From the Fringes to the Mainstream--New Taiwanese Music Booming

With the economy in a slump and the pirating of music rampant, Taiwan's record companies have been cutting fewer albums. These companies used to release at least 600 albums a year, but last year released only about 300 Mandarin albums and 60 Taiwanese albums. The market is in crisis, and record companies have been making huge cuts in their staffs to keep themselves afloat.

In spite of the recession, Wang Tsu-shou, a senior reporter with the Min Sheng Daily, says that if you know where to look, pop music is still alive and well. He notes that while fewer than 400 pop music albums were released last year, more than 400 albums competed for this year's Golden Melody Award. These "mystery records" have been distributed through non-traditional channels, such as through the Internet or at concerts, and demonstrate that Taiwan's music scene is still very much alive. Most of the albums currently attracting a lot of attention are recorded in dialect and have an experimental feel, such as the Hakkanese hip hop of Liu Shao-hsi or the work of the Labor Exchange Band, which had its origins in social activism. Musicians such as these are carrying on the revolution in dialect music started by the Taiwanese songs of the 1980s.

"Going wild"

Sociologists refer to the 1980s as the golden age for social activism in Taiwan. The issues raised by the Nativist Literature Debate, which began under martial law, were raised again in street protests. Debate raged over questions of class, gender, the environment and the treatment of aboriginals, and a "Taiwanese consciousness" began to take form. Ten years of activism culminated in the 1989 release of Blacklist Workshop's Songs for Going Wild album, which started a renaissance in Taiwanese music and brought a new experimental spirit to Taiwanese pop.

Today, students of Taiwanese pop music agree that Songs for Going Wild was a seminal work. The record's liner notes ask listeners: "You know foreign and Chinese history and geography so well, but have you ever asked yourself how much you known of Taiwan's history? You prize Mandarin and foreign songs like family treasures; how about showing a little more interest in songs in your mother tongue? With Taiwan in turmoil, have you considered what role you should play? Do you know where to find Taiwan's history and its music?"

The release of Songs for Going Wild sent shockwaves through Taiwanese society. According to Lin Wei-che, a well known producer who was then a member of the Blacklist Workshop, a number of non-musical factors contributed to the success of Songs for Going Wild, including the political issues raised in its lyrics, its use of the Taiwanese language, its rap-style vocals and the band's changing lineup. All of these elements have since become an essential element of Taiwanese-language songs and Taiwan's avant garde pop.

Songs for Going Wild ignited a revolution in Taiwanese-language music, and even prompted the Golden Melody Awards, which are sponsored by the Government Information Office, to create a new category for Taiwanese-language songs. In her book, Viewing Taiwanese Society through its Pop Music, sociologist Tseng Hui-chia writes that the GIO's action demonstrates how, after being discouraged for many years, Taiwanese-language songs rode the nativist tide to official acceptance within the cultural sphere.

A market "moving on"

If the socially critical Songs for Going Wild drew scholars' attention to Taiwanese songs, it was Lim Giong's 1991 album, Moving On, which planted Taiwanese-language music firmly within the mainstream of youth culture.

The lyrics to the title track of Moving On run: "I used to hear people sing, 'Taipei's not my home.' / Why doesn't that stir me? / Goodbye! / I'm not afraid of anything. / Goodbye. / I'm moving on." The lyrics are a response to Luo Ta-you's "Lukang Township," a song that in addressing the identity crisis and the hurt of Taiwan's Generation X in the early 1980s stated, "Taipei isn't my home." With the start of the 1990s, Lim Giong became the representative for Taiwan's more active and extroverted Generation Y. Lim's Generation-Y anthem, "Moving On," was a New Taiwanese Song for more liberal times.

Lim's previous experience producing Mandarin songs, and his use of mature and avant garde musical elements, gave Moving On a very hip feel. He followed Moving On with Dashing Young Boy and Entertainment World, the latter of which incorporated elements of European and American elec-tronica. Lin's works turned Taiwanese-language songs into the local pop-music scene's trendsetters. Since then, Taiwan's more experimental pop musicians, such as Wu Bai, Ah-te (Ardor), Luan Tan and MayDay, have all taken to writing Taiwanese lyrics.

Taiwanese takes the stage

Lim Giong's success in the marketplace demonstrated just how strong the demand for Taiwanese-language songs was among the 73% of the island's population that speak Taiwanese. They also had the effect of pushing the development of Taiwanese music in multiple directions.

Chen Ming-chang has explored one of the more noteworthy of these directions with his Matinee and I'm Not without Feelings albums, which adapted melodies from puppet operas and Taiwanese operas. Chen tapped into another vein of traditional Taiwanese music with his production of an album of songs by Taiwanese singers in the originally Japanese enka style, and in doing so breathed new life into a sentimental ballad form that had been unchanged for decades. On other productions, such as Huang Yi-ling's Out for a Walk in the early 1990s and Huang Fei's recent releases, Chen Ming-chang has demonstrated a desire to steer himself back into the traditional Taiwanese market.

In seeking out new forms for Taiwanese songs in the 1990s, other musicians, including Chu Yue-hsin, Ah-te, Lao Ko, Hsiao Fu-te, Kinmen Wang and Li Ping-hui, have experimented with injecting satire, concern, social criticism and even a laid-back attitude into their lyrics. Singer-songwriters such as Luo Ta-you and Chyi Chin, who used to perform primarily in Mandarin, also began performing and producing Taiwanese songs in this period. In fact, Chyi Chin's jazz and rock interpretations of old Taiwanese standards such as "The Broadcaster I Miss" and "The Banks of the Tanshui River" sold very well.

Wu Bai, however, has made himself the true heir to Lim Giong's place in the mainstream market with his Taiwanese-language rock.

When Wu Bai was recording primarily in Mandarin, his heavy Taiwanese accent was considered a negative in the market. However, with the rising popularity of Taiwanese-language music and increasing sense of a Taiwanese identity, the very Taiwanese-ness that Wu Bai exemplifies has become the height of fashion. Wu Bai now moves freely between the Mandarin and Taiwanese music scenes, thereby managing to appeal to fans of all ages.

According to Chen Shih-liang, a best-selling writer and host of a television show on music, "Wu Bai's success clearly stems from his wild but earthy 'Taiwanese' stage persona. Wu Bai's brand of rock-and-roll has guided Taiwan's musicians to a more 'native' rock-and-roll style." For Chen, Wu Bai is a great live performer whose "powerful and accessible" arrangements couch the earthiness of Taiwanese lyrics in a package comprised of Western musical elements. The immediacy and rock "edge" of Wu Bai's Lonely Bird on a Branch album exemplify his approach.

Wu Bai's success has also helped bring about changes in the larger culture. It used to be that men who spoke Mandarin with a strong Taiwanese accent had a harder time getting girls than those who didn't. But now that Wu Bai has become a rock star, "Taiwanese-ness" has become an asset. In effect, pop music has changed society's criteria for choosing a spouse.

A million-seller

Belting out a Wu Bai song in a KTV parlor is an eminently satisfying experience, but his are not the only Taiwanese songs to have benefited from the KTVs. Traditional enka tunes have also seen a resurgence as a result both of their popularity with KTV patrons and of the experimentalism now prevalent in Taiwanese-language music.

When Taiwan's economy took off in the 1980s, the growing wealth of society led to a tremendous increase in blue-collar workers' disposable incomes. This in turn brought about a revival in the Taiwanese-language music scene, which was then still dominated by enka songs. Albums such as Hung Jung-hung's A Little Umbrella, Shen Wen-cheng's No One Knows What's in My Heart, Judy Chiang's The Coast Where We Parted and Chen Hsiao-yun's Dancing Girl began circulating in night markets and at restaurant shows.

Taiwanese music's audience was limited in the 1980s by its continued use of nakashi-style arrangements and its earthy lyrics. However, the music found a new audience in the 1990s when singer Judy Chiang signed with Dianjiang Records. When Dian-jiang, a company better known for producing Mandarin albums, recorded Chiang, it retained Taiwanese music's traditional electronic keyboard accompaniment, but applied its own finely honed sense of style and packaging to the songs. The result not only raised the bar on Taiwanese music's production standards, but also won the music its first-ever white-collar audience. When The Truth in the Wine was released in 1992, it sold more than a million copies, announcing to all that Taiwanese music was ready to go head to head with Mandarin music in the marketplace.

While the lyrics to the title track, "The Truth in the Wine," worked the familiar "woman mistreated" territory, the song's emotional honesty made it the number one choice of KTV patrons. Even the "pink collar" urban women who had scorned Taiwanese-language songs for their "crudity" took to belting out "The Truth in the Wine" on their trips to the KTV. A Miss Liu, who works for an American firm and grew up in a military dependents' village, is typical of this group when she says that "The Truth in the Wine" completely changed her view of Taiwanese songs.

"Politics do nothing for me, and Taiwanese songs about social issues hold no interest. 'The Truth in the Wine' sounds like a Mandarin pop ballad, but Judy Chiang's performance of it gives would-be KTV stars a great chance to show off their chops. You never quite get it right; but every time you sing it, you feel like you are getting closer to what she did with it." Miss Liu says that she also likes Judy Chiang's later "Love Me Three Minutes," Chang Hsiu-ching's "Bus Stop," Li Yi-chun's "The Dragon-lady Spirit of the Bitter Sea," Chen Lei's "Strong Winds" and Tsai Chiu-feng's "Silver in Gold" very much.

Taiwanese music is in the ascendant. Sales are on the rise, and several cable TV networks have begun running Taiwanese-language song competitions. Young people are gravitating to performers such as Tony Sun and PGST, and the record companies, who see the writing on the wall, are now packaging them as pop idols.

Election "flowers"

Taiwanese songs are the music of the working people, and contain a strong element of social criticism. They have therefore been associated with the democratic reforms of the last 20 years, and have more recently become an element of election campaigns. The custom got its start in 1993 during Taiwan's first direct mayoral elections, and Taiwanese campaign songs were used as recently as the 2000 presidential elections. Chen Shui-bian got the ball rolling during the 1993 Taipei mayoral campaign when he asked Lu Han-hsiu, a Taiwanese-language poet, and musician Chan Hung-ta to write campaign songs for him. Among the songs they produced were "Spring Flower" and "Happy New Hometown."

The latter resembles the songs riverboat rowers use to keep time, and was also reminiscent of the election songs of the opposition of an earlier day. "Spring Flower," on the other hand, was something new. The lyrics told the story of Taiwanese-opera star Pan Li-li, whose marriage was once the talk of Taiwan. Pan had willingly given up the luxuries of city life to marry the boy-next-door from her impoverished childhood. The two worked hard to make a living, and somehow found a way to buy some orchards in the mountains of Nantou. To Pan, life's greatest joy was to grow old in the country with her spouse. Her story was analogous to Chen Shui-bian's, who stuck by his wife after she was crippled by an automobile accident. The song, which succeeded in heating up an already hotly contested election, became a classic among campaign songs and is still sung today.

Now candidates in elections large and small have taken up the Taiwanese-campaign-song strategy in the hope of replicating Chen's success. In the 2000 presidential election, for example, the mainland-born James Soong asked the Taiwanese singer Wang Chien-chieh to sing a campaign song for him to show his commitment to ethnic harmony. Wang stayed involved with Soong's campaign all the way to the election.

A living music

The Kaohsiung mayoral elections of the same year popularized a somewhat different group of campaign songs. Lin Ti-chuan, a product of the student movements of the 80s who was running for the Kaohsiung city council, was taken with the work of Cheng Chih-jen, who had achieved a degree of fame writing Taiwanese-language songs about disadvantaged groups. With Cheng's permission, Lin began playing his "Formosa Song" and "The Fields of Home" on southern Taiwan's then-underground Voice of Southern Taiwan radio station. "Formosa Song" and "Bright Moon" are now viewed as modern Taiwanese classics, and have even found their way into primary-, middle- and high-school music textbooks.

Cheng's songs became popular in spite of not having been commercially distributed, demonstrating the resiliency that Taiwanese music has gained by being rooted in the hearts of the people. Although the major record labels are facing tough times and releasing fewer albums, many artists are still getting their work to the public through independent labels. In fact, the indies are becoming an important distribution channel for Taiwanese-language music. One of the better known of these is Taiwan Colors Music, which has garnered a great deal of attention at recent Golden Melody Awards and has handled the work of artists such as Heng Chun and BackQuarter.

Even indies with more limited budgets are continually recording new albums of Taiwanese enka music which they then distribute through Taiwan's night markets. Other artists, such as Huang Hui-hung, who has a day job at the Ministry of Education, are recording and releasing albums on their own, which they then donate to charities or organizations supporting the arts to distribute. In short, Taiwanese music remains very much alive in spite of Taiwan's recent economic downturn.

Music responds to the times, and Taiwanese music is no exception. Over the years, Taiwanese-language songs have grown into something more than sentimental ballads and criticisms of society. The Taiwanese music of today's youth, as represented by artists such as Jay, MayDay and Luan Tan, speaks in the mixture of Mandarin and Taiwanese familiar to young people. Where has the Taiwanese language gone? Nowhere-it is in every word we utter. Where has Taiwanese music gone? Nowhere-it is still part of our lives, giving voice to our joys and pains.

At least within Taiwan's music community, there are no more language barriers.