China’s got talent: the young musicians trying to make it big in the West
Could Faye Wong’s daughter Leah Dou become the first successful East-to-West crossover artist?
Queens Hotel Brighton, on Britain’s south coast, is the sort of genteel seafront property more suited to afternoon tea than the launch of international rock careers. But each spring, its basement Sandringham Suite bar is given over to three days of raucous concerts from aspiring new bands and singers from all corners of the world.
For the past 11 years, the bar’s improvised stage, illuminated only by an emergency exit sign and a single small spotlight, has hosted everything from Dutch ambient house performers and Norwegian folk singers to Japanese punk bands and South African rap crews. All, to greater or lesser degrees of enthusiasm, have paraded their wares to the European music industry’s most important talent spotters, who gather in the city for the annual Great Escape Festival, Britain’s largest showcase for new music.
Every non-native performer arrives with their eyes on the same prize – to transcend linguistic differences and cross over into the mainstream English-language pop market, where music’s biggest riches are to be found. And if the chatter among industry bigwigs at this year’s event is anything to go by, that market may soon be hearing the music of more artists from China.
Soon perhaps … but not yet: just one Chinese artist, 21-year-old Dou Jingtong, has made it onto the Great Escape 2018 bill, the country having been eclipsed, as usual, by pop-savvy Japan and South Korea, with each represented by four acts.
Nevertheless, Caralinda Booth, a veteran scout for Universal Music in China and a promoter, is “totally optimistic” about the future. “In the bushes, stirring in the undergrowth, there’s an awful lot of new, young generation Chinese making really interesting music,” she says.
Many Chinese artists have dipped their toes into Western pop waters with little success. From Andy Lau Tak-wah to Jason Zhang, they have trekked overseas and filled moderate venues with overseas-Chinese fans without ever troubling the charts. But the runaway growth of music-related earnings in China over the past few years has given Western labels and promoters new impetus to cash in. The most recent figures from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry, an organisation that represents the interests of the music industry worldwide, show an astonishing rise in music-related income. Revenue from recorded music in China soared 35.3 per cent to US$292 million in 2017, lifting China to 10th position globally.
