Outdustry | 格外音乐 » Olympics

China’s Top 10 Music Singles From 2008

Ed Peto — Thu, 05 Feb 2009 03:08:26 +0000

Chinese mega portal Netease recently released their 2008 China Internet Communication Report (h/t Adam Schokora). The report generates statistics from the behaviour of some 200 million Chinese netizens who use Netease’s range of online products (ie. Netease Blog, Netease BBS, Youdao Search Engine, Netease Channels and Netease Posts). According to the authors:

“every click or search [our users] have done, and any words they have posted on the Internet, have contributed to this report”

The results are presented in top ten popularity lists for everything from “Internet Hot Figures” (No.1, not surprisingly, is fallen Olympic hurdles hero Liu Xiang), through “Internet Hot Key Words” (Sichuan Earthquake) and “Movies” (John Woo historical, Red Cliff).

The top 10 “Musical Singles” list provides as accurate a chart as any as to what China was listening to in 2008. These are the mega-hits – with a predictable trend towards Olympics and Earthquake themes – presented here for you in handy video form:

No.1 : You And Me – Liu Huan & Sarah Brightman

The Olympic theme song, sung at the opening ceremony.

No.2 : The Air – Tan Jing

Another Olympic related song featured at the opening ceremony.

No.3 : Beijing Welcomes You – Various Artists

Sung by 100 artists from around China, this song celebrated the 100 day countdown to the Olympics. It was also played as the torch was being lit during the opening ceremony.

No.4 : Be Together, Alive Or Not – Jackie Chan

Reportedly written in the two days following the May 12th Sichuan earthquake by the staff at BOCOG (Beijing Olympics Organisation Committee). Jackie Chan flew up to Beijing, recorded the song on May 15th, it was receiving nationwide airplay by the 16th.

No.5 : Blue And White Porcelain – Jay Chou

CCTV’s annual Spring Festival TV Gala is a bona fide hit factory. This song benefited from the 200 million+ (approx.) viewership of the 2008 edition, guaranteeing it’s hit status amongst netizens.

No.6 : We Chinese – Various Artists

Another gathering of superstars – including Li Yuchun, He Jie, Su Xing and Yu Haoming – sing for victims of the Sichuan earthquake.

No.7 : Capricorn – Jay Chou

For some reason they have included Jay Chou’s album on a singles chart. His 2008 offering, Capricorn, spawned multiple hits including the two seen on this list.

No.8 : The Rice Aroma – Jay Chou

No.9 : I Know You Will Come – Xiao Ke

Recorded the day after the Sichuan earthquake.

No.10 : Painted Heart – Zhang Liangying

The theme song from the movie Painted Skin, sung by Zhang Liangying, performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.

Olympic Security Hangover : Midi Update

Ed Peto — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 02:43:20 +0000

Midi School have just announced (Chinese link) that they will be delaying the festival by another ten days or so. Dates are yet to be confirmed. The official reason is that the government expects millions of Chinese tourists to descend on Beijing during the upcoming October holidays to look around the Olympic facilities, including the Olympic Centre planned for use by Midi.

Midi claim that they would be free to go ahead but that the venue would have to remain open to joe public, obligating Midi to pay 700,000RMB a day for the mandatory use of strict Olympic security barriers. Obviously a crippling financial burden.

Festival organisers are in discussion with Haidian park, the site of recent Midi festivals, for the re-scheduled event. They are waiting to hear back from local government on this. The issue with this new venue – which also relegated everything but the main stage of the Modern Sky Festival to an indoor site next door at Haidian Exhibition Hall – is that the park is currently being used by a battery of anti-aircraft guns which were in place as, once again, part of the Olympic security measures.

What this set-back means for Air’s performance at Midi remains to be seen, although I suspect this might kill any hopes a lot of the international bands have to play the festival.

The Biggest Copyright Infringement In History?

Ed Peto — Sat, 06 Sep 2008 07:31:24 +0000

In their recent ‘final tally’, the Nielsen stats boffins have declared the Beijing Olympics to be the most watched games in history:

“The 4.7 billion viewers who accessed television coverage of the Beijing Olympics officially translates into approximately 70 percent of the world’s population, or more than two in every three people globally.”

When you consider that each country’s coverage of the Olympics would have used different theme music (including the ubiquitous Chinese theme songs), the one musical consistency for the entire 4.7 billion people would have been the national anthems played ad nauseam throughout the entire 16 days.

This must be a contender for the most exposure ever for a body of musical work in a two week period. You can imagine why Peter Breiner, the man who arranged all 200 national anthems for the Athens Olympics in 2004, was pretty pissed off to find out his works were being used this time around as well without any approval, recognition or compensation. The Washington Post reports that while the Beijing Olympic Committee say all anthems were “orchestrated by Chinese musicians”, Breiner is “100 percent positive” the arrangements are his.

I’m fairly certain Breiner will not see a penny for this. He will just have to enjoy the outstanding anecdotal fodder that comes from being the victim of perhaps the most visible copyright infringement of all time.