As the culture of the Greater Bay Area has gained widespread attention, Mango Station is also ready to hit the iron while it is hot and launch a "Hong Kong music version of I am a singer". This makes many people full of expectations! After all, the once prosperous Hong Kong music era carries the memories of generations, ah, two or thirty years later to revisit the classics, who does not like to hear it.
At that time, the Hong Kong music grand situation, it can really be said that the superstar gathering, the golden song is like the clouds, this is the most proud era in the history of chinese music; but in the 21st century, with the popularization of the Internet and the transparency of information, many talents have found out with hindsight that "we are all children who grew up listening to Japanese songs", because most of those Hong Kong music songs were covered from Japan.
Knowing the truth, we were suddenly a little depressed, and at this time, Jay Chou, who took the original as the big killer, came out of nowhere, just to fill the lack of pride in the Chinese music scene in many people's hearts. So Jay Chou quickly sealed the gods and led the Entire Chinese music scene in the 21st century.
In fact, in the Hong Kong music scene in the 1980s and 1990s, there was also a figure who could lead the times, but at that time, there was Japan, the "Hong Kong music back garden", his existence was not taken seriously at all, but was excluded, and eventually went to Japan to develop, and unfortunately died in a foreign country. This tragic character is Huang Jiaju, who is also a god-level figure in the Chinese music scene in the minds of many people today.
Let's first talk about why the Hong Kong music scene has a large number of cover Songs of Japanese songs.
In the end, it's two words – melody.
Yes, we can arrange our own music, we can fill in the words ourselves, but without a good melody, there is no birth of a song, and a good melody is also the root of a song that can be widely circulated. It is precisely the Japanese melody that is very outstanding, and there is a saying in the music circle called "melody in Japan, harmony in Europe, rhythm in Africa", which shows that Japanese musicians are indeed very unique in terms of melody. Japan was a very mature music market at the time, at least 10 years earlier than Hong Kong.
"A Thousand and One Songs", "Drifting Snow", "Later", "The Wind Continues to Blow", "Vulnerable Woman", "Moon And Half Serenade"... Which one doesn't win with a great melody. Although the Chinese version of the cover is different from the original Japanese version in terms of arrangement and lyrics, as soon as you listen to the melody, you can probably judge whether the song can be fired. Therefore, at that time, the rush to cover Japanese songs became the best shortcut for Hong Kong singers to become popular, and there was even a situation where two diva competed to sing a song.
In the era when cover songs were popular, it is not an exaggeration to say that "Michelle Nakajima has fed most of the Chinese music scene". Of course, Michelle Nakajima is just a representative, such as Koji Tamaki and so on.
But is the cover good or not?
To use a perhaps inappropriate analogy, the melody is like a mobile phone, a computer chip, or a car engine, and the lyrics we fill in ourselves are equivalent to non-core components such as shells. In terms of songwriting, we lack "core technology" and can only rely on imports, and then assemble them in Hong Kong for sale. But as long as it sold well and the market prospered, no one thought there was anything wrong with it at the time.
Of course, at that time, the Hong Kong music scene was not without good melody writers, but there were not many, such as Hui Guanjie, who laid a milestone in the Cantonese pop music scene with originality; gu Jiahui, a composer of the older generation, created a large number of classic film and television music; superstars such as Chen Baiqiang, Tan Yonglin and Zhang Guorong also had certain creative ability. Since the late 1980s, the BEYOND band with Wong Ka-ju as the core of creation has carried the banner of Hong Kong music originality without hesitation...
However, compared with the Hong Kong music scene full of singers, the local original "production capacity" is far in short supply, so it can only import Japanese melodies. It just so happens that the Japanese melody is well supplied and of excellent quality, which has become a natural back garden for the Hong Kong music scene. It is precisely because of this back garden in Japan that Hong Kong still needs to pay attention to originality? No, you don't. Will local songwriters and original singers and bands be treated with extra respect? No.
In this historical context, no one in the Hong Kong music scene cares about originality, and the biggest row of noodles will always belong only to idols.
And Huang Jiaju is just an "outlier" in this era and this circle, and his dedication to originality and the rejection of the idol hype atmosphere make him seem incompatible with everything in the entertainment industry. Angered, he mercilessly criticized "Hong Kong has no music scene, only entertainment industry"! This sounds deafening now, but not many people were alerted at that time, and many people may still think that he is just not red and sour enough.
Like Jay Chou, Huang Jiaju has a strong ability to create melodies, that is, one of the few people in the Chinese music scene who has mastered the "core technology" of popular music. Only when there are more such musicians and get attention can it be possible to change the passive situation of the melody relying on Japan, rather than relying on a few so-called "word gods" and "word saints".
But why is it that Jay Chou was able to lead the Chinese music scene in the 21st century, but Wong Jiaju failed to change the Hong Kong music scene in the 80s and 90s? This is the wrong time for Huang Jiaju's birth.
Before the 21st century, you can rely on cover Songs to nourish the entire Chinese music scene, from a short-term point of view, original musicians are dispensable, as long as a few lyricists can be; and after the 21st century, few people have covered Japanese songs, and cover songs are difficult to become popular. Since then, the original has been valued, the original singer has been greatly respected, not only Jay Chou, including Wang Lihong, Tao Zhe, Lin Junjie and other original singers have risen, ushering in the original spring of the Chinese music scene.
Just imagine, if Jay Chou was put into Huang Jiaju's Hong Kong music era, could he become the king of The Chinese language?
Think again, if Huang Jiaju was put into Jay Chou's era, would he still be so depressed? Will you still go away?
Hong Kong music scene to the peak and decline, this is not accidental, just like our technology industry is the same, there is no core technology, important components have been dependent on imports and do not pay attention to research and development, even if the current products sell well, do not have to be happy too early, there will always be a day when the neck is stuck.
Research and development is the foundation of science and technology, and originality is the root of popular music, when the "Wong Ka Koo" tried to defend this foundation for the Hong Kong music scene, but was ignored and excluded by the mainstream music scene. With their ability, they should have been musicians who led an era, but eventually became a "second-rate band lead singer" who "couldn't mix in Hong Kong and fell into Japan to eat". Coupled with fate, in the end, he became a victim of that era.
A few years after Wong Ka-koo's death, the short-sighted and arrogant Hong Kong music scene has finally reached a weakening position, is this not because of the evil consequences of only valuing idol culture and lacking original roots?
In the past 20 years, Cantonese songs have been increasingly marginalized, and through the "Cantonese Golden Melody List" of the music platform, we can probably see which Cantonese songs are still being sung. It is extremely ironic that BEYOND's works have accounted for nearly 10 in the top 50 of the list all year round, and 2-3 in the top 10, which is surprising!
This is the unpopular BEYOND and Huang Jiaju, who were abandoned by Hong Kong Music before they were born, and became Hong Kong Music noodles after their deaths, which is a unique contrast between life and death in the history of the Chinese music scene, which makes people infinitely sigh.