The Evolution of Chinese Popular Music: Modernization and Globalization, 1927 to the Present

Ya-Hui Cheng examines the emergence of popular music genres--jazz, rock, and hip hop--in Chinese society, covering the social underpinnings that shaped the development of popular music in China and Taiwan, from imperialism to westernization and from modernization to globalization. Four monumental social progressive moments impacted Chinese popular music: the influence of the 1930s Shanghai Chinese style of jazz, which marked the modernization of China following the anti-imperialist, anti-feudalist May Fourth Movement; 1970s campus folksongs, also called pre-rock, which emerged from university campus music events in Taiwan; 1980s Chinese rock at the time of the Tiananmen Square protests; and hip hop after 2000, representing the latest Chinese social identity following resumption of relations between republican Taiwan and communist China after four decades of separation. Cheng demonstrates how western musical genres were used by Chinese songwriters to express moments of social progress, utilizing new styles and sounds that expressed the people's voices of the time. Moreover, some Chinese musical elements remained, resulting in indigenous characteristics in the new western genres and producing what Cheng calls a "modern Chinese nostalgia."

The book discusses how this integrated sound facilitated the popularity of western music spreading through Chinese society and further led to cultural exchanges between the west and east.