#5: April 2021
#5: April 2021
the best Mandopop of the month from Jiao Mai Qi's shapeshifting pop song to globe-jumping rap to vocal-bending R&B
The Chinese term for pop music, 流行音乐, is used to refer to both music that is pop music and music that is popular. It’s interesting that something so heavily debated in the English domain is summarized by an all-encompassing term, not used interchangeably, but comprehensively. That’s the definition I’ll stick with, that Mandopop is “pop performed in Mandarin.” And with that, the loosest definition of what it means to be pop music, music at the forefront of anyone’s consciousness. It’s a pretty loose definition and yet, I’ll still probably cheat, cover things that aren’t quite pop, things that may not be completely Mandarin.
There’s a lot of debate over the use of terms when covering the dimensions of Chinese-pop or C-pop, and getting into them often involves examining the political and how that political has shaped the genre. For this issue, I wanted to give some context into how Mandopop has developed, focusing on how Mandopop fits under the umbrella of C-pop. If you are interested in getting a richer perspective into the history of the Mandopop scene, I’ll defer to Gwenyth Cheng’s piece published earlier this year in Kontinentalist that goes into greater detail.
When people talk about C-pop they could be referring to so many things: are they referring to music coming from mainland China only? Are they referring to music coming from the broader Sinosphere, including regions where Chinese is a primary language, like Hong Kong, Macau, Malaysia, Singapore, and Taiwan? Or are they referring only to music in the Chinese language?
For the most part, I’ve seen people use C-pop for a very specific definition, the sub-scene of idol music coming from mainland China. It can be difficult to define the genre due to political conflicts between the countries within the broad Sinosphere, but at its broadest, C-pop can capture so many sub-scenes, pop music across so many languages, the two biggest being Mandopop and Cantopop (pop performed in Cantonese). Sometimes, listeners have even used C-pop to refer to Hokkien-pop (pop performed in Hokkien), a genre that’s mostly localized to Taiwan.
Much like these definitions, the history of C-pop is deeply rooted in politics. Trends in popularity between Mandopop versus Cantopop are rooted in political reasons. The declaration of Mandopop as “pornographic” by the Chinese government stalled its growth in the 1950s and was largely responsible for a shift in the industry from Shanghai to Hong Kong, in turn, responsible for a rise in Cantopop. But things turned back in the favour of Mandopop for a couple of reasons: the rising uptake of Mandarin language due to the government’s declaration of Mandarin as a standard language, the establishment of Taiwan’s Mandopop and campus folk scenes, and the transfer of Hong Kong from the United Kingdom to China. The ascent of Mandopop within China has been slow but dominating.
The history of C-pop that I’ve brought up brings two important points: a) that the origins and definitions of the genre are heavily political; and b) that Mandopop exists under the umbrella of C-pop, finding homes for other genres defined by language like Cantopop, all of which are constantly converging and diverging. There are differences in what reigns popular, the direction that each genre has taken, but despite these distinctions, artists like Faye Wong have gone on to produce music under both labels, effectively blurring lines between these genres. To me, these are important factors in understanding why Mandopop, and all of C-pop, function differently from genres defined by a language restricted to one specific region. Check out the best of April:
Albums
sis - Dancing Liquor (EP)
Perhaps you’ve heard of sis. Earlier this year, they collaborated with Hatsune Miku, the infinitely famous virtual Japanese idol, and last year, they were featured on Latvian DJ tobu’s “Sunset.” Surface-level descriptions perhaps make the trio sound artificial, but there’s a humanity that seeps through each track, the joy that bursts into “Sunset” and the way their sorrow combats Hatsune Miku’s artifice. Dancing Liquor leans into that humanity.
In Dancing Liquor, sis fit a coming-of-age story in three tracks. You could line it up with cinematic parallels—“Sunset Goodbye” opens with a line about “walking down on a California beach” over an acoustic guitar that feels like every piece of media I’ve ever watched about the West Coast—but you can also view it more broadly, three tracks about the in-between. sis trace the insecurities, rebellion, and friendships of being not a girl, not yet a woman. The dance of “Dancing Liquor” is their own route, not the drunken rave of the EDM-dancefloor nor is it the tightly choreographed version of idols. Instead, it’s a counter-clearing movement just to dance on top of the bar. They’re dancing for themselves, having the time of their lives working each other up, not for your attention. For sis, friendship amplifies the joy while making the insecurity feel a little lighter, the trio’s voices cutting through the hustle and bustle of life.
Find it on streaming here: Youtube (unofficial)
Dough-Boy - POWER
POWER feels like a world tour. Not that there’s anything stadium-like about the album, but rather that Dough-Boy is constantly jumping from city to city, catching up with different friends. There’s Pressa, who like Dough-Boy grew up in Canada, the two rapping about the cool chill of Canada, surface-level remarks about the things they remember. There’s the bubbly, silly, Michigan rapper Lil Yachty. And appearances from more, Mongolian trap artist Ginjin, Malaysian rapper Joe Flizzow, Chinese-born American-based rapper Bohan Phoenix, all before landing back home in Hong Kong with his old friends and some of his closest collaborators.
Dough-Boy is constantly bouncing off others that it becomes a bit difficult to nail him down. That’s not really the point. Instead, POWER seems to function like a Spotify mix, a point of introduction to some of Dough-Boy’s friends and current inspirations. Vinida practically steals the show on “Friends” while Bohan Phoenix delves into his own story before Dough-Boy gets a chance on “Back Then.” “So Cold” might as well be a billboard that reads “check out my friend Ginjin!”
POWER might seem all over the place, but what holds it together is Dough-Boy’s recognizable voice, constantly sounding like he’s on the edge of something hilarious, like he’s about to tell you what he thinks might just be one of the funniest punchlines he’s ever heard. That energy’s probably matched closest by Lil Yachty, the pair meeting in the middle to deliver gleeful verses, a track filled to the brim with joy. But elsewhere, Dough-Boy is molding himself into other artists’ styles. Sometimes, it doesn’t quite hit the mark. The pensive “Please You” featuring American pop band WHATEVER WE ARE sounds more schmaltzy, Dough-Boy sounding like more like a Christian rapper than any other personality. More often though, it’s entertaining—the way Dough-Boy works off Ginjin on “So Cold” is comical with an almost unhinged quality.
Truthfully, POWER isn’t a Mandopop album. Dough-Boy mostly raps in English, only occasionally in Cantonese. Instead, it’s connected to Mandopop only by virtue of its features. Taiwanese rapper Barry Chen lifts Dough-Boy out of his croon on opener “Prove,” while Vinida delivers her most blasé performance on what’s essentially her own interlude. Karencici is responsible for the entire project’s strongest hook on “Do Your Thing” with Masiwei, perhaps the closest thing you’ll find to any Mandopop scene. It also isn’t quite really a Cantopop album either, it’s a hip-hop one whose global-mindedness allows it to float in and out of scenes, one-minute Mongolian trap, the next, bubbly American rap. POWER feels like a demonstration of the permeability of the Mandopop and Cantopop scenes, especially in the rap sub-scenes. As for Dough-Boy, while POWER might do little to define him, there’s freedom in his path forward. Perhaps Dough-Boy might just make that pop-punk album he’s been dreaming about.
Find it on streaming here: Apple Music // Spotify
Singles: “Prove (feat. Barry Chen)" // “Mama (feat. Lil Yachty)” // “Canada Breeze (feat. Pressa)” // “So Cold (feat. Ginjin)” // “Zoo (feat. Joe Flizzow)”
Singles
SHOU - “FEEL”
I like songs that surprise you, songs that do away with that final chorus, flipping the atmosphere into something else. And I like songs about summer, but sometimes, I prefer the summer song that sounds the way summer actually feels: humid and lazy. And most recently, I like songs that tell you to be a little nicer to yourself, that you deserve things that sometimes you thought you didn’t. “FEEL” combines that all, a sticky hook that calls you baby and tells you to “just give yourself a chance,” a sluggish atmosphere that morphs into something thrilling and dizzying, SHOU confronting something he avoided, like flipping into the pool after spending all day lazing on the float.
Marz23 - “Fight with the Demon (feat. Goater)”
A pop-punk piece that packs a hefty punch in its chorus, and creates a nice contrast between Marz23’s heavier blend of singing, speaking, and shouting and Goater’s lighter and loopier voice. Marz23 knows that pop-punk should still be fun, no matter the tempo and no matter the subject matter.
Tia Ray - “I’m Not Good”
At the end of the track, everything gets heavier. Rain leads to thunder, the answering machine cuts in, and Tia Ray changes her story from the rehearsed “baby I’m not good” to a less confident “maybe not.” The lead-up is her spiral, a serene piano ballad, with Tia Ray constantly bending her voice, attempting to build the confidence to voice that one phrase. You can trace how each chorus means something a little bit different to her, the fragility of the first, the pause between the words “not” and “good” on the second, and the howl of the last.
Fang Wu - “Not My Fault”
“Not My Fault” comes with snarling intensity. Even as Fang Wu does what she can to smooth it down—slurring her syllables downplaying the guilty party’s blame—the percussive guitar arrangement manages to create the distance she desires between her and a man who can’t understand how a woman’s kindness isn’t a woman’s seduction. So much of it reminds me of Alanis Morisette’s Jagged Little Pill, sharp and piercing, especially in those background yelps and that soaring lilt in the final line.
Jiao Mai Qi - “3189”
The concept is simple. A galloping clip-clop beat and the fact that Jiao Mai Qi can’t sleep. What follows is a bunch of twists and turns, “3189” never happy with stasis or repeating itself, always finding a new idea to latch onto. It steps outside of the acoustic arrangements of his last album, going for something more adventurous: spoken-word, vocal effects, and Siri’s speech-to-text. It’s attention-consuming, the same way every thought feels at 2 AM.
So here are ten of the best moments ranked:
10) [3:56] “OK good night” the way the syllables fit into the beat at the end of the track like a slurred artificial spoken word, sleep fighting the temptation to worry about missing homework and other deadlines
9) [3:01] “in my dreams, foxes don’t eat sheep,” a call-back to an earlier lyric about Mary and her little lamb but also a line that establishes Jiao’s innocence and whimsicality
8) [1:19] the static fuzz between the lines “give me back my sleep” and “hey Mary, do you know Siri?” the dead space like sleep and Mary’s knowledge of Siri the latest fixation that requires it to be abandoned
7) [1:49] “Mary Had a Little Lamb” tied to the tune of “London Bridge”
6) [2:11] “one… six, seven, nine, eight, two”—how quickly Jiao Mai Qi gives up counting sheep just to launch back into a new tune
5) [2:29] which leads into singing the line “dream walk into the next century with you,” his vocals drown out into something buoyant and spacey, like all the possibilities you could dream up at 2 AM
4) [1:57] “Mary Had a Little Lamb” turning into “Mary Had a Big Bad Wolf” the same reinterpretation of “London Bridge” but flipped into a rock arrangement, like a brief scream of frustration when sleep evades you
3) [0:45] the “no no no”s flipping into “yes yes yes,” and Jiao Mai Qi ditching the spoken word to sing for the first time in the track, his voice highlighted with a backing harmony
2) [3:17] “yāng yáng yǎng yàng 洋洋得意 (yáng yáng dé yì) / yì yì 异想天开 (yì xiǎng tiān kāi),” those four tones instantly recognizable to anyone who spent at least one of their Sundays in Chinese school, linked by two phrases which mean “to be immensely pleased with oneself” and “to imagine the wildest thing”—you can imagine the grin on his face
1) [3:24] when Jiao Mai Qi launches into the monologue, words no longer perfectly sectioned out, but his heart racing over that flute tune, like the climax of every romantic drama—but this isn’t a romantic drama, this is about him, and he shouts “do you know? I still haven’t had been splendid yet. Give me back my splendor!” before quickly backing off once again, because this also isn’t a drama at all, just a string of imagined scenarios, another infinitely charming moment buried among a series of other charming moments
Find the Mando Gap playlist on Spotify here and me on Twitter here.