Most Popular Chinese Rock Bands?

[Joseph Kimbrell]

Does anyone know who the most popular Chinese bands or solo artists are in China?

[Ruben von Zwack]

I don't know about bands, but the most popular solo artist should be 周杰倫 (Zhōu Jiélún), aka Jay Chou. He's from Taiwan, but is popular all across Asia, even Japan and Korea. He might not have a no. 1 hit right now, but if you look at the bigger picture over the past decade, he's incredibly successful. I believe I even read he's the most successful artist, in absolute terms, world wide.

I know there are very big Cantonese musicians, but I'm not so familiar with the Cantonese music scene.

edit: sorry, I didn't notice it was about rock specifically.

[gato]

If you are asking about rock, then it would be 汪峰 and 许巍.

[renzhe]

Yeah, but Jay Chou is not exactly rock, is he?

The problem with the question about popular Chinese rock bands is that rock is not really popular in China. There are some amazing bands out there but very few of them are widely known.

For the sake of basic cultural literacy, one should know Cui Jian (崔健), Black Panther (黑豹乐队), Tang Dynasty (唐朝乐队). This is the stuff everybody knows, but they are like the Rolling Stones: rock heroes from a by-gone era. It's what today's generation's parents listened to.

Some of my personal favourites (I haven't followed the scene closely in recent years) are Brain Failure, PK-14, Happy Avenue, ReTROS and Glorious Pharmacy. Don't expect anyone to know these bands, this stuff does not get played much on the sugar-infested, overproduced, lolita-laden prettyboy-obsessed mainstream media.

[Ruben von Zwack]

Um no Jay is not rock, although he does have some very nice rock songs imo, does that count?

How about 二手玫瑰 Èrshǒu Méiguī? I don't think they are that famous, but they play big festivals.

[sämpsä]

As mentioned before, rock music is not too popular in China but there are and have been a lot of interesting Chinese rock bands. 二手玫瑰 and 幸福大街/Happy Avenue are some of my favourites too. To add a couple of suggestions, 万能青年旅店、沙子乐队 and 子曰乐队 are some of the bands I've been listening to recently. I also like the Mongolian rock scene that seems to have become pretty popular abroad (e.g. 杭盖、九宝乐队）， but the lyrics are mostly in Mongolian, and thus not of much help if one's trying to learn Chinese through music.

[Demonic_Duck]

My personal recommendations: 唐朝 (hard rock), 窒息 (death metal), 夜叉 (metal), 脑浊 (pop punk), 王峰 (not sure if he counts as "rock", but I like his song 北京北京 anyway). Renzhe already recommended two of 'em, but those are my picks. I'm sure I've forgotten some, though. If you're looking for a song to learn, 脑浊's 永远的乌托邦 is a good place to start, not too difficult.

[Joseph Kimbrell]

Wow thanks for all the responses! I'm going to check them out.

I've heard that rock music is rising in popularity in China, due partly to the youth "discovering" it, and the rock festivals...how true this is though, I don't know

[imron]

I've heard that X is rising in popularity in China.

Substitute X with anything you like, and that statement will probably still hold true. I wouldn't put too much stock/faith in such statements though.

[Jack MacKelly]

Yeah some of the hard-rock and pop-punk bands are great, a lot of fun

[splitworks]

If you want to learn more about the independent music scene in China, I recommend you read Chinamusicradar.com - it's a blog that covers everything from festivals to up and coming acts.

If you're in China and looking for some gigs by acts that aren't superstars but more niche, Split Works does a lot of stuff - also read the expat blogs such as Smartshanghai, smartbeijing, timeout, city weekend etc.

http://www.spli-t.com/splitworks/category/upcoming/

Hope that helps!

[machinarium]

I don't listen to rock often but I guess the most popular rock bands are Beyond, Mayday (五月天).

For solo artists, it could be Wang Feng (汪峰).

[Demonic_Duck]

I don't listen to rock often but I guess the most popular rock bands are Beyond, Mayday (五月天).

I rather like 五月天, but I'm not sure I'd count them as rock. Maybe pop-rock. Beyond are a bit more rocky, though most (all?) of their stuff is sung in Cantonese.

[Lu]

Some things that I like or have liked:

哎哟, punk.

木马

I second the recommendation of 沙子.

Beyond is also good, but even older than 崔健们, I think?

In the series 崔健, 唐朝 etc there is also the band 鲍家街43号 (which is the address of a famous music academy in Beijing, as I only discovered years and years later).

Shin (新), listen to One night in Beijing.

五月天 has a few nice songs but they hardly seem rock to me, they're basically another pretty boy band except the music is marginally less saccarine.

小安, a Taiwanese singer.

I once heard 王磊 play and loved it, never found a cd or anything though.

Some of these I discovered over ten years ago, so no idea who's still around, but you can look for it.