Conclusion: Breakthrough as a “New” Mainstream
The emergence of individualism in the pop songs of the 1980s marks the
rise of humanism in China, and shows that it extended significantly
beyond the minority musical space of rock music. In contrast to a
collectivist ideology in which all were expected to behave in set ways,
putting the homeland and the party line above their personal doubts or
desires, the pop musicians created a new narrative that offered comfort
with regard to the painful memories and spiritual wounds of the past.
The songs explored in this chapter—“Blood-Stained Dignity”, “Fill
the World with Love”, and “My Beloved Hometown”—indicate how these
musicians projected their feelings of sadness, confusion, and worry in a
calm, soft, and direct way, and their emergent articulation of
self-direction can be seen as an important indicator of how Chinese
intellectuals of that period hoped to find and build a new future for
themselves and for the nation by enlisting mainstream expressive and
political channels. They thus stand apart from songs like “I Have
Nothing” which shared the same ideological analysis but did not present
collaboration with mainstream state forces as a means forward.
With events in June 1989, these collaborative dreams were for the most
part shattered, and the pop music mainstream in China turned slowly but
inexorably toward commercial entertainment ends, but, for a few years in
the late 1980s, pop musicians’ songs pushed onto the political stage.
They enabled young people to assert their equality with the older
generation and began to take over the function of revolutionary songs in
embracing social issues, ideological connections, and spiritual
guidance. For instance, immediately after the premier of “Fill the
World with Love” on May 9, 1986, an official newspaper assessed the
performance as a political articulation of important social issues,
gathering together pop singers who, it claimed, usually behaved like “a
heap of loose sand”.30 Following this official
statement on the song, music critics and scholars started to re-evaluate
the role of pop songs. For instance, scholar Liang Maochun claimed that
“Pop [tongsu ] songs are best suited to expressing the key
issues of the times, including political issues” (Liang, 1987).
The content assessed here may help address Western misapprehensions of
the history of Chinese music, which can both overestimate the social
impact of rock and under recognize the progressive political content of
certain mainstream songs in the mid- and late 1980s. It also suggests
that it may be worth a close look at the mainstream popular musics of
other periods and the ways it reflects (or denies) the ideologies of its
creators or draws together (or apart) contrasting generations of
listeners. The Chinese intellectuals may no longer be setting the pace
in mainstream songwriting and the social disruption of the Cultural
Revolution is certainly receding, but this does not automatically mean
that those writing and performing subsequent sets of repertory possess
less complicated ideologies or future ambitions.