I’ve just published a list of 100 songs in Chinese (mostly Mandarin, but also Cantonese… and maybe Hokkien… can’t be sure of that) that’s a great cheat sheet for anyone wanting to show off their knowledge of the scene. There’s definitely a wide variety of artists, so you’re sure to find something you enjoy.
Visit YAM Magazine for the list with a link included to the YouTube playlist.
Though I haven’t made successful contact with Milk@Coffee on Weibo, they’re still one of my favorite Chinese mainland artists, though I feel like they peaked with Give You a Little Color (ç»™ä½ ç‚¹å„¿é¢œè‰²) in 2010. Last year, they released Shine of Memory (时间的光) [Xiami] and though I picked Young Conviction (ä¿¡ä»°å¹´è½») as one of my pick songs of 2014 [1], Occasionally Still Think of You (å¶å°”è¿˜æ˜¯ä¼šæƒ³èµ·ä½ ) is the song that brought the most feelings ‘coz it made me think of my dad (even though it’s totally a love song).
Milk@Coffee just released a music video for it.
My dad’s bday is this Saturday.
The lyrics go something like this:
Occasionally still think of you
in the middle of the night, when people are quiet.
Maybe I’m still not used to being without you.Occasionally still think of you,
repeating over the familiar scenario-
similarly, I still can hear the sound of your voice.
Am I starting a series? Nah… I don’t think I can come up with a Jpop list xD
Unlike the Kpop list which it focused 99% of the time on dance pop friendly tracks that went beyond American commercial pop, this “Cpop” list is… not really pop.
Popular music in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Mainland China (but mostly Taiwan) tends to be pop/rockish flare. Sure there are dance pop friendly, but even they have moved or are moving more towards pop/rock. They also love indie flavor, and accept not particularly attractiveness in their idols… even though there are some very good looking people who are immensely popular.
To be completely honest, compared to Korea’s pop music charts, Chinese music charts have a broad variety. But then again, compared to Japan’s pop music charts (which is comprised of AKB48 and Arashi xD), even Kpop charts (mostly 2NE1 and Big Bang now that DBSK is gone) seem to have some variety. xD
So this list of great Chinese music includes varying genres from R&B, pop/rock… more rockish, ballads (regular and of the indie type), etc. once again listed by year of release.
Again, it’s a bit weak on the earlier years… but you are welcome to make suggestions (for any year). A few guidelines would be that they cannot be too indie (I couldn’t fit Cheer Cheen or Mavis Fan in the list because they don’t feel completely pop, if you know what I mean), must include MVs (so songs released as singles), not older than late 90s.
Also… song must work as MV too. So no awesome songs but tacky videos. Sorry.
[iframe width=”560″ height=”315″ src=”https://www.youtube.com/embed/videoseries?list=PL0C06C35FA9FC1C64&hl=en_US”]
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What do you like about the Cpop industry?
Who are your fave artists?
I’m a dork, you can’t deny it.
I’m a dork, and I’m proud of my -mostly- tidied up iTunes library.
As with my CDs, and my DVDs… a little bit of books, and mostly with computer files, I like to know where my things are. Of course, iTunes makes it way easy to keep things organized with their “copy to folder” and “keep things organized” options, but then we’ve got album covers, song names, artists names… and music can get a little messy.
