For David Bowie’s 66th birthday, a song, to celebrate! And this, here, being a site concerned with the Chinese part of the planet, why not a Chinese song?
Author: admin
Revisiting Cui Jian
When I found, on my various internetty feeds, sources and whatnots, references to an interview conducted by VICE magazine of Chinese rocker number one, Cui Jian, my attention, like many other China-watchers and -blatherers, was piqued. After all, who isn’t constantly on the lookout for Western media mentions of Chinese rock and roll?
From a Shanghaiist link, the video made its way to newsgathering blog Beijing Cream, China Digital Times and to this post at the Washington Post‘s WorldViews blog. The Post‘s post includes my statement – which I’ve also trumpeted in the pages of Red Rock as well as over WNYC’s radio waves and at as many other platforms as is humanly possible – that Cui deserves to be considered for inclusion in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
(“We shall consider,” quoth the Rock Hall website’s induction process page, “factors such as an artist’s musical influence on other artists, length and depth of career and the body of work, innovation and superiority in style and technique, but musical excellence shall be the essential qualification of induction.” It’s not that, say, Heart, or any of the other 2013 inductees don’t deserve admission, it’s just that, well: Raise your hand if you’ve taught a billion people to rock? Anyone…?)
But I digress.
In addition to being piqued by the video interview making rounds, my attention also experienced deja vu, if one might be able to attribute the experience of deja vu to one’s attention. That was because I’d seen this video before, back in 2008, when VICE first posted it.
Kungfu-ing the Censors
The legacy of the 18th Party Congress, the massive governmental meeting whose most famous act saw the unveiling of the next generation of China’s leadership, lives on. Around Christmas-time, a good month-plus after the Party’s Party comes a video that ends the year with a bang.
An anti-censorship video riffing off of Cantopop (and international-pop) superstar Jay Chou‘s “Nunchucks” has been making the rounds. Fans of Chou, (and, perhaps, fans of Seth Rogan) may recognize the song from the film The Green Hornet, in which Chou co-starred; it is one of two of his contributions to the soundtrack. In the hands of photographer Gao Yuan, though, the tune takes a very different tack, beginning with its subtle title, “Censorship You Motherfucker Bitch.”
More For the Holidays…
On Xmas, 1998, as they generally did on most nights, Beijing punks flocked to the Scream Club. But this time, it was different. It was Christmas. And: There would be an album.
A Holiday Gift…
The Washington Post‘s “Ultimate Holiday Gift Guide” goes into yaogun, and China, territory, somewhat unexpectedly. Under the guise of that most unhelpful of musical genre names “world music,” the article drops Cui Jian as a good gift for the musically-inclined international news-watcher in your life. But there’s a but here: The author points folks toward the album of young rockers’ covers of Cui Jian tunes, and this author would suggest – insist, really – that folks go right to the source and forgo the cover album.
We’d also be quick to add that bundling any Cui Jian music with a copy of Red Rock is really the best way to get the whole yaogun holiday thing happening.
While this particular blogger would recommend skipping anything remotely related to the Maotai liquor also suggested on this list, we will heartily second the Lao Gan Ma chili sauce recommendation.