Synopses & Reviews
This is the most comprehensive study to date of the rich popular music scene in contemporary China. Focusing on the city of Beijing and drawing upon extensive fieldwork,
China's New Voices shows that during the 1980s and 1990s, rock and pop music, combined with new technologies and the new market economy, have enabled marginalized groups to achieve a new public voice that is often independent of the state. Nimrod Baranovitch analyzes this phenomenon by focusing on three important contexts: ethnicity, gender, and state politics. His study is a fascinating look at the relationship between popular music in China and broad cultural, social, and political changes that are taking place there.
Baranovitch's sources include formal interviews and conversations conducted with some of China's most prominent rock and pop musicians and music critics, with ordinary people who provide lay perspectives on popular music culture, and with others involved in the music industry and in academia. Baranovitch also observed recording sessions, concerts, and dance parties, and draws upon TV broadcasts and many publications in Chinese about popular music.
keywords: Ethnicity
Review
and#8220;
Sonic Multiplicities is an intriguing study of pop culture that doesnand#8217;t take North America as its starting point and yet does not avoid analysis of political or cultural forms of dominance that affect and, indeed, produce these forms of and#8220;globalisedand#8221; pop commodities. The authors are particularly attentive to the formation and production of both the national and diasporic subject, consistently grounding these subjects in temporal and spatial circumstances, especially or even when these circumstances are stable, shifting, or ambivalent. It manages to trouble notions of a radical or emancipatory potential in pop culture without demeaning either the cultural workers or the consumersand#8212;indeed, recognising that subjects and producers of popular culture using the internet as a platform are most often both.and#8221;
Review
"Full of fascinating detail, but its importance lies most of all in its resistance to the ascendancy of discourse centred around the allegedly irrevocable rise of China."
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. 291-309) and index.
Synopsis
Through the lens of popular music in and from Hong Kong,
Sonic Multiplicities examines the material, ideological, and geopolitical implications of music production and consumption. Yiu Fai Chow and Jeroen de Kloet draw on rich empirical research and industry experience to trace the worldwide flow of popular culture and the people who produce and consume it. In doing so, the authors make a significant contribution to our understanding of the political and social roles such circulation plays in todayandrsquo;s worldandmdash;and in a city under cultural threat in a country whose prominence is on the rise. Just as important, they clear a new path for the study of popular music.
About the Author
Nimrod Baranovitch is Lecturer in Chinese Culture and Society in the Department of East Asian Studies at Haifa University and Research Fellow at the Harry S. Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
List of Figures and Table
Introduction: Sonic Multiplicities
and#160;and#160;and#160; Sonic disappearances
and#160;and#160;and#160; What is going on?
and#160;and#160;and#160; Overview
1. Me and the Dragon:and#160;A Lyrical Engagement with the Politics of Chineseness
and#160;and#160;and#160; Nationalistic songs
and#160;and#160;and#160; Another approach
and#160;and#160;and#160; Re-nationalization I: Descendants of the dragon
and#160;and#160;and#160; Re-nationalization II: Home and nation
and#160;and#160;and#160; Re-nationalization III: Performing acts (i)andmdash;writing against the grain
and#160;and#160;and#160; Re-nationalization IV: Performing acts (ii)andmdash;writing with aand#160; twist
and#160;and#160;and#160; Shoot the dragon
2.and#160; The Production of Locality in Global Popandmdash;A comparative Study of Pop Fans in the Netherlands and Hong Kong
and#160;and#160;and#160; Introduction
and#160;and#160;and#160; Globalization: A sense of locality
and#160;and#160;and#160; Fandom: On fans of local stars
and#160;and#160;and#160; Methodology
and#160;and#160;and#160; Production of locality: The linguistic and the heroic
and#160;and#160;and#160; Production of locality: The social, the charitable and the personal
and#160;and#160;and#160; Conclusion
3. Blowing in the China Wind: Engagements with Chineseness in Hong Kongandrsquo;s Zhongguofeng Music Videos
and#160;and#160;and#160; Destabilizing Chineseness
and#160;and#160;and#160; Feminizing Chineseness
and#160;and#160;and#160; Whither China Wind?
4. Sex, Morality and Cantopop
and#160;and#160;and#160; Picture Gate
and#160;and#160;and#160; The Edison Chen scandal
and#160;and#160;and#160; The Confucian cum Victorian ethics and the spirit of global capitalism
and#160;and#160;and#160; Spectacle and image
and#160;and#160;and#160; Eye see you as I see you
and#160;and#160;and#160; Coda
5. Building Memoriesandmdash;A Study of Pop Venues in Hong Kong
and#160;and#160;and#160; Fluid sounds
and#160;and#160;and#160; Monumental buildings
and#160;and#160;and#160; Building memories
and#160;and#160;and#160; The Coliseum
and#160;and#160;and#160; Belonging and temporality
6. Olympic Celebrations and Performative Contestations
and#160;and#160;and#160; The conservative and the performative
and#160;and#160;and#160; Welcome to Olympic Beijing
and#160;and#160;and#160; Performing Olympic China from Hong Kong
and#160;and#160;and#160; Shanghai also welcomes you!
and#160;and#160;and#160; Criticality and popular culture
7. Music, Desire and the Transnational Politics of Chineseness: Following Diana
and#160;and#160;and#160; Following Diana
and#160;and#160;and#160; Diasporic hope: Rewriting migration narrative
and#160;and#160;and#160; Musical hope: Rewriting modernity narrative
and#160;and#160;and#160; Methodological endnote
Bibliography
Index