Rock Music’s Influence on 1980s Chinese Pop Culture

Rock, a short form of “Rock and Roll”, is a broad genre of popular music that evolved in the late 1940s and early 1950s America. Rock music is also famous for having a strong backbeat, usually in more progressive styles. It originated from African American music such as jazz, rhythm, and blues, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre acquired its name in 1954. 

Since its advent, rock music has rapidly gained popularity across the world. The birthplace of Chinese rock was the city of Beijing. Nested within the nation's capital, rock music was highly politicized and open to a wide range of foreign influences. During most of the 1980s, rock music existed on the margins of culture and society, represented by live performances in small bars and hotels. 

The 1980s was an extraordinary period of openness and cultural renaissance in China. The cultural renaissance provided music a cradle and since then, the Chinese pop music industry has been influenced by its counterparts in the Canton region and beyond in East Asia—and let’s not forget the Western world. Various genres of pop have thus emerged and been influenced by several subgenres including rock music. As a result, when the first generation of rock stars and rock bands first assembled in China, they became legendary figures in an instant. Just look at the rise of Cui Jian!

Today, pop music has become the dominant genre in China’s music industry with about 57.3 percent of digital music users constituting its fan base, making it the most popular music genre in China. [1]

Looking back to the evolution of pop music within the past decades, rock music has emerged as a major influencer both in the 1980s and today, although to different extents and ways. This paper will mainly focus on the pop music culture in China during the1980s and analyze the part rock music continually plays in shaping pop culture.

The 1980s was one of the best eras for the refreshing music industry due to its openness to new things, including avant garde music genres, songs and singers. Western pop culture began to make its way into China, along with pop music from Taiwan and Hong Kong. [1] Rock music, being one of the “new things”, introduced pioneering ideas and concepts with its bold themes and music styles.

Centered around the core idea of freedom, rock songs in the 1980s shared similar themes. [1] Famous songs like Free Fallin’, I Want to Break Free, and many others all repetitively mentioned the highlight “free,” highlighting artists’ pursuit of freedom. As these rock songs became popular and spread among the young generation, their influence extended beyond the music industry, shaping 1980s pop culture. For example, the film Platform (“Zhan Tai”) directed by Jia Zhangke uses rock music to embody a shift in music taste and a trendy pop culture shaped by rock, depicting the great change in the 1980s and encapsulating the intertwining influence between pop culture and rock music at that time. [2] 

In terms of music style, 1980s rock music continued to enjoy a wide audience characterized by heavy distortion, pinch harmonics, and whammy bar abuse. These music styles are also heard in pop music, making it especially similar to the soft rock and glam metal styles. Even as listeners jammed to pop music, it was undeniable that it is built off of its rock counterparts.

There are several reasons as to why rock music has such a great influence on pop culture. 

The booming industry in the 1980s provides the audience with a variety of rock music to choose from. Together with the opening-up policy in 1980s China, national audiences were exposed to a brand-new music scene that they had never seen before. Nearly all the well-known rock bands wrote their signature work and best-sold albums in the 1980s. Artists experimented with new sounds and styles, and they created some of the most iconic songs of all time. “Another One Bites the Dust” by Queen and “Not Now John” by Pink Floyd are both examples of magnum opuses by these two bands in the 1980s. In China, Cui Jian’s “Rock 'n' Roll on the New Long March” (《新长征路上的摇滚》) was also a poster child of the booming industry. 

As a by-product of said industry, music videos in the 1980s were also highly experimental and popular. Such eye-catching visual influences greatly appealed to audiences in mainland China, delivering pleasurable viewing experiences on top of auditory havens. Fashion was also no stranger to the mass cultural appeal of rock. Young generations in the 1980s were seen imitating rock singers in terms of their daily behavior and outfits, leading a rock-centered fashion trend and shaping pop culture at that time.

Chinese rock’s successes would’ve been nothing without the sociopolitical changes that affected the country on a national level. The opening-up policy not only liberated the cultural scene in China and provided mainland audiences with more choices, but also fostered a flourishing economy in the 1980s. Since the opening-up policy, there was a sharp increase in disposable personal income per capita in China. [3] With more money in their pockets, Chinese people were more willing to spend on entertainment and arts, resulting in a bigger market for music as a whole and thus, for rock music specifically. Besides buying music, people also splurged on posters, music instruments, outfits, and other rock-related goods that were also more affordable then.

In conclusion, rock music has had a big influence on pop culture and will continue to do so for a very long time. Through the lens of rock music and pop culture, we can take a glance on the fast-changing era in China and its social and economic development. In the 1980s, rock music influenced pop culture mainly through its flourishing popularity and style. Within any decade in human history, a solid social and economic foundation is the prerequisite of a booming art scene teeming with new life.

References

[1] N. Thomas, “An Analysis on the Influence of the Rock Music on Pop Music,” Ashvamegh Indian Journal of English Literature, Jan. 12, 2017. https://ashvamegh.net/an-analysis-on-the-influence-of-the-rock-music-on-pop-music/

[2] C. Underground, “Evolution of Chinese Culture in the 1980s: Youthful Dancesteps,” China Underground, Mar. 21, 2023. https://china-underground.com/2023/03/21/the-evolution-of-chinese-culture-in-the-1980s-youthful-dancesteps/ (accessed Apr. 03, 2024).

[3] S. Kobayashi, J. Baobo, and J. Sano, “The ‘Three Reforms’ in China: Progress and Outlook,” Japan Research Institute, Sep. 1999. https://www.jri.co.jp/english/periodical/rim/1999/ RIMe199904threereforms/