"Mouse Loves Rice" and "Egg Under the Red Flag": Chinese Popular Music and Rock

2006/3/24 21:47:24

Anyone born in Beijing after 1976, male or female, probably has an innate rock-and-roll complex. This lady here was classically trained from childhood and has never been particularly keen on popular music or rock. Comparatively, "Egg Under the Red Flag" is far more lovable than the mouse in the rice. I hear lately there are "Two Butterflies" and some pig that are super hot -- a cartoon era probably needs cartoon songs.

Cui Jian said "but my throat makes strange sounds" -- for someone who only appreciates opera and art songs when it comes to the human voice, his voice is indeed rather strange. Even more amusing is watching the egg-versus-mouse debates -- those knife-in, blood-out arguments aren't cartoonish at all. They're probably not really arguing about eggs and mice, but about themselves.

Every era has its own way of venting, but music has nothing to do with venting. Therefore, popular music and rock will forever be irrelevant to music. However, if we step away from venting -- if there's no essence of venting or essential venting -- and music itself has no inside or outside, then why can't venting be moving? So popular music and rock can indeed be moving.

Music is too sacred, having nothing to do with the human world. "This melody should only exist in heaven" -- and what the human world can have now is only popular music and rock. Think about it: even serious music is trying to become popular. Even when it's moving, we can't expect anything more. The musical realm of ancient China is even more beyond what today's eggs and mice can fathom. Zhuangzi spoke of the music of heaven, earth, and humanity as already too attached to appearances. The stringless qin across ten thousand ages, between heaven and earth -- how many can play it?

Art is forever elitist. So-called art of the masses has forever been irrelevant to art. True art has nothing to do with philosophy, science, or religion. True art is the world itself. Art is the language of the world. Even the stars are singing. Before art, heaven and earth are but a speck of dust.