Weyland's Swimming Playlist

[Weyland]

I've made a playlist of the songs I listen to while swimming. Most of these songs, I think, have clear pronunciation and might be liked by others on these forums.  So far I have a total of 185 songs by over 100 artists.

Playlist on Youtube

It's actually quite difficult getting a proper music playlist all in one place. Youtube tends to delete videos and Spotify is spotty at best when it comes to song availability. I don't know if I can share the folder with all the MP3 files here, but if people are interested then they can PM me. 

[mungouk]

Could you give us an idea of what genres or artists to expect in there?

 

For example are they modern mandopop, classic movie songs, folk, classical, whatever...?

 

thanks

 

[Weyland]

On 9/14/2019 at 6:16 PM, mungouk said:

Could you give us an idea of what genres or artists to expect in there?

When it comes to music genres I'm quite illiterate, so I wouldn't know how to describe these songs other than the genres you've already mentioned. 

I tend to go for a 125-140 Beats per Minute for songs, which a lot of pop culture falls under. Then there are also songs that act as palate cleansers, songs that are slower than 125 BPM but have both clear and distinct use of sounds. For example, 陈奕迅 (Chen Yixun / Eason Chan) song 《我们》. I don't like repetitive music and high pitched nasal singing (the kind of singing that makes a lot of pop-music directed at teens sound "whiney"). 

China has a certain industry standard when it comes to songs, like the 4 chords in Western music. I wouldn't know which example to give through a Chinese songs, but I tend to avoid them. Also often the instrumentals in background music drown out the singing. Those songs I tend to avoid as well. Same for repetitive songs, though I did like 《爱吃味》. This is the most articulate answer I could give you concerning Chinese music. 


If I were you I'd just put it on in the background while studying or doing chores, and when you find a song you like add it to your own list. Music is like food； people have their own taste for the most arbitrary reasons.

[mungouk]

Thanks @Weyland for all the effort you put into this!

 

And welcome to the forums!

 

57 minutes ago, Weyland said:

China has a certain industry standard when it comes to songs

 

Well, most of what I hear is in the Didi on the way to/from work, and as a music-lover the modern workings of pentatonic folk songs do tend to jar a little after a while!

 

I had a listen to your playlist yesterday and will do so again when I next have some time.

 

Out of interest, how did you select the songs in the list?  Do you have a particular preference for certain aesthetics or political/cultural references...?

 

[Weyland]

14 minutes ago, mungouk said:

Do you have a particular preference for certain aesthetics or political/cultural references...?

Nahh, eventhough I can understand the lyrics of the song when I listen for them. Like English songs (in my case) I just tend to mute out the words and any meaning they might have. I tend to listen to some of the recommended songs on Youtube, Spotify, or those recommended by friends specifically (put them in Watch later on YT).Or I revisit artists I only know from a single song. 

I don't like Spotify because it keeps recommending me Japanese/Russian songs when I they make my Weekly Recommendations Playlist. I don't like Youtube because they keep deleting the songs in my playlist. But, those are the main platforms that I can listen to without scaling the wall. 

Do people listen to certain songs because they fit their political ideology? Maybe I'm subconsciously applying my bias to my taste in music. Maybe. If it helps putting my political ideology on a spectrum you'd probably have to put me in the pro-establishment camp. But, that's only because I'm interested in how China governs itself. Still don't see how that would apply to a music playlist though.  

[mungouk]

OK, thanks. I didn't mean to push the ideology part btw...  As a massive music fan I'm actually more interested in your aesthetic criteria. 

So how would you "sell" your playlist to all the potential listeners here?

 

What will they learn from it?

 

Perhaps more importantly, how have you found listening to Chinese music helps you in learning the language?

 

[Weyland]

12 minutes ago, mungouk said:

So how would you "sell" your playlist to all the potential listeners here?

Not trying to promote anything. It's just a playlist I put together over weeks of listening to Chinese music.

 

 

14 minutes ago, mungouk said:

What will they learn from it?

What? If you want to learn from Chinese music you either have to translate the meaning of the lyrics of listen to Chinese nursery rhymes.

 

 

15 minutes ago, mungouk said:

 

Perhaps more importantly, how have you found listening to Chinese music helps you in learning the language?

For me it doesn't. Unlike a lot of language learners I don't translate my English into Chinese, rather I learned it from the ground up. The music merely helps me stay in my "Chinese state of mind". For example, I'm not typing to you in English but in a moment I'll be going back to Chinese. Which means I'll have to make a conscious switch to Chinese, which is made easier while having some Chinese music in the background.

[feihong]

I scrolled through the playlist and I would say it’s composed mostly of well-established Mandopop with a sprinkling of indie artists. I don’t have an encyclopedic knowledge of Chinese music but I recognized most of the artists on the list, although because of the predilection for covers in Chinese music, I have not listened to the original version of many songs.

 

@Weyland Based only on the type of artists in your playlist, I surmise that the reason so many of the songs in the playlist get deleted is because of copyright takedowns. You can avoid this by tracking down an “official” version of the same song. Look for the “Licensed to YouTube by ...” in the description of the video. But personally, this is more effort than I’m willing to put in.

 

I do get quite a lot of my Chinese music from YouTube, but I download the tracks using youtube-dl and play them in iTunes. This does sidestep the problem of copyright takedowns, but because it takes some effort I’m only downloading songs I really like.

[Weyland]

5 minutes ago, feihong said:

get quite a lot of my Chinese music from YouTube, but I download the tracks using youtube-dl

Ditto. 

The list, for me, is more like an end destination. It goes from "maybe playlist" "add to playlist" and "playlist". I've been keeping it in mind as of the last few dozen songs though. Most Chinese songs don't have these long "talking" / "intermission" segments in them, so I rarely have to use a karaoke version.  

I tend to listen to new songs online and listen to my standard playlist offline (like you). Having Youtube's already watched functionality/designation makes it FAR better than let's say Spotify or Apple music for ignoring songs you've already listened to.

[feihong]

My workflow is I add a song I think I might like to Watch Later, then when I’ve heard it I either add it to a custom playlist called 要收集的歌 (Songs to collect) or just delete it outright. Then when I’ve got a bunch of songs in 要收集的歌 I’ll run youtube-dl on the whole playlist and download them all at once.
 

Also I get a lot of songs from StreetVoice, but I don’t know if youtube-dl can handle that site. I use a custom script to download files from there because StreetVoice metadata is so good that I can save time on filling in the artist name, lyrics, etc.

[Weyland]

Just passed 300 songs in my playlist. I couldn't be bothered to organize the list alphabetically anymore, so sorry for that.

I've been listening to new Chinese songs from YT playlists such as this one; 2018 Chinese New Singles (The list is still being updated) while on the road. Anyone know of other playlists? As I have finished this one (Indie ones preferred)