text | Liu Dongfeng
Just as autumn begins, netizens are preparing for the New Year on the short video platform.
"The mountains are green, the people are rich, and the spring flowers are blooming towards the sea"... During the National Day, the topic "This is Beautiful China" ranked in the top ten of the Douyin challenge list, and the song "Beautiful China" became popular again. These songs were filled with a festive atmosphere during the dissemination of short video platforms, and most people in the comments said that they were "as if they were at the scene of the Spring Festival Gala."
In fact, as early as August, songs such as "Beautiful China" and "Love" became popular overnight on major short video platforms. Netizens performed with various special effects and affectionate feelings, and some netizens also spelled the performance into multiple grids to form a chorus. Most of these songs are main melody songs, but they did not receive much attention at the beginning of their creation and became popular through short videos.
Nowadays, the role played by short video platforms in the process of music dissemination cannot be ignored. More and more songs are spread through short video platforms such as Douyin, and are transformed into divine songs.
These songs include new songs from recent years, such as " Wild Wolf Disco" by Gem and " Mohe Dance Hall " by Liu Shuang . There are also classic songs that have become popular many years ago, such as " Lonely Brave " by Jay Chou , " Compendium of Materia Medica " and "Love-breaking Front Alliance" by Grasshopper Band .
As more and more music is circulating on short video platforms, the market share of music streaming media is inevitably squeezed, which has also caused a lot of controversy.
Some practitioners believe that the spread of short video divine songs is a catastrophe of Chinese music scene . Some industry insiders also believe that short video platforms have allowed more music and singers to be discovered. Previously, the story-rich "Wild Wolf Disco" and "Mohe Dance Hall" became popular overnight on Douyin and were recognized by the industry and appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage.
Suddenly hot
"The atmosphere is here, it's not OK to show off sugar orange "... In the short video platform, there are many netizens who say that they are in the New Year's Eve at the bottom of songs such as "Love", "Beautiful China", "China in the Lights".
"Beautiful China" was popular by Douyin Travel vlog blogger CY Cao Yu. He previously used the original scene to restore the MV of "Beijing Welcome You" one-to-one. Then he used "Beautiful China" sung by Aru Azhuo as the background music, and wore ethnic costumes to check in attractions across the country.
"Beautiful China" has also experienced the phenomenon of "human transmission" and netizens followed suit on short video platforms. Some netizens also used "Beautiful China" as the background music, checked in to local landmarks and submitted them to CY Cao Yu. CY Cao Yu cut these submissions into a compilation and pushed them during the National Day. The Tourism Bureau of the Macao Special Administrative Region Government, Shandong TV , Shanxi Fire Protection and other agency numbers also joined.
In addition to "Beautiful China", netizens also sang the main melody songs such as "Hello Motherland" and "Love in Love" online. Now, CY Cao Yu went to all parts of the country to shoot night scenes with "China in the Lights" as the background music.
For these songs, Zhang Jing, a doctor of the Glinka Conservatory of Music in Nizhny Novgoro, Russia, told Observer.com that the lyrics of these songs are remarkable and have positive energy. Secondly, these lyrics and songwriting are all in major, which will give people a positive energy feeling.
The reason why these clips can be circulated online is Zhang Jing believes that this melody is easy to chant, and these songs are not only bound by national vocal music , but also add some popular feeling, so more people like it.
More and more classic songs have become popular on short video platforms. Miria Yeung " Kissing " released in 2004 became popular in 2019 because of various interpretations by Douyin bloggers. Among them, after a little girl covered it in a silly manner, Miriam Yeung also sang the song to respond to the girl and received a million praises. This song has re-listed on the music platform's hot searches. Even after a year, it is still ranked among the top 500 on various platforms. Under the influence of visual effects, classic songs have been given new meanings and have put on the halo of "Divine Comedy" due to their brainwashing.Jay Chou's "Compendium of Materia Medica" became the background music for Liu Genghong's fitness live broadcast, and he turned into a dance music. After Eason Chan's "The Lonely Brave" was spread through short videos, it became the "coding code" of primary school students.
In addition, the significant difference between short video platforms and music streaming media such as Spotify and Apple Music is that users do not need to find songs by themselves, but are pushed by algorithms and directly feed them to their mouths. It is easy to create an atmosphere of "a song that has become popular on the entire network for a period of time".
short video platform has become a Shenqu incubator. On the one hand, short video platforms reduce the cost of users looking for songs. Short video platforms do not require users to find songs by themselves, and the platform pushes popular songs to users through algorithms. On the other hand, unlike in the past, various types of music pay more attention to visual effects and interactivity when disseminating short video platforms. Netizens use video editing software or built-in functions to create music in a lip-sync or choreography manner.
Yukiyuro song "Men Want to Fight" was originally popular because of a middle-aged security guard's selfie video. In this video, the security guard put his phone on a selfie stick and punched the camera with his horse stance. The video also received more than 2 million likes after it was broadcast. Then more and more women joined in, used the song as background music and learned to box the security guards.
Wang Heye 's popularity " Wind Blowing " is also closely related to the short video. Driven by the saying "Welcome to the 1990s", many netizens used "The Wind to Blow" as the background music to shoot 90s-style videos. Celebrities such as Qi Wei , Xue Zhiqian , Rosamund Kwan also joined this retro frenzy, among which Qi Wei's likes exceeded 3.83 million.
In addition to attracting independent musicians to join short videos, short video platforms such as Douyin and Kuaishou have also increased their cooperation with record companies.
In January 2022, China Record Group and Douyin officially reached a music copyright cooperation agreement. Previously, more than 2,000 music copyright holders in Douyin established cooperation. As early as June 2020, Kuaishou announced that it had obtained the copyright license for all short video platforms for Jay Chou’s songs and song MVs under Jewell Music . The content pool of
short video platform is getting bigger and bigger. The "2021 Chinese Musicians Report" shows that 64.75% of musicians uploaded short music videos in 2021, while the data in 2020 was 54.08%. At the same time, 61.67% of musicians have live broadcast behavior and live broadcast experience.
Control of the right to speak
short videos are changing the music industry ecology. The production mode of
music has changed under the influence of short videos. In the past, record companies had a large number of singer resources and attracted a large number of high-quality musicians to join. In addition, the record company has a large amount of resources to accumulate the game, that is, to configure appropriate sound effects and publicity teams for its singers, so as to sell the record.
short video platform lowers the threshold for ordinary people to enter the music industry, and the "storage" process seems to be possible for everyone to achieve. For newcomers who have just entered the music industry, choosing to sign a contract with MCN can realize their "music dream" directly through the short video platform. In addition to publishing their own songs on TikTok, these newcomers will also release cover videos.
For record companies, while a large number of newcomers are losing, they are also facing the departure of top singers. Nowadays, many well-known Chinese music singers have opened their own studios after accumulating the resources of "storing the bureau" and directly released their new songs through short video platforms, allowing themselves to directly contact the market and consumers.
Under the impact of short videos, mainstream record companies such as Rolling Stone have to make a living, seeking ecological fission of music business by holding offline concerts and cooperating with trendy brands. Tang Jiancheng, a senior music practitioner and music marketing expert, told " China News Weekly ", "In fact, this is good. If music is regarded as a business, there are more diverse forms and more variety, and it is also a kind of development."
At present, the daily active users of Douyin have exceeded 600 million, which means that more than 600 million users hear music through the Douyin platform every day. Bida Consulting shows that QQ Music html has 74.919 million daily active users.This huge traffic has made the copyright holder make a fortune, and the huge traffic has caused copyright holders to gradually shift the focus of competition from music streaming to the Douyin platform. Short video platforms are indispensable to squeeze the living space of music streaming media.
Xiaolujiao Think Tank once stated in the "China Music Marketing Development Research Report" in June 2021 that 52.3% of entertainment company practitioners said that short videos have become the largest channel for the promotion budget of new songs. The respondents believe that the short video platform is the most effective media channel for promoting songs at present, and is higher than the music streaming media platform.
Tencent Music also admitted in its prospectus that fierce competition from other online music platforms and providers of new content forms (such as audio and short videos) is putting pressure on the overall user scale of the company's social entertainment services and monetization. The ARPU value ( average revenue per user ) declined, and the growth of user scale and payment rates slowed down.
There is no doubt that the current short videos' rule over the Chinese music scene is becoming increasingly unshakable. This situation also occurs in overseas markets.
Overseas short video users have also experienced the changes brought by the algorithm to listening to music. According to MRC Data, 75% of American TikTok users said they used the app to discover new music, and 63% of American users said they heard music they had never heard before on TikTok for the first time.
With the increase in monthly active users of Tik Tok, more and more musicians have become famous overnight. Lil Nas X became popular on Tik Tok through "Old Town Road", and dominated the list of Billboard. He then signed a contract with Columbia Records and won the Grammy Award . Tai Verdes, who became popular on Tik Tok with the single "Stuck in the Middle", quickly made it to the Spotify rankings and signed contracts with several record labels.
data shows that 175 songs that were popular on short video platforms eventually made it to the Billboard 100 list, and popular songs on TikTok have been disseminated on platforms such as YouTube and Spotify. This also affects the operation of the record company.
"2021 TikTok Annual Music Report" shows that in 2021, about 430 songs had TikTok video views of more than 1 billion, a triple increase from 2020. Among them, the most popular music is Australian rapper Masked Wolf's "Astronaut In The Ocean", with a cumulative playback volume of nearly 20 billion.
Atlantic record company General Manager Paul Sinclair once told the media that Tik Tok's hot list has gradually become an important indicator for measuring the industry standards, and the company's team has also spent a lot of energy on studying the Tik Tok hot list.
Paul Sinclair also said that more and more artists are relying on Tik Tok nowadays, and more and more signs indicate that Tik Tok is the yardstick for measuring the success of music artists. For us, this platform can allow us to discover more artists. While
short video subverts the music industry at home and abroad, it also causes controversy.
Is the music scene going to be destroyed?
At the third Tencent Music annual ceremony, the "Top Ten Hot Songs of the Year" were captured by Douyin divine songs such as "Clouds and Sea", "White Moonlight and Cinnabar Mole", which is called "the Chinese music scene is dead". Previously, in 2019, Jay Chou's French concert was asked by fans to sing "Learn to Meow" and this incident was called "the sorrow of a generation."
A relevant practitioner told Mr. Fashion that the creation of the divine song only requires three points. The first is simple. Popular songs do not require singing skills. Everyone can sing with them, and there is no difference between good or bad. The second is that the tune is easy to remember and catchy. Each sentence follows the audience's expectations. You will brainwash it once and you will never forget it. The third is to have something fancy and everything is to serve the video effect.
While serving the video effects, the form of music is changing. In short videos that cost dozens of seconds, the author often shortens the most eye-catching chorus part, prelude and other links. For example, in the 4 minutes and 28 seconds song "Beautiful China", the chorus that was repeatedly circulated is the 28-second chorus. The cover version of " Summer Wind " is directly adapted to the original arrangement and the chorus is placed at the beginning.
At the same time, the length of the song is getting shorter and shorter.Tian Tian, co-founder and CEO of Niwu Entertainment, once told China Economic Weekly, "After the popularity of TikTok, singers found that the song could be popular in only 30 seconds, and many people didn't even write a complete song. Or in the 3-minute song, there were 30 seconds of repeated repetitions."
Overseas music market is also changing. Quartz data shows that from 2013 to 2018, the average duration of the songs of Billboard Hot 100 was shortened from 3 minutes and 50 seconds to 3 minutes and 30 seconds, down 20 seconds. Among them, 6% of the 2018 hit songs were 2 minutes and 30 seconds or less. Tik Tok is an important factor driving this phenomenon.
In lyrics and songwriting, popularity is the only basis. Based on this popularity, creators mass-produce music. The content of these music is highly homogeneous and plagiarism is common. Many popular songs have caused copyright disputes. "Learn to Meow" was accused of plagiarizing "Constellation Lovers". The melody of the chorus of "Simple Happiness" is highly similar to "What's Not Not " by Xu Song .
related practitioners told Observer.com that most short video music on the market has no "nutritional value". A group of overseas music creators also expressed dissatisfaction with short video platforms. Adele once publicly expressed his rejection of Tik Tok music and believed that users on TikTok cannot understand too deeply. She also said, "If everyone makes music for the generation of TikTok, who will write songs for my peers?"
In addition to the quality of the music itself, the changes in the form of music performance by some short video platforms have also caused a lot of controversy.
" Sound Slow " let many people understand Suzhou Pingtan
Previously, Suzhou Pingtan "Slow Slow" adapted by Cui Kaichao and Deyun Club "Exploring Qingshui River" became popular through short videos, and more people have come into contact with traditional folk arts such as Suzhou Pingtan and Beijing Xiaoqu. However, the cover of "The Female Prince Consort" by Xiao Pan Pan has caused controversy and was accused of blaspheming traditional culture.
Guan Wenzheng, chairman of the Youth Committee of the Chinese Opera Association of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area and chairman of the Macao Chinese Kunqu Opera Culture Association, told Observer.com: In recent years, the popularization of opera has become a trend, and in a macro sense it is a good inheritance and development of traditional culture. But from the perspective of specific popularization methods, many works have lost the original flavor and characteristics of the opera, and have become a popular and trendy style that only loses its meaning. Under the influence of
short videos, is the Chinese music scene really dead? Many practitioners have also given a more optimistic attitude towards this.
Mingxi Traditional Hanfu Dress Pavilion Manager and Suhe Kunqu Cultural Salon Cao Yirong told Observer.com that the controversy about "The Female Prince Consort" has little to do with the adapted works themselves, but their performance form makes everyone disgusted. Cao Yirong also said that this type of adaptation is also a communication channel, which is very good in nature and will not have a particularly negative impact on the opera itself.
In fact, whether it is for contemporary pop music or many traditional operas, high or low music is the biggest enemy. Music that is simple, easy to produce quickly always exists for a long time and never lacks a mass base.
Warner Music Greater China CEO Jonathan Serbin said that although popular songs can quickly get traffic, their popularity is very short, but it doesn't matter, people like it.
Chen Xianjiang, a senior music industry observer, also told China Economic Weekly that the controversy over the value of pop music has long existed. Pop music was defined as commercial music from the beginning, so commerciality is often the starting point for many musicians to create pop music. However, as pop music gradually developed into multiple styles and categories, its artistic value has also been improved.
More importantly, many works with excellent quality and praise from the mainstream music industry have indeed been born on the short video platform.
"Mohe Dance Hall" singer Liu Shuang
"Wild Wolf Disco" and "Mohe Restaurant", which became popular overnight on Douyin and were full of storytelling, once appeared on the Spring Festival Gala stage.The People's Daily commented on "Mohe Dance Hall" and said that in a sense, this kind of heartfelt longing and respect is also a form of love and romance, bringing resonance and contemplation to more people.
Before Wang Heye became famous in "The Wind Blows", he accumulated a certain amount of attention on the short video platform. Before Tai Verdes became popular through short videos, she had never been recognized on variety shows and had failed auditions many times. Before he became popular through short videos, Lil Nas X, who had just worked in restaurants and playgrounds to make a living. Without a short video platform, he would probably never have the chance to win the Grammy championship.
More importantly, some musicians who come out of short video platforms may have insufficient initial creative level, but they can obtain a considerable economic income, giving them more possibilities to polish and improve their works.
Tai Verdes once told the American media Quartz: "TikTok provides artists with a leverage that is difficult for artists to reach. You could not have created a divine song with 50 million views online in the past. In the old agreement, you had to agree to give up four albums. Although the record company would give you $2 million, the money would eventually return to the record company's pocket. Now you no longer need to sign these agreements."
Jonathan Sebin also said that we hope to release songs that are popular among the public, but we hope to help musicians achieve longer-term development. In this process, some songs may become popular and gain a lot of listeners. Musicians can also make different attempts in different songs to let fans know more about them.
In fact, some industry insiders told Observer.com that the Chinese music scene has never lacked excellent creators, but lacks correct guidance and connection.
When talking about the decline of the Chinese music scene, many people will point out that the impact of free music on the copyright market at the beginning of the Internet destroyed the benign ecology of original music, causing young musicians to lose the economic foundation for engaging in this industry.
Nowadays, short video platforms are providing them with a new space for growth.
In response to the changes in the music industry by short videos, the above-mentioned industry insiders emphasized that there will be criticisms at any time, but there is no need to say that the Chinese music scene has not died at any time. During the media change, there will always be people who feel uncomfortable, but good content will remain after the test of time.
Of course, in this process, short video platforms should also assume greater social responsibilities. In addition to the pursuit of traffic, whether better regulatory mechanisms can be introduced to eliminate the drought and preserve the essence will have a greater impact on the entire music industry.
We have arrived in a new era. Platform companies should not only regard themselves as a commercial company, their impact on society has long been so great that it cannot be ignored.
This article is an exclusive article of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.
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