[English] Chinese Rock Magazines, 1998-2001

If you still remember what we said before (yes, it’s been a while), you know that in the mid-1990s something new is going on in China. Between a new “cultural fever” (文化热), the apparition of dakou (打口) CDs and tapes, and the formation of China’s first punk bands, the Chinese counter-cultural scene is in turmoil. But the story of the musical underground is not only the story of its heroes, legendary punk bands which have aged more or less well, it’s also the story of the audience, the fans, and some enthusiasts who started to write and publish fanzines, about local scenes or more broadly about international rock and roll. It’s the era of specialized magazines (杂志) published more or less legally, with the backing of official magazines and editors. Yan Jun (颜峻), native of Lanzhou, plays a preeminent role in the development of rock critic in China. Critic, musician, journalist, collector of dakou (see the RadiiChina’s article and also this fabulous long paper by Josh Feola), Yan Jun participated to the adventure of Chinese rock magazine, and more particularly this first one, “朋克时代” (“Punk Generation”) published in 1998, backed by the official Guangzhou music magazine “音乐天堂” (“Music Heaven”, published from 1992 to 2006), and edited by the rock critic Yang Bo (杨波). Yang Bo discovered rock an roll in the early 1990s, first through the hongkongese bands BEYOND and Tat-Ming Pair, whose tapes circulated at the time, but before the apparition of dakous, Yang Bo had to rely on tapes borrowed from “friends of friends” coming back from overseas.

“Punk Generation” was published for three issues from 1998 to 1999, each time sold with a cassette tape containing a majority of Western rock bands, and some Chinese bands as Punk God (盘古). In an era were internet was virtually non-existent, these issues were an important contribution to the musical education of Chinese youth, that allowed them to choose between the myriads of dakous available on the black market. Here is the playlist of the first issue of “Punk Generation”, where we can find some of the most important punk, garage and new wave bands:

And here is the first issue, which contains articles about Western musicians – Yan Jun dedicates an entire article to Kurt Cobain, who died 4 years before – as Jane’s Addiction, Jesus and Mary Chain. There are also articles about Chinese bands as Punk God and NO, poems, op-eds, the lyrics of the tape’s songs, etc. A very interesting postscript written by Yang Bo asks what the role of a rock critic must be.

Download the PDF version here.

Between 1998 and 1999 two issues of another magazine, “盛世摇滚” (“Heyday of Rock and Roll”), were published in the same style as “Punk Generation”. Yang Bo published a new magazine between 1999 and 2000 for four issues, named “自由音乐” (“Freedom Music”). Little by little, the critics, as Yan Jun, gets more interested by other kinds of music: metal and death metal with Sepultura, noise, or krautrock, which is best shown by the playlist of the cassette tape. The general tone is more scathing, the magazine criticizing for instance the music label “Modern Sky” renamed “Modern Hell”, guilty of becoming way too mainstream.