeoning mainstream nightlife culture. In the 1990s, while China’s rock bands were busy building the country’s most popular modern subculture, electronic music parties in Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou could scarcely attract enough people to cover their equipment rental costs.
Sound of the Underground
“It didn’t really grow very much in the early years, but we formed a very tight-knit group. The people who were around at the very beginning are now in their forties, but even now, they’re still there every weekend, pushing the culture forward,” said Miao Wong, founder of Acupuncture Records, one of China’s first EDM record labels. The dozen past and present members of Wong’s Beijing-based stable of DJs and producers have been involved in almost every electronic music-related project in China’s history.
With the advent of the Internet, more Chinese youth began to explore different styles of music, and over the past two decades, the gatherings have gradually grown from a few dozen people to several hundred. Parties have moved from dive bars into respected live music venues, purpose-built nightclubs, converted factories and dedicated outdoor festivals.
“Back when we first started, if you grabbed someone on the street and asked them what a DJ was, they wouldn’t have known,” said Wong. “Nowadays, most people in cities are aware of the concept, even if they’re not electronic music fans themselves.”
Gradually, fans of “alternative” music styles in China are becoming exposed to EDM, and getting involved in their local music scenes. “Because of how quickly technology is developing, it’s now very easy to start making electronic music,” said Howie Lee, a 27-year-old full-time EDM producer from Beijing. Having released several songs on both domestic and foreign record labels this year, Lee is perhaps China’s most promising electronic music artist.
With a degree in sound engineering, Lee had something of a head start on the competition. However, he argues that these days, getting started in the music business isn’t as hard as it used to be: “It’s not like playing a traditional instrument, where you might need to practice for ten years before you can get up and perform. With electronic music, all you need is a computer and an idea. It’s incredibly easy for young Chinese people to put down their video games and start exploring their own sound.”
However, Lee admits that at least in the short term, Chinese electronic musicians may be limited by their artistic boundaries:“In China, the education system doesn’t encourage creativity. Some children learn piano for 10 years without ever thinking that they could write music for themselves. And of those who do make electronic music, most just copy Western styles, rather than trying to create a Chinese style,” added Lee.
Even those who develop a marketable product have little chance of making it big in their home country in China, being a music producer is an even riskier career choice than it is in the West. With music sales plummeting due to online piracy, China’s EDM world has effectively given up on making money from selling MP3s, and most producers rely on fees from often-restrictive performances in mainstream nightclubs. Many, Lee included, choose to make their music available to download for free online, simply to raise their profile.
“When I tour around China, I often play in big clubs,” said Li Man, a flamboyant Chinese producer who performs wearing a headdress made of glow-sticks, “but while the crowds are huge, there will only occasionally be one or two people there who came because they like my music.”
Increasingly, however, Chinese electronic musicians are finding ways of making a living without straying too far from music production. “The producers with the most talent and the best connections can now get high-paying jobs making movie soundtracks, doing sound design for advertisements, or producing songs for pop singers,” said Chen Jiesi.
On a larger scale, the development of EDM culture faces a more daunting obstacle. While China now sees dozens of largescale electronic music events every year, bureaucratic interference is commonplace. In May this year, Acupuncture Records’ annual 10,000-strong outdoor festival, INTRO, was forced to change its location with less than 24 hours to go.
“Our application for a license to hold the event in 798 [an art district near Beijing’s city center] was rejected at the last minute. We got approval from the Ministry of Culture, but not from the Public Security Bureau, so we had to move the party to a vacation park near the city limits,” said Miao Wong.
Electronomics
Still, despite the jitteriness of China’s authorities when it comes to independent arts, some still see long-term commercial potential in China’s EDM industry. 27-year-old Frenchman Max Bureau has been involved in the independent music scenes in Beijing and Shanghai since his arrival in China in 2005. Having run several successful “underground”electronic music nightclubs in Beijing, his latest venue, Haze, is attracting a wealthier, more mature breed of Chinese consumer to the world of electronic music, right in the middle of Beijing’s CBD.
A clean, fashionable club with just a hint of an “underground” motif, Haze hosts one or two well-known international DJs per month, as well as the cream of the local crop. In contrast to the grungy crowds that tended to frequent his previous businesses, Bureau is attempting to change EDM’s image in China with the use of subtle gentrification.
“A lot of cosmopolitan, white-collar Chinese workers like to go out at night, but some of them are getting tired of the seedy mainstream nightclubs, so they come over to Haze. Most of them are new to this kind of music, but they keep coming back, and they have money to spend.”
While Bureau stops short of predicting that EDM could ever become part of China’s mainstream music culture, he believes there is room for development: “We’re seeing more and more small venues like ours popping up, and investors are interested in our product. It definitely has the potential to become something big here.”
For Miao Wong, however, the objective has never been actively to convert Chinese music fans to EDM. “All we’ve ever tried to do is to create opportunities for young Chinese people to hear electronic music, or to experience one of our events. There could be millions of potential electronic music fans all over China, but if they never hear it, they’ll never know. We just want to let people know that this culture exists, and let them decide for themselves whether or not they like it.”