#14: January 2022

the best Mandopop of the month from GG LONG XIA's pivot to hyperpop to karaoke throwback to a celebratory homecoming

Ironically, last year’s biggest song outside of the biggest Mandopop market is banned inside of it. Currently at just over 40 million views on Youtube, the momentum of Namewee and Kimberley’s “Fragile” just kept building as soon as news outlets heard it was banned by China, just two days after its release. Within just a week it had already surpassed 10 million views, topping charts of Mandarin-speaking regions like Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore and reaching top ten positions elsewhere, including home countries of Malaysia (Namewee) and Australia (Kimberley) as well as New Zealand and Canada.

From its Youtube description, “Fragile” is described as a “romantic and sweet love song full of pink” but cautions “overly sensitive people please be careful!” It’s not hard to peek into the satire and see the symbols that reference current Chinese issues: a reference to the firewall for Chinese censorship, pineapples in regards to Taiwan’s political independence, and cotton in reference to the human rights violations in Xinjiang province. It’s a direct shot against the Chinese government and its supporters, the reference to Winnie the Pooh alone probably enough to have Namewee and Kimberley scrubbed from Chinese internet, to have their Weibo accounts deleted and douban respond with an automated: “according to relevant laws, regulations and policies, search results cannot be displayed.”

“Fragile” actually manages to play pretty well to Namewee’s strengths. There’s a levity to its bouncy playfulness that emphasizes its false sincerity and cynicism. Namewee continues his whole schtick, while Kimberley seems to revert back to the overly cutesy style she performed in prior to joining ChynaHouse. Yet while most of the song manages to stay on task at being critical of the Chinese government, “Fragile” ends up making the same mistake so much other media does about Chinese people, writing a line about “dogs, cats, bats, and civets.” Namewee’s management dresses it up as being “just want[ing] to express love for small animals” but the reference is clear. It’s the same racist joke you hear time and time again about dogs and the new one parroted by the media that blamed Chinese citizens for the pandemic. It groups all of China as one, as if the Chinese goverment represents all the intentions and attitudes of every single person and vice-versa. And it’s a joke that’s led to so much harm in the past year, casting a shadow of disingenuity on the rest of “Fragile.”

In the aftermath of “Fragile,” the pair have found ways to make the whole thing feel cheaper, both remaining hush-hush about its meaning and instead, letting the media interpret its symbols. Kimberley provides coy and shallow responses that make cheap statements of censorship, while Namewee almost walks back parts of it, refusing to comment on independence for Hong Kong and Taiwan but giving a vague “I will definitely stand with freedom and democracy.” He ends up cashing in on “Fragile,” selling it for millions as an NFT, the internet’s current get-rich scam. By that end, “Fragile” feels meaningless, its issues too easily discarded by the pair, its harmful joke just another racist portrayal, and Namewee another strategic controversy ahead, trading the potential of the Chinese market for further global attention.

The rest of this issue is more optimistic about Mandopop, with the popstar turn from electronic artist GG LONG XIA as well as singles from Wu Jiacheng with Ji Jihe, IVAN, and A-Lin. You can also check out more from the past month from the Spotify playlist here.

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Albums

GG LONG XIA - 54088

What goes into a name? When he was making abrasive electronic music, GG LONG XIA (the romanization of GG龙虾) went by GG LOBSTER (the translation of GG龙虾). He released Stars of Turmoil in 2020, a short collection of deconstructed club tracks in their homeplace, with beats that rebounded from its walls with metallic clangs in the airy atmosphere that let its melodies swirl. Like other FunctionLab artists, he pulled from various electronic scenes, yet central to Stars of Turmoil was his Chinese identity; its press release identifies the rhythmic patterns of the traditional Chinese lion dance but you can also hear traditional Chinese drums across “Sweet Harbor.” His music captured his Chinese identity and the name GG LOBSTER seemed to provide an edge for international listeners interested in China’s burgeoning deconstructed club scene.

Now in 2022, LONG XIA is still making music that exists at the fringes. But where Stars of Turmoil kept its secrets in the confines of a basement club, 54088 deigns to be pedestalled on the mainstream stage. Hyperpop opposes much of what Mandopop stands for: where Mandopop holds the singer as the star with its simple emotive melodies, hyperpop pushes the artist onto a moving platform, its chaotic production constantly bombarding you with noise. Yet both adhere to similar ideas of what it allows, LONG XIA using the hyperpop stage for complete emotional freedom, the ability to celebrate without limits, to wax poetic about the diamonds in your eyes, to process the bitter end of a relationship.

LONG XIA is constantly running ideas by you, flooding his dancefloor with sound effects like the sirens and notifications or the seagull squawks of closer “crystal.” He experiments until he bores, twisting tracks at a moment’s notice like on “半永久温柔” (“Semi-Permanent Tenderness”), where the beat comes to a sudden halt only to return in a sedated lucid haze. “poleheart” briefly lifts through its key change, its music trying to lift LONG XIA to combat his attempts to return to the past. “boom boom babe” features not one, but two breakbeat sections spliced into his euphoria, settled in different ways: once thrown in immediately at its start like a spark, the second worked in gradually as he attempts to temper his pain, crying in the autotune as the speed picks back up. “I found a job for you but you secretly dated a rapper. What did you take me as?” he asks as he’s thrown back into its quick pace, the bitterness swallowed in the comfort of the dancefloor. Its production attempts to guide LONG XIA back to safety.

While 54088 spends its time on the dancefloor, it abandons the rhythms and instrumentation that made Stars of Turmoil Chinese. Instead, LONG XIA presents an album that captures his Western influences. “Kitty Protects His Rich Friend” initially sounds like early 2000s Britney Spears gradually being sped up until it’s replaced with him lost in the rave. In the stretch from “luv2k” to “crystal,” LONG XIA pulls from digicore and is drowned in his own production, flattened by the layer of autotune, static beats and glassy sound effects, his sincere desire to be close to another now challenged by the irony of his production.

So what goes into a name? Where GG LOBSTER made music influenced by traditional Chinese patterns, GG LONG XIA makes music that seems distinctly marked by a result of being terminally online. Dance music is still core to his sound but 54088 feels directed to a different audience. Rather than attempt to stand out in the Chinese deconstructed club scene, 54088 feels like an attempt to bring hyperpop to Chinese audiences. The switch to the transliterated name, the mention that he’s “the unruly boy from Hangzhou”—it all feels like it’s ready to build a new online landscape within China where pop music can be filled with rapid turns and blaring sound effects and still express the purest emotions.

Find it on streaming here: Bandcamp // Apple Music // Spotify

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Singles

Wu Jiacheng & Ji Jiahe - “溫差”

As retro styling continues to gain popularity, artists are pulling more from synthwave and city-pop, but also looking towards their own locale’s past to shape their sounds. “温差” (“Temperature Difference”) might have some of the trendy sound of city-pop in the neat arrangement of twinkling lights that build to its chorus but it feels like it draws more from KTV, and not just in its video’s aesthetic. Wu and Ji don’t attempt to modernize the sensibilities of a classic karaoke duet, instead, leaving it to sound dated in a way that makes it feel timeless, like the pair are trawling not just through climate but through time to see another. Their voices smoothly fit together, meeting only a couple of times in its early moments to persuade each other that the love is worth savouring despite their differences: “let’s enjoy sweet conflict,” they sing in harmony. In its final moments, “温差” finds them together, launching into karaoke stage belts and sweet sweet harmony, savouring in a moment that’s longer than forever, in a private booth that’s bigger than the galaxy.

IVAN - “21HOMEBOYZ (feat. AcRoss, AW, PIZZALI, Vigoz Chen)”

“21HOMEBOYZ” works opposite to the various cyphers coming out of the Taiwanese rap scene, relaxing the format’s competitive spirit. Its beat moves in response to them rather than the reverse, adding a kick when AcRoss takes over from IVAN or stripping away the summery sheen on Vigoz Chen’s verse as he raps about being a savage who “brings back L.O.V.E. to the city.” Together, the five former classmates rap to follow the paths back to their hometown, trading lines on one of the final verses as they finish one another’s memories, repping Taichill city as a sort of inside joke, and labelling themselves the “homeboys 21.” Twenty-one becomes the golden age, the last before their paths diverged and where future meetings like “21HOMEBOYZ” hold the bittersweet feeling of coming home.

A-Lin - “ROMADIW”

When ABAO won Album of the Year at the 2020 Golden Melody Awards, it wasn’t exactly unprecedented—Sangpuy had previously won the award with an Aboriginal language album and ABAO’s vavayan had won for Best Aboriginal Album back in 2017—yet it felt like it sparked a new conversation around Aboriginal music in Taiwan. kinakaian sounded distinctly modern, a mix of electronic and dance sounds that veered away from the traditional and since then, she’s gone on to use her win to allow modern Indigenous music to branch out—on last year’s Nanguaq No. 1 compilation, young Indigenous artists were given the space to perform in various styles.

But “ROMADIW” (“Let’s Sing Together”) represents the other side of what ABAO accomplished, using music as a bridge to reconnect with her own culture and connect listeners with it. While mostly in Mandarin, “ROMADIW” heavily embraces the sound of Amis culture, underscored with its opening chants. It bridges modern elements with traditional Indigenous ones, levelling a trap beat with a funky drum breakdown after the chorus, accompanied by laughter. Like ABAO’s “1-10,” which taught its audience to count in Paiwanese, A-Lin brings you into the harvest festival, guiding you through what she believes to be one of the essentials of Amis culture. From there, the sections of “ROMADIW” build to community, its pre-chorus soaring into a chorus that commands you to chant along and its post-chorus moving you to dance alongside.

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Find the latest Canto Wrap and Mando Gap playlists on Spotify and me on Twitter here. If you’re looking for selections from last year’s playlists, I’ve made an archive of them here.