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55 albums · 1937–2020

Music of China, from Zhou Xuan and Cui Jian to Cantopop, Beijing's indie and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Cui Jian singing at the microphone with a white guitar, in black and white
Wu Man seated on stage with her pipaFaye Wong singing on a dark stage in a flowing white dress
Cui Jian on stage in 1993. Photo: Petra Gall, Schwules Museum, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Wu Man with the pipa at WOMEX in Budapest, 2015. Photo: Elekes Andor, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Faye Wong in concert in Hong Kong, 2011. Photo: lajabordidar, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

China's popular music has the Shanghai song of Zhou Xuan and Li Xianglan at its start and a guitarist at its turn, Cui Jian, whose Rock 'n' Roll on the New Long March opened the Beijing rock of Tang Dynasty, Black Panther and Xu Wei; beside them Hong Kong's Sam Hui, Beyond, Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui and Eason Chan, Faye Wong between the two cities, the folk of Lao Lang, Li Jian and Song Dongye, P.K.14, Omnipotent Youth Society and Re-TROS from the clubs of Beijing, Hanggai, Dao Lang and Gong Linna, the hip hop of Higher Brothers, Howie Lee's electronics, and Lang Lang, Wu Man and Tan Dun on the concert stages. The list has 55 records from 1937 to 2020, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Dou Wei's Black Dream, He Yong's Garbage Dump and Zhang Chu's records of the nineties are missing because they are not on Deezer, and the opera traditions, most of the classical and traditional repertoire and the regions' own song beyond a nod would each need a list of their own, as Taiwan already has. About 44 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Pop 17%Rock 14%Folk & Country 11%Other 58%
  • Pop 17%
  • Rock 14%
  • Folk & Country 11%
  • Other 58%

The genres named most: chinese, pop, cantopop, folk, rock, singer-songwriter.

The colours of the covers

A stripe for each cover, in the colour Tidal picks from it, sorted by hue; the greys at the end.

Where the music comes from

Music from 1 country: China 55. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

The 1930s

The 1940s

The 1970s

The 1980s

The 1990s

The 2000s

The 2010s

The 2020s

More lists

Lists of Countries first, then others; all of them on the blog. The blog.