Recommended Books & Music

The vapid, factory-produced syrup of Mandopop (think Celine Dion by way of Britney Spears sung in Mandarin) blares out of barber shops and retail stores throughout Beijing, as elsewhere in China. But like Washington, D.C., and London, China's capital is ultimately a rock 'n' roll town.

Godfather of Chinese rock Cui Jian, somewhat of a joke now as he clings to fading fame, got his start here in the early 1980s. A decade later, Chinese-American Kaiser Kuo, front man for the no-longer-existent headbanger outfit Tang Dynasty (Tang Chao), helped kick off a pretentious and fairly derivative heavy metal scene. But it wasn't until a shipment of Nirvana CDs found its way into local record shops in the late 1990s that Beijing finally developed a genuine musical voice.

Like the Velvet Underground did in the U.S. 20 years earlier, Nirvana's Nevermind inspired nearly every Chinese kid who heard it to pick up a guitar and start a band. Investigations into Kurt Cobain's roots led to punk, which made its first major appearance in Beijing in late 1997 at the Scream Club, a sweaty dive in the battered Wudaokou neighborhood. It was a natural response to Beijing's swaths of urban decay and post-Tian'an Men political disillusionment, and American pop culture magazines as big as Details quickly tapped the snarling, mohawked youth -- most better at posing with their instruments than playing them -- as easy symbols of China's new lost generation.

Beijing's punks were probably never as concerned with political protest as they were made out to be, and are even less so now as they enjoy the fruits of small-scale fame (punks are among the few Chinese men able to attract Western women). But they continue to draw relatively large foreign audiences, and a handful have actually begun to produce music worthy of all the attention. The vulgar but talented Brain Failure (Nao Zhuo) and ska-influenced Reflector (Fanguang Jing) -- both born at the now-defunct Scream Club -- have each recorded listenable songs and evolved beyond just spitting beer in their live shows (though you can still expect the occasional shower). Also on Scream Records, the all-girl pop punk group Hang on the Box (Gua Zai Hezi Shang) sings in charmingly accented English.

Chinese musicians wanting to produce significant popular music suffer from the same dreadful self-consciousness of working in a foreign idiom as do artists in other imported media. Some try desperately (and without much success) to create "rock with Chinese characteristics," while others opt to simply lay Chinese lyrics over melodies lifted, sometimes note for note, from Western CDs. Even the most creative of efforts will sound suspiciously derivative, and those that don't usually appeal only to Mandarin-speaking foreigners who delight primarily in their ability to understand the lyrics. The other major barrier to the local music industry is piracy; particularly the ready availability of music downloads. Most band members still have day jobs.

Second Hand Rose (Ershou Meigui) have an eponymous full-length CD (available only in Beijing), an excellent effort that stitches together Chili Peppers guitar, folk instrumentals, and sardonic errenzhuan opera-influenced lyrics ("I'm a name brand cigarette/I've been stuffed in the mouth of a poor man") into one of the very few uniquely Chinese sounds you'd actually want to hear. The band's live performances, built around the raised-eyebrow theatricality of cross-dressing singer Liang Long, are among the most entertaining musical experiences not just in China, but anywhere.

Folk rockers Wild Children (Ye Haizi) have their roots in the pared-down musical traditions of northwestern China, and play pleasantly repetitive chant-heavy acoustic songs likely to appeal more to the World Music set than to Dylan devotees. Information can be found on the band's webpage on myspace.com.

For information on when and where the above bands might be playing, check music listings in either that's Beijing or City Weekend, both available free in hotels, bars, and cafes where foreigners gather. Currently, Yu Gong Yi Shan is the best live music venue in Beijing, hands down.