According to the “2021 Chinese Digital Music Annual White Paper” recently released by Tencent Music Data Research Institute, the number of new Chinese songs released in 2021 reached 1.145 million, a year-on-year increase of 53.1%. This rate means a new song is born every 27 seconds on average.
Although the production of new songs has surged, many netizens couldn’t help but sigh, “There are too few good songs, and there are not many songs that can be remembered.”
The reporter’s investigation found that with the development of digital music platforms and short video platforms, the demand for music is increasing, and the phenomenon of short, flat and fast music creation is becoming more and more serious. According to industry insiders, with the help of some professional music creation software , If the composition of the formulaic assembly line is fast, it may be formed in a few minutes, and it is not an exception to produce a song in ten minutes. The industry believes that: on the one hand, the productivity of Chinese songs is constantly increasing; on the other hand, driven by traffic and popular styles, the homogenization of works is serious, and even blindly pursuing speed, there are many patchwork and pipeline works.
Traffic is king
Not only is the number of new Chinese songs released in 2021 exceeding one million for the first time, according to the “2021 Chinese Digital Music Annual White Paper”, the scale of music creators is also expanding, and the growth rate in 2021 far exceeds that of the same period in 2020. The number of lyricists and songwriters exceeded 100,000. Both the number of new songs and the number of creators are unprecedentedly high. However, many netizens still feel that there are few songs that are impressive.
“More choices may not be a good thing. It’s like giving you three pairs of shoes, you will know which pair to wear when you go out. But if you have 200 pairs of shoes, you may not be able to choose.” Composer Yang Qing said in one sentence The reason why everyone is not impressed.
In addition to many choices, many people in the industry believe that good works have not grown in tandem with the increase in the overall number of songs, and there have been a lot of mediocrity and even patchwork. “There is no doubt that everyone is now chasing traffic.” Composer Zou Hang believes that following the trend abounds in this situation, “When a song becomes popular, everyone will rush to this direction, all wanting to If you don’t keep things in order, it will become popular.” The songs created out of this mentality may “look alike”.
In order to be popular on major digital music platforms and short video platforms, easy to sing has become an important criterion. Zou Hang said, “There is a trend now that songs should not be too long as much as possible. The simpler the rhythm, the better, and it is easy to sing. After the song is short, the technical content will undoubtedly decline.”
The rise of self-media has lowered the threshold for composers
In fact, it takes a lot of thought to create a good piece of music. “If you want to be different from others, you must think more.” Zou Hang believes that the structure of popular songs is not complicated, and there are rules to follow, but when writing Chinese songs, the particularity of the text must be considered. “We have four tones in Chinese, so when writing songs, the music should also be adjusted according to the pitch. To deal with the relationship between the four tones of Chinese, we must also consider the smoothness of the melody, and even the style of the entire song. This requires Take the time to figure it out.”
The industry generally believes that, compared with grand symphonies, the structure of popular songs is not complicated, and there are routines to follow. With the rise of self-media, music creation blindly pursues short, flat and fast music, the accompaniment is slightly changed, and the melody is slightly changed before mass production.
Not only that, but as digital music goes deeper, the cost of music creation is also decreasing. Zou Hang explained that some people can compose or even mix recordings by buying a set of less professional equipment at home. “Anyway, uploading on the Internet will be compressed, and you don’t need to pursue very good sound quality, so it may be possible to get away with it. In addition, some platforms lack professional and standardized requirements and audits, resulting in shoddy works.” With the development of intelligent composition such as AI composition, some software can even help everyone record inspiration anytime, anywhere, and even people who do not have much music professionalism can use these software to become “composers”.
There is a lot of confusion in the industry, and the effort and the degree of communication are not necessarily proportional
What worries people in the industry is not only the shoddy assembly line phenomenon, but also the fact that bad money may drive out good money. “As accompaniment, we can use a guitar, a piano, or an orchestra, but the difference is too big.” Yang Qing believes that from music creation to arrangement to recording, every detail The difference will directly affect the final rendering effect, so fine music works require a lot of time and effort, rather than mass production.
But what makes people in the industry feel helpless is that the efforts of those intensive cultivation are not necessarily proportional to the degree of communication. “The current environment is like this, and everyone can’t stand the brainwashing of traffic. If you wash it too much, you may remember it. You may spend a long time polishing a high-quality product, and you are more sophisticated in recording and other aspects, but the degree of communication is related to traffic. It’s not necessarily an order of magnitude.” Yang Qing believes that music creation is essentially a service industry, “As a composer, it depends on what kind of customers you serve. If you are looking for the market, then you have to put yourself down a little in terms of art. If you pay more attention to the quality of art, don’t pay too much attention to flow and materiality. In the final analysis, it is a matter of personal choice. Of course, if you have both, you are very lucky.”
think
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to music creation
It is true that the quality of a song cannot be judged simply by the length of creation time. In the history of music, there is time to polish the classics. For example, the song “Red Plum Praise” has been revised eight times and revised more than 20 times. Wang Liping composed 13 songs for the CCTV version of “Dream of Red Mansions”, which lasted for four years. At the same time, there are also many proud works that are inspired by the present. For example, Zhou Weizhi composed the music for “The Battle Hymn of the Chinese People’s Volunteers”, which only took about half an hour; Huang Zhan wrote “Shanghai Beach” in just over 20 minutes; It took less than 10 minutes for Ye Jiaxiu to write “Grandma’s Penghu Bay” in less than 10 minutes. But the reason why these works can become classics and spread is because although the creation time may be very short, they are unique and not identical, and they are endorsed by the profound accumulation of songwriters, rather than relying solely on the composition software.
Composer Yang Qing also said that music creation should not be treated one-size-fits-all, and it should not simply be judged by fast and slow, simplicity and complexity. “The industry has mixed reviews for songs like ‘Little Apple’, but I think its commercial value is very huge.” Yang Qing believes that from a creative point of view, the reason why a hit is a hit is not an accident. Unreasonable. First of all, the song must be nice and highly sung; secondly, it must meet everyone’s current psychological needs and generally meet the aesthetic preferences of most people.
Recently, Hunan Satellite TV’s music variety show “Sound Lives” chose an old song “A Good Song for You” as the promotion song. This song, released in 1979, has a history of 43 years and still has endless vitality.
For a large number of shoddy assembly line works flooded in the market, the industry believes that the situation can not be reversed in a day or two. But they also reminded that although “Quick Song” can make things happen temporarily, it cannot be done once and for all. First of all, it is not a long-term solution to rely on only one or two hits to survive. No matter singers, creators or companies, they hope to have a steady stream of high-quality works that are truly remembered by everyone. To do this, you can’t rely on luck alone, it’s all about strength. Secondly, with the rise of AI, these pipeline products are probably the first to be replaced. Furthermore, with the popularization of aesthetic education and the improvement of everyone’s appreciation level, there will be a real understanding and judgment of beauty. In this case, there will be less and less market for shoddy “quick songs”.