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Worlding and new music cultures in Shanghai
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Worlding and new music cultures in Shanghai Xin Gu∗, Justin O'Connor, Jason Ng ABSTRACT
This paper investigates Shanghai's music sub-cultural scene as part of the process of worlding. In Asian cities, until recently outside the mainstream of western commercial music, there is a highly complex and contingent process of catching up with the history of the field, and learning to feel comfortable in inhabiting this space. In Shanghai, this process of ‘catching-up’ is radically compressed, in two senses – the city's relative late development and the limited availability of inner city music venues. This gives rise to what we might call a ‘singularity’ – the kind of compressed space prior to a big bang. Where elsewhere we might see a complex field of different symbolic and economic capitals and musical genres with which they are intertwined, in China, and in our case of Shanghai, these are not yet given space to express themselves. Consequently, to move through the independent, semi-legal venues of Shanghai's music scene is to encounter a compressed richness which, in a few years, may well have become highly segmented and mutually distinctive spaces of a ‘normal’ urban music scene.
1. Introduction “For close to three decades in China after 1949, one could hear in public a single voice, that of the party-state … the introduction of new, simple, and low-cost technologies, like cassette and video recording … enabled many heretofore voiceless people to speak publicly in new voice and to articulate new subjectivities … [in the 1980s] people started to speak publicly in voices that did not always correspond to the voice of the state” (Baranovitch, 2003, pp. 1,3). Most studies of subculture through music focus on cultural aspects of youth and their strong sense of shared identity from economic and political marginalization. Subculture in this sense is formed on the basis of a marked disconnection from mainstream economic and cultural life or more specifically ‘a disconnection from institutions revolving around production, consumption and community life’ (Wyn & White, 1997, p. 124). There is disagreement on whether the subcultural status is actively pursued or a choice forced on those marginalized (Gelder, 2005). Music subculture studies tend to lean towards the former. This appears in genre studies of rock music for example (Gracyk, 2001; Kolloge, 1999). These researches argue that those involved in rock music (mostly young people) have made a conscious decision to marginalize or differentiate themselves from mainstream society in post-war youth markets (Bennett, 2001). In China, we see similar music subcultures and social relations appear. What is notable about the Chinese experience is the various underground and commercial stratifications that polarize local music tastes. Punk-rockers, for example are often at odds with the mainstream cultural consumption in the international hub that is Shanghai. Hip-hop
enjoys a greater commercial success due to its increasing popularity made possible by television shows like Rap of China1 and by way of international artist collaborations (with the US and Korea) by artists like Higher Brothers. The scene in Shanghai is also sustained by a number of committed promoters, venues, agencies and foreigners who act as intermediaries between local and international music markets. Their support and influence are most notably illustrated in acts that harness global connectivity and investment of both economic and cultural resources into the production of local records, events, publications and promotions. This is especially important for the underground music scene which has often been excluded from government investment in cultural and creative industries (CCIs) due to a complicated history of music censorship and nuanced local-global music consumption. In China, the development of an alternative music scene has been highly complex and a contingent process of ‘catching up’ with the history of other global iterations. This process is also about learning to feel comfortable in inhabiting this global space (Ong, 2011). Other cities in the region have been able to more fluidly traverse this distance as the internet, and more relaxed migration laws and digital governance, have played a significant role in shaping the speed to which these cities are able to adapt.2 This is bolstered by the connectivity of global consumer networks on social media which help create and sustain communities of DIY participation and cultural exchange (Roy and Ong, 2011). In China, adapting to this global space has not been without hardship and is limited by caveats imposed on consumption by state governments that restrict access to these networks of global flows and the consumption of new forms. Negotiating this space has been especially troublesome in Shanghai where a more complex history of music
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Gu), Justin.O'[email protected] (J. O'Connor), [email protected] (J. Ng). 1 Reality TV show built to promote the local Rap music scene. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002614/the-rap-of-china-returns-after-off-beat-year. 2 Fieldwork as part of a PhD research project conducted between 2015 and 2019 across four Asia-Pacific subcultures fields including in Shanghai. ∗
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.002 Received 7 December 2018; Received in revised form 30 April 2019; Accepted 24 May 2019 1877-9166/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Xin Gu, Justin O'Connor and Jason Ng, City, Culture and Society, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.002
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censorship, youth dissent, and globalisation, has stifled the local reception and development of alternative cultural scenes in the city (O'Connor & Gu, 2006). This compressed process of learning to inhabit the global sphere doesn't necessarily lead to the commodification of subcultures. Instead, subcultures employ subversive power to resist efforts for co-option from state capitalism (De Kloet, 2005a). In fact, the co-existence of globalization and marketization (controlled by the state) has created some spaces for the re-emergence of rock music in China. De Kloet (2005a) described the Chinese rock music industry's evolution as a constant negotiation of 'Chineseness' in the face of commercialization and globalization. Whilst to regional companies, Chineseness was carefully preserved through Taiwanese and Hong Kongnese’ imagined cultural nostalgia, to mainland music companies, it is as much about internationalization and meeting global standards as it is concerned with signifying its ‘sonic difference’ with the West. Clearly then, these music scenes are part of the process of ‘worlding’ in which individuals, communities and the wider industry learn to inhabit a global cultural space – through a culturally specific route. In China, learning to inhabit these global spaces is faced by two domestic challenges. The first is the challenge imposed by global regulatory and industry bodies that don't sympathize with unique local creative industry practices (Pang, 2012). Since joining the WTO, the Chinese government has enforced global copyright laws across domestic cultural industries. This could potentially close off already restricted access to the global sonic space for local audiences, especially those in the indie music scene. Censorship and import quotas imposed by the government have also placed pirated copies and cut CDs (dakou), as a productive force in China's music cultures since the 1990s, under new restriction (De Kloet, 2002: 96). The embracing of global standards set by WTO copyright laws may set back creative aspirations and the wider local-global development of local music cultures. The second challenge derives from China's own music industry structure. De Kloet (2002) articulated distinctions between music publishers and record companies in China, where the latter is the creative powerhouse of the local music industry, and the former are the gatekeepers of the local music market who control manufacturing (duplication of the master tape), distribution rights and the sharing of revenues. Publishing companies are state owned and are affiliated to government regulators. This has created a vacuum of global record companies who are prevented from setting up independent firms in China. While this has allowed smaller regional and local firms to flourish, the closedness of the Chinese music industry prevents it from participating broadly in the global music circuit. In this article, we examine the music scene in Shanghai, its contemporisation and how it is connected to a transnational flow of cultural consumption. It is a scene that is in a compressed process of emergence, in terms of its subjects and structures. More specifically, both local and global cultural expressions in a compressed scene of multiple 'subcultures', are brought together because there are few spaces for non-mainstream music in China.1 This compressed space can be analysed through the lens of ‘worlding’ in which individuals and cities learn to inhabit a global cultural space. We use worlding in line with its original Heideggerian sense, that is, ‘worlding’ as an on-going, never finished process of learning to inhabit, to be at home in the world. This term has been applied to cities, to subcultures and to individuals, who attempt to inhabit a particular place in a fluid, and volatile ‘globalized’ world, to make or re-make it as their own –if only in imagination and aspiration (Wilson & Connery, 2007). In Shanghai, this process of ‘catching-up’ is combined with the unique challenges described above and is radically compressed, in two senses. First, it is compressed in terms of time – the relatively late development of the music scene and its restricted access to global flows has seen a process of rapid learning compressed into a short period. This has meant, genres have had less time to find footholds in the city, making the social and temporal distinctions that apply elsewhere less
rigid. Second, the fact that spaces of independent music are so limited, even in such populated cities like Shanghai, means that the whole set of subcultural fields and genre distinctions are packed together in the same space (e.g. hip-hop and punk-rock). This gives rise to what we might call a ‘singularity’ – the kind of compressed space prior to a big bang. Elsewhere we might see a complex field of different symbolic and economic capitals configured around the musical genres with which they are intertwined. In China, and in our case of Shanghai, these are not yet given space to develop freely and entirely independently from one another. To some, the diversification is already underway with the urban youth expressing their sonic taste outside of the ‘sinification’ or what is expected to be Chinese: ‘being modern signifies the longing of the dakou generation to become part of a global youth culture, not on the basis of cultural differences but on the basis of similarity, of a shared musical culture.’ (De Kloet, 2005b, pp. 621; pp. 621) The early introduction of foreign music came through underdeveloped and limited flows of cultural products that stimulated a key urban consumption. This consumption was however, incredibly marginal due to the illegitimacy of record shops and Dakou CDs. The more recent proliferation of bars and clubs, driven by foreign expats as key leisure amenities in cities like Shanghai, has reignited this inner-city consumption through the promotion of subcultural music into the mainstream with punk-rock and hip-pop emerging as identifiable forms that attract sizable local audiences. In this paper, we will focus on the composition of Shanghai's underground music scene – those involved; the kinds of venues and production sites key to the definition of ‘underground indie music’; and global networks of Chinese music consumption that are driven by the ‘indie’ story constructed, conserved and promoted by expats as intermediaries. The case studies in this paper are compiled empirically from the Shanghai music scene, including focused group interviews with key informants – i.e. indie band members, booking agencies, music labels (e.g. bands and representatives from Maybe Mars & Genjing Records) and venue owners (e.g. Mao Live House and Yu Yin Tang) in a community symposium format.3 Additional semi-structured interviews and participant observations were conducted between Dec 2016–June 2018 taking place in venues (bars, clubs and restaurants), festivals and formal companies.4 These individuals and agencies are shown to be important connectors of the local-national underground scene and instrumental in creating new paths for Chinese music consumption abroad. This empirical field work is supported by indie artist's use of music social media platforms Douban (Chinese)5 and Wooozy6 (English), supplementing our understanding of fandom for the Chinese indie music scene. Furthermore, our analysis has been enhanced by the connections to prominent figures in Shanghai's DIY scene – e.g. the owner of local indie label Genjing.7 2. Shanghai's scene and subcultural field Bourdieu's (1986) concept of the field proves to be a useful tool for understanding the local underground music scene in Shanghai. According to Bourdieu, the field of cultural production is organised 3
The authors have co-organised a underground music symposium ‘Genealogies and Geographies of Experimental Underground Music in China’ on 16th Jan 2016, at AM space in Shanghai. 4 As part of a PhD research project, fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2019 on hip-hop and punk-rock communities in Shanghai. 5 Douban 豆瓣 https://www.douban.com/. 6 Wooozy 无解 http://www.wooozy.cn/featured/sydney-records-store-guidefor-indie-music-fans/. 7 Genjing records an indie vinyl record label with a focus on punk rock. http://genjingrecords.com/. 2
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around cultural and economic capitals, in the form of restricted and commercial production. Producers (and consumers) who are involved in the former gain high levels of ‘symbolic’ capital; those in the latter often acquire commercial capital at the expense of the symbolic power, status and reputation. Bourdieu's fields operate in a fairly enclosed national-historical space, with a kind of predictable set of movements between avant-garde and commercial mainstream, and with a recognised division between high and popular culture. It is not surprising thus that Bourdieu is sceptical about the revolutionary possibility in the field of cultural production without the possibility to register the latter as a distinctive cultural field with unique power structures (Hesmondhalgh, 2006). Music subcultural field studies help fill this gap by recognizing informal spaces in which individuals can acquire distinction via consumption and reproduction. Field actors make music their own through a process of avid and extensive consumption, guided by others in the field. In Shanghai, this field is structured and shaped by local cultural policy from the top-down and grassroots networks from the bottom-up. The state's role has traditionally been regulatory, often limiting the creative autonomy of artists and venues in favour of market oriented outcomes. By contrast music subcultural field is where these grassroots networks build reputational or symbolic capital as they claim their place within a complex musical history and spectrum of genres. As Sarah Thornton has shown, subcultural fields are also places where distinctions from ‘mainstream’ culture are made between consumers with subcultural capital, those being ‘in the know’. In her study of ‘club culture’, Thornton (1996) explained how this subcultural capital (as differentiated from traditional ‘cultural capital’) is acquired – i.e. through cultural consumption and the formation of taste (knowledge of particular music, fashion, etc …), and social relationships (measured by relational embeddedness within sizable networks of mutual understanding). Subcultural capital operates outside the legitimate social structure – knowledge circulated and respected within a subcultural group can be at odds with that of legitimized culture. For example, within the indie music scene in Shanghai, knowing about vinyl records and indie labels in the city has little value outside the subcultural circuit, neither will it change the social status of those involved in the record trade. However, subcultural capital can influence values and knowledge that is circulated in the mainstream through cultural production – e.g. the way in which subcultures are co-opted into mainstream culture through cultural and creative industries. For Thornton, what defines this abstract subcultural capital is its interweaving connection with consumption and the subsequent ability to leverage and convert such capital into economic returns. Economic motivations in Shanghai's music scene are often met with trade-offs. Symbolic capital may recede after the achievement of market success resulting in 'fads' rather than something with long lasting intrinsic values. Those in the subcultural scene may resist commercialization in order to sustain or elevate their symbolic capital (Gelder, 2007). There seems to be a conscious choice on the part of the artists (their autonomy) in relation to the market. But what if such autonomy comes as result of market marginalization? Studies in creative industries have shown a fatalistic choice made by artists responding to restrictive market conditions (Banks, 2017; Gu, 2014; McRobbie, 2002). In the music subcultural scene in Shanghai, restrictive market conditions (limited publishing rights, lack of venues, short of global audiences) are dire enough to be attracting those who have limited or no interests at all of making it in the music industry. I Instead the scene has become a place of expression. What about artists desperately seeking market success? Does it disqualify them from pursuing symbolic capitals? Hip hop's huge contemporary commercial success whilst maintaining an underground status in China draws our attention to these questions. Another point that is highly relevant but is much less well discussed in relation to music subcultures, is how cities seek reputational or
‘image’ capital, but usually from risk-free, mainstream culture that frequently fails to deliver (Connell & Gibson, 2003). It is often ‘left-offield’ subcultural products that emerge in the global image space (Cohen, 2017) that cities have to then accommodate – e.g. “Gangnam Style”, a parody of K- Pop. There is now an increasing attention given to harnessing subcultural movements in cities (e.g. Bader & Scharenberg, 2010; Gibson & Homan, 2004). From graffiti to yarn bombing, new research has begun documenting the possibility of these subcultural movements to be institutionalized through marketing this rebellious image as an authentic cultural experience (Mould, 2014; Shaw, 2005). Daskalaki and Mould (2013)'s rephrasing of urban subcultures to ‘urban subversions' identifies the neoliberal logic in city making which is dependent upon the reconstruction of the subculture as a new type of lifestyle entertainment in global cities. By contrast to these global city marketing initiatives, underground venues in Shanghai act with more autonomy by leveraging their independence from state support and market pressures. Alternative support is also offered by a foreign expat community that invest their cultural and economic capital into the local scene and develop opportunities through grassroots initiatives that bring together local and global communities and markets. 2.1. The underground venues Shanghai's subcultural music scene is sustained by a consortium of vinyl record shops, bars and clubs, live music venues, festivals, recording studios and booking agencies. These too have become important locales for an expanding local-global cultural participation in Shanghai's underground. Most of these urban amenities rely on a high level of epistemic ‘street wise’ knowledge of where to go in the face of increasing urban renewal and gentrification that favours more traditional musical forms. In the process of culture led urban regeneration, music has always been part of the rhetoric, albeit an exclusive one that is associated with high class culture (opera) and upmarket consumption (e.g. via The Shanghai Grand Theatre). The youthful, edgy and hip musical association with underground venues highlights the specificity of the role of alternative music in the city and the conflicts that underscore the re-imagining of Shanghai as a global city. In spite of this, places for underground music performances remain limited. ‘In Shanghai right now you can go play at Yuyintang, Mao Live House, you could play at Live Bar, you could play at inferno, you could play at On Stage which is in Red Town and that's probably it.‘8 One of the earliest underground music venues is Yuyintang established by Zhang Haisheng in 2006. The original site was a warehouse in a gentrifying area at the edge of the inner-city. Yuyintang did not have the permit to operate as a music venue and neither did the musicians, have the requisite permits to perform. Many indie music venues and musicians were operating in this unofficial underground capacity because of the bureaucratic process and cost involved in applying for permits. In 2007, Yuyintang was shut down by the police for illegally staging performances, due to such state pressure to conform to this legitimized mode of participation. Leading up to its close, Yuyintang was contacted by the local district government who were keen to preserve the venue in a vastly gentrified area. This is a period of hyper culture-led urban regeneration in Shanghai. Many districts in the city have loosened land-use policy in order to attract cultural businesses for urban renewal purposes (O’Connor & Gu, 2014). By 2010, Shanghai had already developed dozens of creative clusters focusing on upmarket cultural consumption under the rhetoric of creative cities, despite the lack of small-scale independent culture. Music venues emerged as a response to the soft planning urban ideologies of creative cities. ‘Authenticity’ has become an important city marketing tool where underground venues underscore the rebellious 8
3
Loc.cit. Tyler.
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energy of local creative industries making them key to selling an urban edginess of the city. Since 2006, district governments have reached out to underground venues to legitimize their existence through market mechanisms. Yuyintang moved to a smaller venue and was able to pay for the permit to operate (cost is calculated based on size of space). Nevertheless, more venues were closed down during this period of the policy ‘loosen up’. As one interviewee mentioned, ‘previously all venues are the same, doesn't matter if you are pop or indie, when there is no need to stay underground, those commercial ones (mainstream pop music) that are able to afford the permits, are putting more pressure on those that are never going to make it in the market.'9 It is perhaps ironic that Shanghai, with the greatest ambition to become a global creative city by implementing policy that aims at preserving, attracting and nurturing the local music scene, has created the most hostile environment for independent alternative music. Many of our interviewees compare other Chinese cities in favour of Shanghai for this very reason. The subcultural status of being ‘underground’, before the legitimization of venues, acted as economic protection for indie alternatives in the restricted market. Now, independent music venues have to deal with a new economic marginalization from this state pressure for cooption and legitimization, eroding their underground status and costing them revenue. By legalizing venues, there has been a reorganisation of power that has upset the balance between the mainstream and indie sectors. Venues like Yuyintang that are defined by their role in the underground independent music scene struggle to attract the scale of audiences necessary to survive such state and market pressure. There are also venues choosing to remain underground, not because of economic considerations but to maintain social and cultural distinction in the subcultural field. Basement6, as its name indicates, is located in the basement of an old apartment block in the dense residential area of inner city Shanghai. The venue was void of natural light when we visited the space in July 2017. Inside, rooms are linked by long and winding corridors which sent out a wet smell and were decorated by broken lime which dangled down from the low ceilings. Basement 6 was established by a group of international artists and musicians modelled on the DIY underground culture prevailing in cities like NYC and London. The help of the international community bolsters the short-comings that has locked the local populace into a mode of catching up with these western hubs. In 2013, Basement6's original underground venue was forced to shut down due to noise complaints from neighbouring residents. Since then, its patrons, mostly expats, saw themselves as a key force of resistance to the urban gentrification process known to the indie art communities in the West. This was clearly shown in its commitment to non-commercialism:
Being underground also means upcoming and established artists of music and art, of international and local origins, are participating in a field with fluid boundaries. Here they are mixed together to avert any possible categorization of genres, markets and audiences and instead support an underground artistic culture in Shanghai. While this venue has become powerful in connecting local and global musicians to new audiences locally and abroad, there is a limit to Basement6's disruptive power. Very few in Shanghai know about the venue – owing to its eclectic position in the subcultural field. It has remained a niche market experiment striving to remain ‘underground’ for the sake of maintaining its distinction from the powerful and crushing mainstream. To Shanghai's large foreign population now living and working in the city, underground venues like Basement6 continue to be relevant and important for connecting with the creative energy of the local avante garde and helping create local-global artistic connections. 2.2. Expats and ‘Chinese Punk Rock’ (Tuyao) The punk rock music subcultural scene in China is one driven by expats who are socially and culturally marginalized in mainstream Chinese society (Field, 2008). Using Bourdieu's field theory, we may interpret expats' close affinity with the ‘underground’ music scene as a way of finding alternative belonging by deploying their music knowledge as a subcultural capital or authenticity that can be leveraged over locals who are often seen to mimic borrowed styles – ‘a lot of bands have a hard time being really original and that's because the scene is so new and there's not enough diversity yet.‘.12 This is a cultural distinction that can be beneficial in connecting the local scene to new influences and international networks useful for the dissemination of music overseas. However, such differentiation can also alienate foreigners from the local Chinese populace. Participation in this subcultural sphere is a strategy employed by expats to come to terms with their local social marginalization. They are not necessarily the economic underclass in Chinese society. Likely the opposite. But they are certainly not part of the mainstream cultural milieu. Unlike Chinese nationals, they are given more barriers to success in mainstream Chinese society due to restrictions on their resident status, property ownership and job prospects as non-citizens. Their response to their social and cultural marginalization is the embrace of subcultures which support an alternative reality for those marginalized and in need of belonging. Expats are now involved in hosting indie music bands, organizing international tours and festivals, recording underground bands that are censored by the state and operating music clubs and bars. In so doing, they have gained status through claiming legitimacy via the creation of new local subcultural value.
‘we have no money and we don't plan to. All collective members volunteer time and effort to maintain the integrity of Basement6. Most artist works are immaterial or intangible. Everything we produce is priceless. We were not kidding when we said your beer pays our rent.'10
I was a little bit disappointed in the quality of the local bands when I moved here. Like I was used to growing up in Quebec and Ontario, with like amazing bands everywhere we went … Then I came here, in a city of 30 million people and the bands were kind of like ‘hmm … ’ right? But that's definitely changed now, over the past 5–6 years …. that I've kind of been helping with music – yeah, bands have gotten way better.13
It has been an exhibition space, a music venue, an art studio, a record shop, and taken on various other faces. Being ‘underground’ is also a shared identity amongst its participant artists, musicians and audiences. Basement6 is not defined by its function to serve creative industry objectives but by this very underground status. These creative agencies afford an alternative creative autonomy by helping “a band do something just for passion” whereas “in North America, Australia, Europe [labels] do it because there's tonnes of money involved” even at the underground level.11
Foreigners like Tyler are important connectors of the local Chinese hardcore scene and leverage their subcultural capital, acquired from years of international touring and participation with a number of local bands (e.g. Spill Your Guts or Before the Daylight), to help connect them to a global network. One way this occurs in helping them market or ‘seed’ their music overseas to English speaking audiences is by strategically positioning their music online via platforms for music
9
Interview at the underground music symposium in Shanghai, Jan 16th, 2016. 10 Interview with owner of Basement 6, July 8th, 2017. http://www. basement6collective.com/-us/. 11 loc.cit. Tyler.
12 Interview with Tyler Bowa a drummer in various punk bands in Shanghai, from PhD Research fieldwork. 13 Ibid.
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dissemination (e.g. Bandcamp). But how can we interpret their love of ‘Chinese Punk Rock’ (Tuyao) in a Bourdieusian sense? Chinese punk rock has been a marginalized music genre, first popularised by Cuijian as a form of cultural resistance to state power (Jones, 1992; Zhao, 1999) and then by the Dakou generation as a means of establishing distinction under pressures of internationalization (De Kloet, 2005b). The most current wave represented by labels such as Genjing and Maybe Mars is an attempt to retreat back into the fringe – a space with little commercial promise but high symbolic value. There's a shared sense amongst these labels that ‘we make music because it's good not that it's popular'.14 And ‘we know there's no money in it, but we don't care'.15 The expat's love for Tuyao is therefore a ‘double negation’ – a rejection of internationalization (claiming its uniqueness as an independent music genre in the history of global punk rock) combined with a rejection of mainstream Chinese popular music, in an affirmation of a unique Chinese sonic space. In contrast, local Chinese musicians producing Tuyao are not necessarily rejecting the idea of ‘internationalization’ nor of the market. In fact, Maybe Mars has always claimed its attempt at promoting local bands abroad and has participated widely at international music festivals. This foreign embrace of Tuyao facilitated by record labels and foreign intermediaries is an important aspect of connecting Shanghai's underground music subcultures to a global audience. Such global extensions are crucial to this late development of the local scene's international relevance through contemporisation. In this process of catching up to the globe via new internationally spanning cultural exchanges and flows of Chinese music abroad, we see key characteristics of the worlding process.
about the origin of the bands. But the differences seem to matter a lot when it comes to sell abroad.'17 This process can be thought of as an element of worlding in the sense that local Chinese musicians learn to adapt to an already globalizing underground music scene notwithstanding the authenticity of their music which is challenged from time to time. A case in focus here is Higher Brothers – the hip-hop group based in Sichuan who attracted global attention for their song Made in China and collaboration with independent American-Asian media distributors such as 88Rising (Dunn, 2018). Such international attention has brought new distinctions and a nationally validated authenticity to artists from Sichuan – more so to that given to the hip-hop groups in the more westernized Shanghai scene. Higher Brother's 2017 concert at Mao Livehouse in Shanghai was much more popular than their tours of other Chinese cities according to Chinese music scholar, Zhang Qian, who has been following hip-hop fan culture in China since the inception of this music genre in the country.18 According to Zhang, hip-hop's tendency for commercialization has been promoted in the development of Shanghai's global cosmopolitanism from its lyrics, attitudes and styling as opposed to the various cultural origins of artists. The mutual identification of local subcultural groups and the city they inhabit is displaced in this case by the validation of global networks that provide new subcultural capital. Many viewed this a specific problem rather than the success of China's music scene – defined by a lack of local identity and its propensity to be dominated by foreign and translocal cultural trends (Steen, 2000). Splitworks is a key intermediary of the Chinese subcultural music scene and is based in Shanghai. The organisation is a booking agency founded in 2006 by Archie Hamilton (British) and Nathaniel Davis (American) – both of whom have not worked in the music business extensively before coming to China. Splitworks was setup to introduce Chinese indie bands to global audiences and vice versa. Very quickly, it became clear that this subcultural network was lucrative as international brand marketing firms began looking for an authentic Chinese story to connect with global audiences – Adidas and Nike to name a few. Splitworks also organizes some of China's most well-known indie music festivals including Concrete & Grass; Jue Music + Art Festival and Guinness Wood + Wires Music festival.19 Their influence has positioned Shanghai as a nodal point in the global music industry. It does so by claiming to be an ecosystem for the Chinese music industry delivering services through Splatter – a music events promoter; Scorched – a booking agency for bands across Asia; Wooozy – China's online music community; and, China Music Radar – an archive of Chinese music. Such a globalized music infrastructure is incredibly significant for Chinese indie music as prior to Splitworks there were no fromalised services available for this type of local-global engagement (remaining with passionate DIY communities). The search for authenticity within this global networked infrastructure is what has defined the line between the hastily globalizing underground projects and mainstream music production. There is the wide perception amongst bands in Shanghai that to make it is to sell and perform outside of China. But this also signifies the importance of underground venues and agencies that are connected with Splitworks, which represent pathways to this local-global intersection in Shanghai. Such an emphasis on meeting the global gaze is another aspect of how the local scene is expanding in a worlding sense. However, the authenticity of this mediated space is highly disputed as many see bands from Shanghai as imitators that capitalise on western styles and traditions rather than performing an indigenous identity. As Zhanghai Sheng (the owner of a prominent local music venue Yuyintang) observed, Shanghai's underground music scene is always going to be dominated by bands from outside of the city.20
2.3. Selling the indie story What is ‘indie music’? A complex question for many in the subcultural music field in China due to various clashes of identity and belonging, taste and subjectivity, and deep rooted generational differences (De Kloet, 2010). One may rightly argue that mainstream Chinese pop occupies a unique position in awakening a sense of belonging and building new subjectivity, whilst others could argue that punk-rock is closer to its form in the West than in China, and that local participants in the scene are seekers of alternative identities in a collectivist society (De Kloet, 2005b). Because of punk's connection to the global music industry, Chinese punk musicians, both in identity and in practice, are heavily influenced by foreign cultures. This is both a symptom of the local scenes yearning to participate globally and a consequence of foreigners cultivating pathways for this global connection. ‘ … as a foreigner, even as a Chinese kid, you probably don't know how to find out about some of the shows. There's no central hubs and I think that's a problem.16 This has resulted in an underground music scene that is fragmented in geographies and is temporal in nature. For example, most of the local Shanghai bands in the underground music scene are not originally from Shanghai, nor are the lyrics they perform specifically Shanghainese. Here locality is not place specific but along more rigid lines of ‘being Chinese’. This is not to deny the notion of place, as it still has a role in authenticating the subcultural scene. Hip-hop in Sichuan or Beijing Rock are for example, identities actively pursued by subcultural groups as they are often associated with authentic Chinese underground music. These differences however, matter only to those from outside of China. As one interviewee mentioned, ‘Chinese audience don't care much 14 Interviews included in this article are taken at the underground music symposium in Jan 2016, involving key players in Chinese underground music scene. Subsequent interviews with labels Genjing and Maybe Mars have been conducted in July 2017. 15 Interviews with owner of label Genjing. 16 Loc. cit. Tyler.
17
Interview with owner of label Genjing. Interview on 8th Jan 2017. 19 Splitworks, http://spli-t.com/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Works. 20 http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2008/03/yuyintang.html. 18
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3. Conclusion
important to the lived reality of young people who are now sustaining the underground music scene as this field remains on the fringe. To be able to communicate in English and residing in urban centres such as Shanghai are important aspects of the worlding process of the local underground culture, the amenities that support artists, and their music. Now, the local scene looks to foreigners who celebrate the Chinese nuance and help export their sounds to new audiences (expanding the global reach of this fringe community).
The idea of Chinese popular music as the co-existence of a monolith with a definable mainstream and a dynamic fringe influenced by transnational flows of popular cultures has been disputed (Fung, 2007). The above examination of Shanghai's subcultural music scene confirms that it is a highly dispersed field. It is defined by a multitude of power structures influenced by both local and global determinants. Learning to operate in an increasingly accessible globalized music industry, coupled with the marketization of the local cultural sector within China, has shaped the unique identities and practices of those involved in the underground music scene. The word ‘underground’ thus cannot be equated to illegitimate status of subcultural activities in China anymore. Instead, it underlines conscious choices of reflection and distinction (even via marginalization) of underground music scene participants. Following Bourdieu's field theory, the expatriate endorsement of Chinese punk rock reflects how they utilize their foreign distinction in mainstream Chinese society, by leveraging subcultural capital to participate in the local scene. Their example also demonstrates how the conversion of local subcultural capital has shifted the local and global dynamics of music industry participation in China and consumption of Chinese music outside of the PRC. In this sense, Shanghai's music scene is simultaneously local and global in contesting the relationship between local subcultures and their authenticity. Punk rock groups in Shanghai are not necessarily Chinese nor do they holistically adhere to the global punk rock spirit. Instead, we see a hybridity emerge from the intersection of local and global influences and pressures to meet the global gaze in a process known as ‘worlding’. Furthermore, Sichuan hip-hop groups are often the most celebrated by local Shanghainese audiences due to their popular reception outside of China. The authentication of subcultural music in China is highly dependent on the ability to convert often subversive cultural values into global cultural consumption mediated by global intermediaries who have been shown to be concentrated in Shanghai. This is a highly contentious place to be in. The most recent ban by the state of hip-hop as ‘indecent, obscene, vulgar and gangsta’ is a demonstration of conflicts between ideology from the subcultural field and the state. For musicians in Shanghai, it is not the lack of commercial opportunity or the resistance to commercialization that have kept the subcultural scene largely underground. It's the state's rejection of their subcultural ideology and creative autonomy in defining an alternative 'Chineseness' (one that has continued to push outward to the globe) that is perceived as ‘untasteful’ by a controlling state. Venues in the subcultural music scene are also effected by pressures to meet the global gaze as state-led urban regeneration has co-opted edgy fringe arts in marketing Shanghai as a global city. This is both beneficial and detrimental for the local scene. On one hand, the underground scene has an opportunity to legitimize and on the other, such opportunities also erode the status and autonomy of venues. Despite the urban and economic marginalization policy implementations, some independent artists preserve underground music's alternative, subcultural status amidst pressures to legitimize (i.e. conform to the dominant cultural capital) and commodify (to participate in the commercial market). To conclude, this research illustrates how the composition of the underground music scene in Shanghai is going through a process of local-global development or worlding in pursuits of global validation. Unlike popular centres of subcultural music, the Chinese nuance has emerged significantly slower, The result is a local underground scene that is subject to competing local and international influences that have often complicated its identity. Such barriers have become less
References Bader, I., & Scharenberg, A. (2010). The sound of Berlin: Subculture and the global music industry. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 34(1), 76–91. Banks, M. (2017). Creative justice: Cultural industries, work and inequality. UK: Rowman & Littlefield. Baranovitch, N. (2003). China's new voices: Popular music, ethnicity, gender, and politics, 1978-1997. University of California Press. Bennett, A. (2001). Cultures of popular music. McGraw-Hill Education. Bourdieu, P. (1986). The forms of capital. Cultural theory: An anthology, 1, 81–93. Cohen, S. (2017). Decline, renewal and the city in popular music culture: Beyond the Beatles. Routledge. Connell, J., & Gibson, C. (2003). Sound tracks: Popular music identity and place. Routledge. Daskalaki, M., & Mould, O. (2013). Beyond urban subcultures: Urban subversions as rhizomatic social formations. International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, 37(1), 1–18. De Kloet, Jeroen (2002). Rock in a hard place: commercial fantasies in china's music industry. In Stephanie Donald, Michael Keane, & Yin Hong (Eds.). Made in China: Consumption, Content and Crisis (pp. 93–104). London, New York: RoutledgeCurzon. De Kloet, J. (2005a). Authenticating geographies and temporalities: Representations of Chinese rock in China. Visual Anthropology, 18(2–3), 229–255. De Kloet, J. (2005b). Popular music and youth in urban China: The dakou generation. The China Quarterly, (183), 609. De Kloet, J. (2010). China with a cut: Globalisation, urban youth and popular music, Vol. 3. Amsterdam University Press. Dunn, F. (2018). 88 rising are starting a global music revolution. VICE I-D. available from https://i-d.vice.com/en_au/article/7x35qd/88-rising-joji-higher-brothers-rich-brian. Field, A. (2008). From DD's to YY to park 97 to muse: Dance club spaces and the construction of class in Shanghai, 1997–2007. China. International Journal, 6(01), 18–43. Fung, A. Y. (2007). The emerging (national) popular music culture in China. Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, 8(3), 425–437. Gelder, K. (Ed.). (2005). The subcultures reader. Psychology Press. Gelder, K. (2007). Subcultures: Cultural histories and social practice. Routledge. Gibson, C., & Homan, S. (2004). Urban redevelopment, live music and public space: Cultural performance and the re‐making of Marrickville. International Journal of Cultural Policy, 10(1), 67–84. Gracyk, T. (2001). I wanna be me: Rock music and the politics of identity, Vol. 12. Temple University Press. Gu, X. (2014). Anti-business behaviour among small and entrepreneurial firms in the creative industries: A paradoxical survival strategy. In E. Chell, & M. Karatas-Özkan (Eds.). Handbook of research in small business and entrepreneurship. Edward Elgar. Hesmondhalgh, D. (2006). Bourdieu, the media and cultural production. Media, Culture & Society, 28(2), https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443706061682. Jones, A. F. (1992). Like a knife: Ideology and genre in contemporary Chinese popular music. Kolloge, R. (1999). The times they are a-changin': The evolution of rock music and youth cultures. Peter Lang Pub Inc. McRobbie, A. (2002). Clubs to companies: Notes on the decline of political culture in speeded up creative worlds. Cultural Studies, 16(4), 516–531. https://doi.org/10. 1080/09502380210139098. Mould, O. (2014). Tactical urbanism: The new vernacular of the creative city. Geography Compass, 8(8), 529–539. O'Connor, J., & Gu, X. (2006). A new modernity? The arrival of ‘creative industries’ in China. International Journal of Cultural Studies, 9(3), 271–283. Ong, A. (2011). Introduction: Worlding cities, or the art of being global. O'Connor, J., & Gu, X. (2014). Creative industry clusters in Shanghai: A success story? International Journal of Cultural Policy, 20(1), 1–20. Pang, L. (2012). Creativity and its discontents: China's creative industries and intellectual property rights offenses. Duke University Press. Roy, A., & Ong, A. (Vol. Eds.), (2011). Worlding cities: Asian experiments and the art of being global: Vol. 42John Wiley & Sons. Shaw, K. (2005). The place of alternative culture and the politics of its protection in Berlin, Amsterdam and Melbourne. Planning Theory & Practice, 6(2), 149–169. Steen, A. (2000). Sound, protest and business. Modern sky Co. And the new ideology of Chinese rock, Vol. 18, Berliner China-Hefte40–64. Thornton, S. (1996). Club cultures: Music, media, and subcultural capital. Wesleyan University Press. Wilson, R., & Connery, C. L. (2007). The worlding project: Doing cultural studies in the era of globalization. North Atlantic Books. Wyn, J., & White, R. (1997). Rethinking youth. Sydney: Allen & Unwin. Zhao, K. (1999). “Shijimo yaogun – yaogun xintai yijing guoshile ma?” (“Rock by the end of the century – is the rock mentality outdated?”). Zhongguo bailaohui (Chinese Broadway), 14(1999), 2–3.
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Worlding and new music cultures in Shanghai Xin Gu∗, Justin O'Connor, Jason Ng ABSTRACT
This paper investigates Shanghai's music sub-cultural scene as part of the process of worlding. In Asian cities, until recently outside the mainstream of western commercial music, there is a highly complex and contingent process of catching up with the history of the field, and learning to feel comfortable in inhabiting this space. In Shanghai, this process of ‘catching-up’ is radically compressed, in two senses – the city's relative late development and the limited availability of inner city music venues. This gives rise to what we might call a ‘singularity’ – the kind of compressed space prior to a big bang. Where elsewhere we might see a complex field of different symbolic and economic capitals and musical genres with which they are intertwined, in China, and in our case of Shanghai, these are not yet given space to express themselves. Consequently, to move through the independent, semi-legal venues of Shanghai's music scene is to encounter a compressed richness which, in a few years, may well have become highly segmented and mutually distinctive spaces of a ‘normal’ urban music scene.
1. Introduction “For close to three decades in China after 1949, one could hear in public a single voice, that of the party-state … the introduction of new, simple, and low-cost technologies, like cassette and video recording … enabled many heretofore voiceless people to speak publicly in new voice and to articulate new subjectivities … [in the 1980s] people started to speak publicly in voices that did not always correspond to the voice of the state” (Baranovitch, 2003, pp. 1,3). Most studies of subculture through music focus on cultural aspects of youth and their strong sense of shared identity from economic and political marginalization. Subculture in this sense is formed on the basis of a marked disconnection from mainstream economic and cultural life or more specifically ‘a disconnection from institutions revolving around production, consumption and community life’ (Wyn & White, 1997, p. 124). There is disagreement on whether the subcultural status is actively pursued or a choice forced on those marginalized (Gelder, 2005). Music subculture studies tend to lean towards the former. This appears in genre studies of rock music for example (Gracyk, 2001; Kolloge, 1999). These researches argue that those involved in rock music (mostly young people) have made a conscious decision to marginalize or differentiate themselves from mainstream society in post-war youth markets (Bennett, 2001). In China, we see similar music subcultures and social relations appear. What is notable about the Chinese experience is the various underground and commercial stratifications that polarize local music tastes. Punk-rockers, for example are often at odds with the mainstream cultural consumption in the international hub that is Shanghai. Hip-hop
enjoys a greater commercial success due to its increasing popularity made possible by television shows like Rap of China1 and by way of international artist collaborations (with the US and Korea) by artists like Higher Brothers. The scene in Shanghai is also sustained by a number of committed promoters, venues, agencies and foreigners who act as intermediaries between local and international music markets. Their support and influence are most notably illustrated in acts that harness global connectivity and investment of both economic and cultural resources into the production of local records, events, publications and promotions. This is especially important for the underground music scene which has often been excluded from government investment in cultural and creative industries (CCIs) due to a complicated history of music censorship and nuanced local-global music consumption. In China, the development of an alternative music scene has been highly complex and a contingent process of ‘catching up’ with the history of other global iterations. This process is also about learning to feel comfortable in inhabiting this global space (Ong, 2011). Other cities in the region have been able to more fluidly traverse this distance as the internet, and more relaxed migration laws and digital governance, have played a significant role in shaping the speed to which these cities are able to adapt.2 This is bolstered by the connectivity of global consumer networks on social media which help create and sustain communities of DIY participation and cultural exchange (Roy and Ong, 2011). In China, adapting to this global space has not been without hardship and is limited by caveats imposed on consumption by state governments that restrict access to these networks of global flows and the consumption of new forms. Negotiating this space has been especially troublesome in Shanghai where a more complex history of music
Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (X. Gu), Justin.O'[email protected] (J. O'Connor), [email protected] (J. Ng). 1 Reality TV show built to promote the local Rap music scene. https://www.sixthtone.com/news/1002614/the-rap-of-china-returns-after-off-beat-year. 2 Fieldwork as part of a PhD research project conducted between 2015 and 2019 across four Asia-Pacific subcultures fields including in Shanghai. ∗
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.002 Received 7 December 2018; Received in revised form 30 April 2019; Accepted 24 May 2019 1877-9166/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Please cite this article as: Xin Gu, Justin O'Connor and Jason Ng, City, Culture and Society, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ccs.2019.05.002
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censorship, youth dissent, and globalisation, has stifled the local reception and development of alternative cultural scenes in the city (O'Connor & Gu, 2006). This compressed process of learning to inhabit the global sphere doesn't necessarily lead to the commodification of subcultures. Instead, subcultures employ subversive power to resist efforts for co-option from state capitalism (De Kloet, 2005a). In fact, the co-existence of globalization and marketization (controlled by the state) has created some spaces for the re-emergence of rock music in China. De Kloet (2005a) described the Chinese rock music industry's evolution as a constant negotiation of 'Chineseness' in the face of commercialization and globalization. Whilst to regional companies, Chineseness was carefully preserved through Taiwanese and Hong Kongnese’ imagined cultural nostalgia, to mainland music companies, it is as much about internationalization and meeting global standards as it is concerned with signifying its ‘sonic difference’ with the West. Clearly then, these music scenes are part of the process of ‘worlding’ in which individuals, communities and the wider industry learn to inhabit a global cultural space – through a culturally specific route. In China, learning to inhabit these global spaces is faced by two domestic challenges. The first is the challenge imposed by global regulatory and industry bodies that don't sympathize with unique local creative industry practices (Pang, 2012). Since joining the WTO, the Chinese government has enforced global copyright laws across domestic cultural industries. This could potentially close off already restricted access to the global sonic space for local audiences, especially those in the indie music scene. Censorship and import quotas imposed by the government have also placed pirated copies and cut CDs (dakou), as a productive force in China's music cultures since the 1990s, under new restriction (De Kloet, 2002: 96). The embracing of global standards set by WTO copyright laws may set back creative aspirations and the wider local-global development of local music cultures. The second challenge derives from China's own music industry structure. De Kloet (2002) articulated distinctions between music publishers and record companies in China, where the latter is the creative powerhouse of the local music industry, and the former are the gatekeepers of the local music market who control manufacturing (duplication of the master tape), distribution rights and the sharing of revenues. Publishing companies are state owned and are affiliated to government regulators. This has created a vacuum of global record companies who are prevented from setting up independent firms in China. While this has allowed smaller regional and local firms to flourish, the closedness of the Chinese music industry prevents it from participating broadly in the global music circuit. In this article, we examine the music scene in Shanghai, its contemporisation and how it is connected to a transnational flow of cultural consumption. It is a scene that is in a compressed process of emergence, in terms of its subjects and structures. More specifically, both local and global cultural expressions in a compressed scene of multiple 'subcultures', are brought together because there are few spaces for non-mainstream music in China.1 This compressed space can be analysed through the lens of ‘worlding’ in which individuals and cities learn to inhabit a global cultural space. We use worlding in line with its original Heideggerian sense, that is, ‘worlding’ as an on-going, never finished process of learning to inhabit, to be at home in the world. This term has been applied to cities, to subcultures and to individuals, who attempt to inhabit a particular place in a fluid, and volatile ‘globalized’ world, to make or re-make it as their own –if only in imagination and aspiration (Wilson & Connery, 2007). In Shanghai, this process of ‘catching-up’ is combined with the unique challenges described above and is radically compressed, in two senses. First, it is compressed in terms of time – the relatively late development of the music scene and its restricted access to global flows has seen a process of rapid learning compressed into a short period. This has meant, genres have had less time to find footholds in the city, making the social and temporal distinctions that apply elsewhere less
rigid. Second, the fact that spaces of independent music are so limited, even in such populated cities like Shanghai, means that the whole set of subcultural fields and genre distinctions are packed together in the same space (e.g. hip-hop and punk-rock). This gives rise to what we might call a ‘singularity’ – the kind of compressed space prior to a big bang. Elsewhere we might see a complex field of different symbolic and economic capitals configured around the musical genres with which they are intertwined. In China, and in our case of Shanghai, these are not yet given space to develop freely and entirely independently from one another. To some, the diversification is already underway with the urban youth expressing their sonic taste outside of the ‘sinification’ or what is expected to be Chinese: ‘being modern signifies the longing of the dakou generation to become part of a global youth culture, not on the basis of cultural differences but on the basis of similarity, of a shared musical culture.’ (De Kloet, 2005b, pp. 621; pp. 621) The early introduction of foreign music came through underdeveloped and limited flows of cultural products that stimulated a key urban consumption. This consumption was however, incredibly marginal due to the illegitimacy of record shops and Dakou CDs. The more recent proliferation of bars and clubs, driven by foreign expats as key leisure amenities in cities like Shanghai, has reignited this inner-city consumption through the promotion of subcultural music into the mainstream with punk-rock and hip-pop emerging as identifiable forms that attract sizable local audiences. In this paper, we will focus on the composition of Shanghai's underground music scene – those involved; the kinds of venues and production sites key to the definition of ‘underground indie music’; and global networks of Chinese music consumption that are driven by the ‘indie’ story constructed, conserved and promoted by expats as intermediaries. The case studies in this paper are compiled empirically from the Shanghai music scene, including focused group interviews with key informants – i.e. indie band members, booking agencies, music labels (e.g. bands and representatives from Maybe Mars & Genjing Records) and venue owners (e.g. Mao Live House and Yu Yin Tang) in a community symposium format.3 Additional semi-structured interviews and participant observations were conducted between Dec 2016–June 2018 taking place in venues (bars, clubs and restaurants), festivals and formal companies.4 These individuals and agencies are shown to be important connectors of the local-national underground scene and instrumental in creating new paths for Chinese music consumption abroad. This empirical field work is supported by indie artist's use of music social media platforms Douban (Chinese)5 and Wooozy6 (English), supplementing our understanding of fandom for the Chinese indie music scene. Furthermore, our analysis has been enhanced by the connections to prominent figures in Shanghai's DIY scene – e.g. the owner of local indie label Genjing.7 2. Shanghai's scene and subcultural field Bourdieu's (1986) concept of the field proves to be a useful tool for understanding the local underground music scene in Shanghai. According to Bourdieu, the field of cultural production is organised 3
The authors have co-organised a underground music symposium ‘Genealogies and Geographies of Experimental Underground Music in China’ on 16th Jan 2016, at AM space in Shanghai. 4 As part of a PhD research project, fieldwork conducted between 2015 and 2019 on hip-hop and punk-rock communities in Shanghai. 5 Douban 豆瓣 https://www.douban.com/. 6 Wooozy 无解 http://www.wooozy.cn/featured/sydney-records-store-guidefor-indie-music-fans/. 7 Genjing records an indie vinyl record label with a focus on punk rock. http://genjingrecords.com/. 2
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around cultural and economic capitals, in the form of restricted and commercial production. Producers (and consumers) who are involved in the former gain high levels of ‘symbolic’ capital; those in the latter often acquire commercial capital at the expense of the symbolic power, status and reputation. Bourdieu's fields operate in a fairly enclosed national-historical space, with a kind of predictable set of movements between avant-garde and commercial mainstream, and with a recognised division between high and popular culture. It is not surprising thus that Bourdieu is sceptical about the revolutionary possibility in the field of cultural production without the possibility to register the latter as a distinctive cultural field with unique power structures (Hesmondhalgh, 2006). Music subcultural field studies help fill this gap by recognizing informal spaces in which individuals can acquire distinction via consumption and reproduction. Field actors make music their own through a process of avid and extensive consumption, guided by others in the field. In Shanghai, this field is structured and shaped by local cultural policy from the top-down and grassroots networks from the bottom-up. The state's role has traditionally been regulatory, often limiting the creative autonomy of artists and venues in favour of market oriented outcomes. By contrast music subcultural field is where these grassroots networks build reputational or symbolic capital as they claim their place within a complex musical history and spectrum of genres. As Sarah Thornton has shown, subcultural fields are also places where distinctions from ‘mainstream’ culture are made between consumers with subcultural capital, those being ‘in the know’. In her study of ‘club culture’, Thornton (1996) explained how this subcultural capital (as differentiated from traditional ‘cultural capital’) is acquired – i.e. through cultural consumption and the formation of taste (knowledge of particular music, fashion, etc …), and social relationships (measured by relational embeddedness within sizable networks of mutual understanding). Subcultural capital operates outside the legitimate social structure – knowledge circulated and respected within a subcultural group can be at odds with that of legitimized culture. For example, within the indie music scene in Shanghai, knowing about vinyl records and indie labels in the city has little value outside the subcultural circuit, neither will it change the social status of those involved in the record trade. However, subcultural capital can influence values and knowledge that is circulated in the mainstream through cultural production – e.g. the way in which subcultures are co-opted into mainstream culture through cultural and creative industries. For Thornton, what defines this abstract subcultural capital is its interweaving connection with consumption and the subsequent ability to leverage and convert such capital into economic returns. Economic motivations in Shanghai's music scene are often met with trade-offs. Symbolic capital may recede after the achievement of market success resulting in 'fads' rather than something with long lasting intrinsic values. Those in the subcultural scene may resist commercialization in order to sustain or elevate their symbolic capital (Gelder, 2007). There seems to be a conscious choice on the part of the artists (their autonomy) in relation to the market. But what if such autonomy comes as result of market marginalization? Studies in creative industries have shown a fatalistic choice made by artists responding to restrictive market conditions (Banks, 2017; Gu, 2014; McRobbie, 2002). In the music subcultural scene in Shanghai, restrictive market conditions (limited publishing rights, lack of venues, short of global audiences) are dire enough to be attracting those who have limited or no interests at all of making it in the music industry. I Instead the scene has become a place of expression. What about artists desperately seeking market success? Does it disqualify them from pursuing symbolic capitals? Hip hop's huge contemporary commercial success whilst maintaining an underground status in China draws our attention to these questions. Another point that is highly relevant but is much less well discussed in relation to music subcultures, is how cities seek reputational or
‘image’ capital, but usually from risk-free, mainstream culture that frequently fails to deliver (Connell & Gibson, 2003). It is often ‘left-offield’ subcultural products that emerge in the global image space (Cohen, 2017) that cities have to then accommodate – e.g. “Gangnam Style”, a parody of K- Pop. There is now an increasing attention given to harnessing subcultural movements in cities (e.g. Bader & Scharenberg, 2010; Gibson & Homan, 2004). From graffiti to yarn bombing, new research has begun documenting the possibility of these subcultural movements to be institutionalized through marketing this rebellious image as an authentic cultural experience (Mould, 2014; Shaw, 2005). Daskalaki and Mould (2013)'s rephrasing of urban subcultures to ‘urban subversions' identifies the neoliberal logic in city making which is dependent upon the reconstruction of the subculture as a new type of lifestyle entertainment in global cities. By contrast to these global city marketing initiatives, underground venues in Shanghai act with more autonomy by leveraging their independence from state support and market pressures. Alternative support is also offered by a foreign expat community that invest their cultural and economic capital into the local scene and develop opportunities through grassroots initiatives that bring together local and global communities and markets. 2.1. The underground venues Shanghai's subcultural music scene is sustained by a consortium of vinyl record shops, bars and clubs, live music venues, festivals, recording studios and booking agencies. These too have become important locales for an expanding local-global cultural participation in Shanghai's underground. Most of these urban amenities rely on a high level of epistemic ‘street wise’ knowledge of where to go in the face of increasing urban renewal and gentrification that favours more traditional musical forms. In the process of culture led urban regeneration, music has always been part of the rhetoric, albeit an exclusive one that is associated with high class culture (opera) and upmarket consumption (e.g. via The Shanghai Grand Theatre). The youthful, edgy and hip musical association with underground venues highlights the specificity of the role of alternative music in the city and the conflicts that underscore the re-imagining of Shanghai as a global city. In spite of this, places for underground music performances remain limited. ‘In Shanghai right now you can go play at Yuyintang, Mao Live House, you could play at Live Bar, you could play at inferno, you could play at On Stage which is in Red Town and that's probably it.‘8 One of the earliest underground music venues is Yuyintang established by Zhang Haisheng in 2006. The original site was a warehouse in a gentrifying area at the edge of the inner-city. Yuyintang did not have the permit to operate as a music venue and neither did the musicians, have the requisite permits to perform. Many indie music venues and musicians were operating in this unofficial underground capacity because of the bureaucratic process and cost involved in applying for permits. In 2007, Yuyintang was shut down by the police for illegally staging performances, due to such state pressure to conform to this legitimized mode of participation. Leading up to its close, Yuyintang was contacted by the local district government who were keen to preserve the venue in a vastly gentrified area. This is a period of hyper culture-led urban regeneration in Shanghai. Many districts in the city have loosened land-use policy in order to attract cultural businesses for urban renewal purposes (O’Connor & Gu, 2014). By 2010, Shanghai had already developed dozens of creative clusters focusing on upmarket cultural consumption under the rhetoric of creative cities, despite the lack of small-scale independent culture. Music venues emerged as a response to the soft planning urban ideologies of creative cities. ‘Authenticity’ has become an important city marketing tool where underground venues underscore the rebellious 8
3
Loc.cit. Tyler.
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energy of local creative industries making them key to selling an urban edginess of the city. Since 2006, district governments have reached out to underground venues to legitimize their existence through market mechanisms. Yuyintang moved to a smaller venue and was able to pay for the permit to operate (cost is calculated based on size of space). Nevertheless, more venues were closed down during this period of the policy ‘loosen up’. As one interviewee mentioned, ‘previously all venues are the same, doesn't matter if you are pop or indie, when there is no need to stay underground, those commercial ones (mainstream pop music) that are able to afford the permits, are putting more pressure on those that are never going to make it in the market.'9 It is perhaps ironic that Shanghai, with the greatest ambition to become a global creative city by implementing policy that aims at preserving, attracting and nurturing the local music scene, has created the most hostile environment for independent alternative music. Many of our interviewees compare other Chinese cities in favour of Shanghai for this very reason. The subcultural status of being ‘underground’, before the legitimization of venues, acted as economic protection for indie alternatives in the restricted market. Now, independent music venues have to deal with a new economic marginalization from this state pressure for cooption and legitimization, eroding their underground status and costing them revenue. By legalizing venues, there has been a reorganisation of power that has upset the balance between the mainstream and indie sectors. Venues like Yuyintang that are defined by their role in the underground independent music scene struggle to attract the scale of audiences necessary to survive such state and market pressure. There are also venues choosing to remain underground, not because of economic considerations but to maintain social and cultural distinction in the subcultural field. Basement6, as its name indicates, is located in the basement of an old apartment block in the dense residential area of inner city Shanghai. The venue was void of natural light when we visited the space in July 2017. Inside, rooms are linked by long and winding corridors which sent out a wet smell and were decorated by broken lime which dangled down from the low ceilings. Basement 6 was established by a group of international artists and musicians modelled on the DIY underground culture prevailing in cities like NYC and London. The help of the international community bolsters the short-comings that has locked the local populace into a mode of catching up with these western hubs. In 2013, Basement6's original underground venue was forced to shut down due to noise complaints from neighbouring residents. Since then, its patrons, mostly expats, saw themselves as a key force of resistance to the urban gentrification process known to the indie art communities in the West. This was clearly shown in its commitment to non-commercialism:
Being underground also means upcoming and established artists of music and art, of international and local origins, are participating in a field with fluid boundaries. Here they are mixed together to avert any possible categorization of genres, markets and audiences and instead support an underground artistic culture in Shanghai. While this venue has become powerful in connecting local and global musicians to new audiences locally and abroad, there is a limit to Basement6's disruptive power. Very few in Shanghai know about the venue – owing to its eclectic position in the subcultural field. It has remained a niche market experiment striving to remain ‘underground’ for the sake of maintaining its distinction from the powerful and crushing mainstream. To Shanghai's large foreign population now living and working in the city, underground venues like Basement6 continue to be relevant and important for connecting with the creative energy of the local avante garde and helping create local-global artistic connections. 2.2. Expats and ‘Chinese Punk Rock’ (Tuyao) The punk rock music subcultural scene in China is one driven by expats who are socially and culturally marginalized in mainstream Chinese society (Field, 2008). Using Bourdieu's field theory, we may interpret expats' close affinity with the ‘underground’ music scene as a way of finding alternative belonging by deploying their music knowledge as a subcultural capital or authenticity that can be leveraged over locals who are often seen to mimic borrowed styles – ‘a lot of bands have a hard time being really original and that's because the scene is so new and there's not enough diversity yet.‘.12 This is a cultural distinction that can be beneficial in connecting the local scene to new influences and international networks useful for the dissemination of music overseas. However, such differentiation can also alienate foreigners from the local Chinese populace. Participation in this subcultural sphere is a strategy employed by expats to come to terms with their local social marginalization. They are not necessarily the economic underclass in Chinese society. Likely the opposite. But they are certainly not part of the mainstream cultural milieu. Unlike Chinese nationals, they are given more barriers to success in mainstream Chinese society due to restrictions on their resident status, property ownership and job prospects as non-citizens. Their response to their social and cultural marginalization is the embrace of subcultures which support an alternative reality for those marginalized and in need of belonging. Expats are now involved in hosting indie music bands, organizing international tours and festivals, recording underground bands that are censored by the state and operating music clubs and bars. In so doing, they have gained status through claiming legitimacy via the creation of new local subcultural value.
‘we have no money and we don't plan to. All collective members volunteer time and effort to maintain the integrity of Basement6. Most artist works are immaterial or intangible. Everything we produce is priceless. We were not kidding when we said your beer pays our rent.'10
I was a little bit disappointed in the quality of the local bands when I moved here. Like I was used to growing up in Quebec and Ontario, with like amazing bands everywhere we went … Then I came here, in a city of 30 million people and the bands were kind of like ‘hmm … ’ right? But that's definitely changed now, over the past 5–6 years …. that I've kind of been helping with music – yeah, bands have gotten way better.13
It has been an exhibition space, a music venue, an art studio, a record shop, and taken on various other faces. Being ‘underground’ is also a shared identity amongst its participant artists, musicians and audiences. Basement6 is not defined by its function to serve creative industry objectives but by this very underground status. These creative agencies afford an alternative creative autonomy by helping “a band do something just for passion” whereas “in North America, Australia, Europe [labels] do it because there's tonnes of money involved” even at the underground level.11
Foreigners like Tyler are important connectors of the local Chinese hardcore scene and leverage their subcultural capital, acquired from years of international touring and participation with a number of local bands (e.g. Spill Your Guts or Before the Daylight), to help connect them to a global network. One way this occurs in helping them market or ‘seed’ their music overseas to English speaking audiences is by strategically positioning their music online via platforms for music
9
Interview at the underground music symposium in Shanghai, Jan 16th, 2016. 10 Interview with owner of Basement 6, July 8th, 2017. http://www. basement6collective.com/-us/. 11 loc.cit. Tyler.
12 Interview with Tyler Bowa a drummer in various punk bands in Shanghai, from PhD Research fieldwork. 13 Ibid.
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dissemination (e.g. Bandcamp). But how can we interpret their love of ‘Chinese Punk Rock’ (Tuyao) in a Bourdieusian sense? Chinese punk rock has been a marginalized music genre, first popularised by Cuijian as a form of cultural resistance to state power (Jones, 1992; Zhao, 1999) and then by the Dakou generation as a means of establishing distinction under pressures of internationalization (De Kloet, 2005b). The most current wave represented by labels such as Genjing and Maybe Mars is an attempt to retreat back into the fringe – a space with little commercial promise but high symbolic value. There's a shared sense amongst these labels that ‘we make music because it's good not that it's popular'.14 And ‘we know there's no money in it, but we don't care'.15 The expat's love for Tuyao is therefore a ‘double negation’ – a rejection of internationalization (claiming its uniqueness as an independent music genre in the history of global punk rock) combined with a rejection of mainstream Chinese popular music, in an affirmation of a unique Chinese sonic space. In contrast, local Chinese musicians producing Tuyao are not necessarily rejecting the idea of ‘internationalization’ nor of the market. In fact, Maybe Mars has always claimed its attempt at promoting local bands abroad and has participated widely at international music festivals. This foreign embrace of Tuyao facilitated by record labels and foreign intermediaries is an important aspect of connecting Shanghai's underground music subcultures to a global audience. Such global extensions are crucial to this late development of the local scene's international relevance through contemporisation. In this process of catching up to the globe via new internationally spanning cultural exchanges and flows of Chinese music abroad, we see key characteristics of the worlding process.
about the origin of the bands. But the differences seem to matter a lot when it comes to sell abroad.'17 This process can be thought of as an element of worlding in the sense that local Chinese musicians learn to adapt to an already globalizing underground music scene notwithstanding the authenticity of their music which is challenged from time to time. A case in focus here is Higher Brothers – the hip-hop group based in Sichuan who attracted global attention for their song Made in China and collaboration with independent American-Asian media distributors such as 88Rising (Dunn, 2018). Such international attention has brought new distinctions and a nationally validated authenticity to artists from Sichuan – more so to that given to the hip-hop groups in the more westernized Shanghai scene. Higher Brother's 2017 concert at Mao Livehouse in Shanghai was much more popular than their tours of other Chinese cities according to Chinese music scholar, Zhang Qian, who has been following hip-hop fan culture in China since the inception of this music genre in the country.18 According to Zhang, hip-hop's tendency for commercialization has been promoted in the development of Shanghai's global cosmopolitanism from its lyrics, attitudes and styling as opposed to the various cultural origins of artists. The mutual identification of local subcultural groups and the city they inhabit is displaced in this case by the validation of global networks that provide new subcultural capital. Many viewed this a specific problem rather than the success of China's music scene – defined by a lack of local identity and its propensity to be dominated by foreign and translocal cultural trends (Steen, 2000). Splitworks is a key intermediary of the Chinese subcultural music scene and is based in Shanghai. The organisation is a booking agency founded in 2006 by Archie Hamilton (British) and Nathaniel Davis (American) – both of whom have not worked in the music business extensively before coming to China. Splitworks was setup to introduce Chinese indie bands to global audiences and vice versa. Very quickly, it became clear that this subcultural network was lucrative as international brand marketing firms began looking for an authentic Chinese story to connect with global audiences – Adidas and Nike to name a few. Splitworks also organizes some of China's most well-known indie music festivals including Concrete & Grass; Jue Music + Art Festival and Guinness Wood + Wires Music festival.19 Their influence has positioned Shanghai as a nodal point in the global music industry. It does so by claiming to be an ecosystem for the Chinese music industry delivering services through Splatter – a music events promoter; Scorched – a booking agency for bands across Asia; Wooozy – China's online music community; and, China Music Radar – an archive of Chinese music. Such a globalized music infrastructure is incredibly significant for Chinese indie music as prior to Splitworks there were no fromalised services available for this type of local-global engagement (remaining with passionate DIY communities). The search for authenticity within this global networked infrastructure is what has defined the line between the hastily globalizing underground projects and mainstream music production. There is the wide perception amongst bands in Shanghai that to make it is to sell and perform outside of China. But this also signifies the importance of underground venues and agencies that are connected with Splitworks, which represent pathways to this local-global intersection in Shanghai. Such an emphasis on meeting the global gaze is another aspect of how the local scene is expanding in a worlding sense. However, the authenticity of this mediated space is highly disputed as many see bands from Shanghai as imitators that capitalise on western styles and traditions rather than performing an indigenous identity. As Zhanghai Sheng (the owner of a prominent local music venue Yuyintang) observed, Shanghai's underground music scene is always going to be dominated by bands from outside of the city.20
2.3. Selling the indie story What is ‘indie music’? A complex question for many in the subcultural music field in China due to various clashes of identity and belonging, taste and subjectivity, and deep rooted generational differences (De Kloet, 2010). One may rightly argue that mainstream Chinese pop occupies a unique position in awakening a sense of belonging and building new subjectivity, whilst others could argue that punk-rock is closer to its form in the West than in China, and that local participants in the scene are seekers of alternative identities in a collectivist society (De Kloet, 2005b). Because of punk's connection to the global music industry, Chinese punk musicians, both in identity and in practice, are heavily influenced by foreign cultures. This is both a symptom of the local scenes yearning to participate globally and a consequence of foreigners cultivating pathways for this global connection. ‘ … as a foreigner, even as a Chinese kid, you probably don't know how to find out about some of the shows. There's no central hubs and I think that's a problem.16 This has resulted in an underground music scene that is fragmented in geographies and is temporal in nature. For example, most of the local Shanghai bands in the underground music scene are not originally from Shanghai, nor are the lyrics they perform specifically Shanghainese. Here locality is not place specific but along more rigid lines of ‘being Chinese’. This is not to deny the notion of place, as it still has a role in authenticating the subcultural scene. Hip-hop in Sichuan or Beijing Rock are for example, identities actively pursued by subcultural groups as they are often associated with authentic Chinese underground music. These differences however, matter only to those from outside of China. As one interviewee mentioned, ‘Chinese audience don't care much 14 Interviews included in this article are taken at the underground music symposium in Jan 2016, involving key players in Chinese underground music scene. Subsequent interviews with labels Genjing and Maybe Mars have been conducted in July 2017. 15 Interviews with owner of label Genjing. 16 Loc. cit. Tyler.
17
Interview with owner of label Genjing. Interview on 8th Jan 2017. 19 Splitworks, http://spli-t.com/; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Split_Works. 20 http://www.shift.jp.org/en/archives/2008/03/yuyintang.html. 18
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important to the lived reality of young people who are now sustaining the underground music scene as this field remains on the fringe. To be able to communicate in English and residing in urban centres such as Shanghai are important aspects of the worlding process of the local underground culture, the amenities that support artists, and their music. Now, the local scene looks to foreigners who celebrate the Chinese nuance and help export their sounds to new audiences (expanding the global reach of this fringe community).
The idea of Chinese popular music as the co-existence of a monolith with a definable mainstream and a dynamic fringe influenced by transnational flows of popular cultures has been disputed (Fung, 2007). The above examination of Shanghai's subcultural music scene confirms that it is a highly dispersed field. It is defined by a multitude of power structures influenced by both local and global determinants. Learning to operate in an increasingly accessible globalized music industry, coupled with the marketization of the local cultural sector within China, has shaped the unique identities and practices of those involved in the underground music scene. The word ‘underground’ thus cannot be equated to illegitimate status of subcultural activities in China anymore. Instead, it underlines conscious choices of reflection and distinction (even via marginalization) of underground music scene participants. Following Bourdieu's field theory, the expatriate endorsement of Chinese punk rock reflects how they utilize their foreign distinction in mainstream Chinese society, by leveraging subcultural capital to participate in the local scene. Their example also demonstrates how the conversion of local subcultural capital has shifted the local and global dynamics of music industry participation in China and consumption of Chinese music outside of the PRC. In this sense, Shanghai's music scene is simultaneously local and global in contesting the relationship between local subcultures and their authenticity. Punk rock groups in Shanghai are not necessarily Chinese nor do they holistically adhere to the global punk rock spirit. Instead, we see a hybridity emerge from the intersection of local and global influences and pressures to meet the global gaze in a process known as ‘worlding’. Furthermore, Sichuan hip-hop groups are often the most celebrated by local Shanghainese audiences due to their popular reception outside of China. The authentication of subcultural music in China is highly dependent on the ability to convert often subversive cultural values into global cultural consumption mediated by global intermediaries who have been shown to be concentrated in Shanghai. This is a highly contentious place to be in. The most recent ban by the state of hip-hop as ‘indecent, obscene, vulgar and gangsta’ is a demonstration of conflicts between ideology from the subcultural field and the state. For musicians in Shanghai, it is not the lack of commercial opportunity or the resistance to commercialization that have kept the subcultural scene largely underground. It's the state's rejection of their subcultural ideology and creative autonomy in defining an alternative 'Chineseness' (one that has continued to push outward to the globe) that is perceived as ‘untasteful’ by a controlling state. Venues in the subcultural music scene are also effected by pressures to meet the global gaze as state-led urban regeneration has co-opted edgy fringe arts in marketing Shanghai as a global city. This is both beneficial and detrimental for the local scene. On one hand, the underground scene has an opportunity to legitimize and on the other, such opportunities also erode the status and autonomy of venues. Despite the urban and economic marginalization policy implementations, some independent artists preserve underground music's alternative, subcultural status amidst pressures to legitimize (i.e. conform to the dominant cultural capital) and commodify (to participate in the commercial market). To conclude, this research illustrates how the composition of the underground music scene in Shanghai is going through a process of local-global development or worlding in pursuits of global validation. Unlike popular centres of subcultural music, the Chinese nuance has emerged significantly slower, The result is a local underground scene that is subject to competing local and international influences that have often complicated its identity. Such barriers have become less
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