近年粤语流行曲面对很大的挑战,在数位歌星及音乐创作人.PDF

Riding a Melodic Tide: The Development of Cantopop in Hong Kong 1. Introduction Cantopop has confronted many challenges in recent years. With the departure of several singers and music artists, the guiding force behind the Cantopop scene seems to have ebbed away. In his doctoral thesis The Rise and Decline of Cantopop: A Study of Hong Kong Popular Music (1949 - 1997), the late James Wong wrote that Cantonese popular music has lost its influence in the mighty torrent of history; slowly but surely its impact is fading from Hong Kong’s popular culture. James Wong’s conclusion is a sad one. Whether it is correct or not, it raises one question that demands an answer: how does Cantopop relate to us? Though characterized by commercial productions, Cantopop is also the fruit of the unstinting efforts of countless singers, music artists and producers, whose hard work has generated thousands of pieces of music that combine to build a local popular culture for Hong Kong. We grew up with Cantopop. It is our collective memory. To trace this precious memory, we interviewed many organizations, record companies, music artists, singers, academics and music critics. The idea was to discover and trace the sequence of Cantopop’s development after World War Two from different perspectives. In a progression spearheaded by the music industry and the mass media, Cantopop rode the wave of local culture amid a period of social change to emerge and then exert a significant impact on the Chinese people of Hong Kong, the Mainland and overseas. The study outlines the development of Hong Kong Cantopop over the decades. It may not strike an immediate high note, but, like the semibrev