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55 albums · 1979–2020

Music of Taiwan, from Teresa Teng and the campus folk to Jay Chou, indie and today

· 2 min read · by 1001 Albums

Mayday on stage at the Taipei Dome, the crowd under the steel lattice of the roof
Jay Chou singing with his arms raised on stageChthonic's singer in red on the festival stage under the lighting rig
Mayday at the Taipei Dome, 2025. Photo: Sinsyuan, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Jay Chou on the Opus tour, Hong Kong 2013. Photo: Eddie Yip, CC BY-SA 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons. · Chthonic on the stage of Megaport in Kaohsiung, 2016. Photo: Hisakon, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Taiwan's popular music begins with a voice half of Asia can sing along to, Teresa Teng's, and Fong Fei-fei beside her, then the campus folk of Lo Ta-yu and Chyi Chin, the Hokkien song of Jody Chiang and Wu Bai, A-mei, David Tao and Jay Chou's Jay and Fantasy for the Mandopop of the nineties and 2000s, Jolin Tsai, S.H.E and Hebe Tien on the big stages, Sodagreen, Cheer Chen and Crowd Lu for the indie of The Wall and Legacy, No Party for Cao Dong, Sunset Rollercoaster and 9m88 at Megaport, Kimbo Hu, Panai, Sangpuy and Abao from Taitung and the east coast, Chthonic's metal, Lim Giong's electronics and the Taipei Chinese Orchestra. The list has 55 records from 1979 to 2020, one or two by each of the names above and only a small part of what they made; Mayday, Jonathan Lee, Chyi Yu's Olive Tree, Chang Chen-yue, Bobby Chen, Samingad and Accusefive are missing because their records are not on Deezer, and nanguan and beiguan, the opera troupes, the Hakka song beyond a nod to Sheng-xiang and most of the classical tradition would each need a list of their own. About 42 hours of music, 5 days of a few records each.

By genre

Pop 30%Rock 11%Folk & Country 6%Other 53%
  • Pop 30%
  • Rock 11%
  • Folk & Country 6%
  • Other 53%

The genres named most: taiwanese, mandopop, folk, hokkien pop, indie pop, indie rock.

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: Taiwan 55. The deeper the colour, the more albums: one, two to four, five to nine, ten and more.

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.