Hello! I am KK Siu. I am so glad to be involved in this jooksings.com project! I am quite into Asian pop culture, especially music! My friend Chris contacted me a few weeks ago and asked me if I would be interested in writing for jooksings.com. I thought he was kidding at first but then it actually sounded like a good idea. He thinks that I have a good insight into both asian and Caucasian music so I will be looking into giving you Jooksing boys and girls a deeper look into this industry that I’ve grown to love. But Let me tell you more about myself first.
What makes me a Jooksing? Well… I don’t consider myself a total Jooksing. I think I may be 40% Jooksing and 60% FOB. Not 100% but a good mix of both worlds for sure. I live in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. I’m Chinese and I can still read and write it which is pretty good considered that I moved to Canada when I was 9. What makes me qualify for writing about music? Well, I started listening to music at a relative young age. Pop music has really interested me since I was little. If I tell you the music I listen to when I was a kid, you’d probably think I am a 30-something, but I am still in my 20’s. So that tells you how young I was when I started. I also have a few connections in the HK music industry: I wish I had that 10 years ago, which would’ve been nice, but now no one listens to HK music, and it’s kind of sad, cuz it used to be a big part of my life. I don’t know if I am the only one who is as crazy as me: there was no internet back then, and newspaper was the only source to find out when a CD is released. CD usually get shipped from HK to Canada in 2 weeks and I will time my next trip to Chinatown to get the latest release! I didn’t care if HK CDs cost twice as much as ‘western’ CDs and most of the time I have no clue on what the songs are like (remember, no mp3s back then), but I still spent a huge chunk of my allowance on them. Nowadays, HK music is crap. What happened? I don’t think it has to do with me getting old and not being able to appreciate music, I still buy loads of English and Jpop CDs… I put on my thinking hat and came up with this:
The reasons why HK Music sucks.
1. There is only one music genre in HK! – 80% of the hit songs in HK are ballads! Because they are easy to sing in karaoke! The rest … are just the same boring Canto-pop songs. Talk about BORING~ Rock? Alternative? R&B? Hip Hop? Rap? What’s that?
2. “Singers” who can’t sing – in every music industry, there are accidental stars that can’t sing but hit it big anyway with their pretty faces. The situation in HK is a lot worse: your chance of becoming a singer depends on your looks and not your musical talent. I always wonder what would people from other culture thinks when they hear some of our singers. Will they think all Chinese are crappy singers? Or will they think there’s something in our genes that affects our hearing?
3. Singing actors? – yes…this is similar to #2, but I would like to put it here anyway. Why do they make actors sing the theme songs of their own movies/TV series??? Tony Leung and Andy Lau sang the theme song to Infernal Affairs sounding like amateurs and everyone seem to be quite ok with it ... now can you imagine Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio doing that for The Departed???? Don’t think the idea would fly in Hollywood but the Chinese don’t seem to mind.
4. Copy-cat culture – Take a look at this first, and you’d think WTF… I don’t understand why they have to copy an international hit every time!!! It’s probably smarter to copy songs that no one has heard of, right?
5. Second, Third, Forth…versions – the initial press of the CD usually comes with the album only, 2nd version comes with a Music Video DVD, then the 3rd version comes with a concert DVD… so why buy the initial press? By the time the last version is released, I’ve already gotten bored of the songs!
6. No Bands! – How can there be no bands in a music scene??? Well, HK has none! There are a few but they are all labelled as alternative or indie and seem to never be able to make it in the mainstream. Something’s seriously wrong!
7. Only two people writing lyrics? – yes, there are only two people writing 90% of HK pop song lyrics at the moment! These two can probably brainwash the whole population of HK if they want to.
8. Huge CD cases – those irregular shaped CD package are terrible and a total nightmare for CD collectors! Just use a regular CD case for once! The fancy packages are totally unnecessary! Please focus on music production instead!
KK Siu
Entertainment