As the Western economy lurches about like a sea bird caught in an oil slick, pathetically flapping its leaden wings in a desperate attempt to become airborne again, one nation, even more so than usual, is being mentioned in almost every conversation: China.
I work with a lot of manufacturing companies, and a lot of people whose bread and butter comes from technical innovation, and for a long time they were downright scared by China. This seems to be lessening now, as it inevitably emerges that, while the Chinese are brilliant at some things, they are dreadful at others. Slowly something of an ecosystem appears to be developing, instead of the swarm of locusts that many feared.
This might all change as the Western economy tanks, of course, but that’s largely by the by. One of the things that has always struck me when working with the Chinese has been their cheerful disregard for the notion of intellectual property. This has caused problems for manufacturers of course: just have a look at these iPhone imitators, released almost simultaneously with the original. But intellectual property is such a hot potato within the entertainment and particularly the music industry at the moment that it has always intrigued me what will happen when Chinese indifference meets Western protectionism.
One thing is for sure, the Chinese will not give a septic purple fuck about the major record labels. They are content to completely ignore Apple, remember, and the combined turnover of the big four records labels actually fell below that of Apple Computers this year*, for the first time, so the chances of their imaginary financial muscle holding any great sway with the Chinese government seem slim. One of the few benefits of the Chinese political system , of course, is that their government is less cravenly beholden to the avaricious agenda of big business than their Western counterparts.
So how does this apply to the music industry? Well I don’t think it’s particularly great news, to be honest. I am not really convinced by the complete and unlimited free download model, because I have yet to see real money being made by people who embrace it, although that is changing. Nine Inch Nails recently sold out of the premium version of their recent release, after making a basic digital version available for nothing on Bittorrent sites. Radiohead are another obvious example, so the business models may be slowly emerging.
But if the Chinese do embrace Glamorous Indie Rock ‘n’ Roll then it may become less about just their influence on the business model, which may be more predictable, than about their influence on trends and fashions. Regionalised music markets have never made much impression on me, despite MTV starting bespoke Asian, Spanish and Russian channels, among others. What is going to happen to Western music’s cultural hegemony when the Indian and Chinese artists start to make serious inroads into the market? We’ve already seen the Bollywood film industry gain a significant foothold in the world of movies, so I’ve been curious for a while to know what’s actually going on in the Chinese music scene.
Well the answer, according to both my own MySpace investigations, and this recent Guardian article, is not all that much and far, far too much of it is emo. It appears to be something of a marginalised industry, not least because participating seems to imply more rebellion in China than it does here, and this is something they are often keen to avoid. There are a couple of decent record labels – Fly Fast, Suyin Records, Scream Records and a few more - and a couple of groups we would recognise as indie rock, but that was about all I could find. I tried not to reproduce that Guardian list in my mp3s, but it was hard as there wasn’t much to find, half the MySpace players refused to load properly, and I do have a proper job to do during the day of course.
So I don’t think I’ve found much in the way of answers, but the whole idea is fascinating me a bit and I think I’ll keep exploring for a while. In the meantime, check out this lot and see what you think. Not all great, but I am intrigued nevertheless.
New Pants – Forgot Yesterday MySpace
Carsick Cars – Darkland’s Feedback MySpace
Snapline – Catch You Low MySpace
Joyside – Dong Dong Dong MySpace
Too Koo – Rusty MySpace
*I don’t have a source for this right at this moment, but I am confident of the fact and will provide a source as soon as I dig it up.
Mrs. Toad has been away in China for the last week or so and, frankly, I am jealous. I am wedded to Edinburgh now, for fairly obvious reasons, but I have always been something of a gypsy, as have my parents, and as such China has held a pretty significant fascination for several years now.
