Imitation and Adaptation: Rock Music in Taiwan and the Surrounding Countries

This is an article about rock music in Taiwan and its neighboring countries that I wrote for the 2006 Migration Music Festival. It could use some updating (for instance, the part about Taiwanese aboriginal rock music doesn't mention the aboriginal band Matzka, which has recently taken Taiwan and many other places by storm with their combination of rock, reggae, rap, and aboriginal sounds, or the eclectic solo album by Totem's lead singer Suming that is sung entirely in Amis, a Taiwanese aboriginal language), but it gives a more or less adequate historical overview.

Imitation and Adaptation: Rock Music in Taiwan and the Surrounding Countries

To most Western music fans, mention of Asian music may evoke the sitars and tablas of Indian classical music, the traditional singing and chanting of places like Tibet as incorporated into New Age music, or perhaps some other traditional music forms. One thing that doesn't readily come to mind is rock music. And yet rock music, whether in the form of folk rock, melodic pop rock, hard rock or even heavy metal, has been one of the dominant genres of popular music in East and Southeast Asia over the past few decades.

Superficially, much of Asian rock seems entirely derivative of Western rock. Many listeners, on exposure to it, may feel that there is no merit in something that seemingly has nothing Asian about it except the language. In many conservative Asian countries, however, even daring to perform this "decadent" Western music at certain times in the past was an act of defiance against the authorities and the society in general. Many of the popular artists known in their various countries for being particularly outspoken about problems in their societies have used rock as the medium for their messages. Furthermore, there are many artists who have successfully combined local sounds with rock, creating a uniquely Asian form of rock music. This music is worth a listen not only for its sociopolitical importance, but also for its musical content.

This article focuses mainly on rock music in Taiwan over the past few decades, but also touches on rock in neighboring countries, contrasting developments in countries around the region with those in Taiwan. It is primarily a historical survey of important artists who have performed music which falls into the category of rock music as it is broadly defined, particularly those artists whose songs sometimes contain strong messages, or those who have combined rock music with traditional sounds and melodies.

Though rock and roll first appeared in the United States in the mid 1950s, it wasn't until the 1960s and the advent of the Beatles that it really took off in Asia (instrumental groups like the Ventures were also influential in the beginnings of Asian rock). Guitar-based groups started appearing around the region and rock music in various forms became a major force in popular music in many countries, including Japan's "Group Sounds" (or simply G.S.) and Malaysia and Singapore's Pop Yeh Yeh ("Yeah Yeah Pop"). In Taiwan, many groups were also formed, but as relatively few of them recorded, their immediate impact on popular music was limited. However, performances by these groups in which they covered English pop songs were immensely popular among urban youth, and a number of important songwriters and musicians got their start in these cover bands. Furthermore, even the form of rock performed by these groups, denuded as it was of virtually any political content, was viewed by conservatives as threatening, forcing those involved in it to constantly defend themselves against accusations of corrupting the youth.

In the 1970s, what became known as the folk song movement took Taiwan's popular music scene by storm. This was heavily influenced by American folk singers such as Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Simon and Garfunkel. A more Chinese melodic sense also had an impact on the sound of Taiwan's "campus folk songs", as they were later called. However, this music had relatively little obvious rock influences, and the singers, unlike those in American folk music, generally avoided controversial topics in their lyrics, with a few notable exceptions such as Li Shuangze [李雙澤], Yang Zujun [楊祖珺], and Hu Defu [胡德夫] (Kimbo).

The lack of political content in Taiwanese music of the time was in marked contrast to the highly political folk rock of the Thai group Caravan [คาราวาน] and the socially conscious songs of Freddie Aguilar and Asin in the Philippines or Kina Shoukichi [喜納昌吉] in Okinawa. Caravan, which released their first album in 1975, incorporated traditional Thai sounds into their music and sang about problems and tensions in Thai society, initiating an important trend in Thai popular music known as "songs for life". Their best known song, "Man and Buffalo" [คนกับควาย], extolled the peasants of Thailand and their relationship with the buffaloes which pulled their plows, while condemning their exploitation by the wealthy. In 1978 in the Philippines, Freddie Aguilar wrote and released one of the most popular Asian songs ever, "Anak" ("Child"), describing strained relations between parents and their son. This song has been covered countless times in many languages, not only in Asia but in Europe as well. His reworking of an old Filipino song entitled "Bayan Ko" ("My Country") became the theme song of the People Power revolution which overthrew the regime of the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Asin, formed in 1977, was a popular folk rock group which addressed social and environmental issues in their songs. One of the their songs was recently sampled by the American pop group the Blackeyed Peas on their album Elephunk. Kina Shoukichi, from the Japanese-ruled island of Okinawa, combined traditional Okinawan music with rock in his hit "Haisai Ojisan" (first released in 1966 and popularized by a 1977 live recording), which was a big influence on many Japanese artists. Artists throughout Asia, including Caravan, have covered his ballad “Subete No Hito No Korkoro Ni Hana O”.

In Taiwan it wasn't until the early 1980s that rock began to have a major impact. In 1982, singer-songwriter Luo Dayou [羅大佑], who had written hits for a number of artists, released his first solo album Pedantry [之乎者也], a mix of rock, folk and reggae. His lyrics, in which he took a critical look at Taiwanese society, attracted a great deal of attention from critics and listeners. The best known track on the album, "Little Town of Lugang" [鹿港小鎮], described the ambivalent feelings of the many Taiwanese who migrated from the towns and villages of south and central Taiwan to the big city of Taipei. He followed up this album with two more in the next two years, and together they had a strong influence on the pop music scene, inspiring a generation of singer-songwriters in Taiwan. The government did not always take such a favorable view of his music however, banning a number of his songs from the radio. Others only got airplay because the censors were deceived as to their real content. One notable song from his second album, "The Orphan of Asia" [亞細亞的孤兒], for example, was dedicated to Chinese refugees in Southeast Asia, but was really about Taiwan's political isolation. On this particular song, Luo augmented his folk rock tune with a traditional trumpet instrument called the suona, thereby inspiring the 1990s Hakka band Labor Exchange [交工樂隊], who will be discussed below.

In the wake of Luo Dayou, a number of different artists performing music which was influenced by rock to some degree or another appeared in Taiwan. One example was Julie Su (Su Rui) [蘇芮], a soulful vocalist whose releases in the early 1980s were immensely popular. The singer and drummer Xue Yue achieved success backed by the rock band Starry Eyes [幻眼合唱團] and singer-songwriter Qi Qin [齊秦] was also popular, not only in Taiwan but in China as well. In the mid and late 1980s, more singer-songwriters appeared, including Li Zongsheng [李宗盛], Li Shouquan [李壽全], Chen Sheng [陳昇], Zhang Hongliang [張洪量], and Huang Shujun [黃舒駿]. Several bands performing original songs in Chinese also gained prominence, including Qiu Qiu [丘丘合唱團], the Impressions [印象合唱團], and the Red Ants [紅螞蟻合唱團]. Most of these artists, however, did not attempt the more daring lyrical content of some of Luo Dayou's songs, sticking mostly to safer topics such as relationships.

The early and mid 1980s saw the appearance of many major rock artists in other countries in Asia as well, particularly those who, like Luo Dayou, had a socially conscious bent, and some of those artists would in turn influence Taiwanese musicians, directly or indirectly. In Thailand, for instance, the "songs for life" band Carabao [คาราบาว], which pioneered a distinctly Thai-style rock sound to accompany their strongly political lyrics, was the most prominent musical artist of any variety in that Southeast Asian country in the mid 1980s. Their biggest album was 1984's Made in Thailand [เมดอินไทยแลนด์], with a title track which criticized Thais' negative attitude toward their own country, and other tracks that dealt with issues such as prostitution, refugees, and education. Another popular artist appearing a few years later was the pop-rock duo Asanee and Wasan [อัสนี-วสันต์], a pair of brothers who not only sang but were excellent guitar players. Though their music and lyrics were more mainstream, they still had a distinct sound which was influential not only in Thailand but elsewhere in the region including Taiwan. In Malaysia, the group Kembara, led by M. Nasir, was one of the top groups of the 1980s. M. Nasir has gone on to a solo career in which he combines rock with a very Malay sound and lyrics with substantial sociopolitical content. He has written songs for many Malay artists and even had a few songs covered by Taiwanese songstress Teresa Teng (Deng Lijun) [鄧麗君]. In Indonesia, political rocker Iwan Fals, who released his first album in 1981, had many problems with the authorities but became one of the nation's top artists. In Hong Kong, the group Beyond evolved from an underground rock band to a more mainstream one, but kept their rock sensibilities and occasionally addressed controversial issues, such as in their 1990s song "The Great Wall" [長城], which took a critical look at Chinese history. In the nineties, they became popular in Taiwan and Japan as well as in Hong Kong.

In the late 1980s, however, the country whose rock music got the most attention in Taiwan and even the West was a newcomer to the scene -- China. In 1986, China's pioneering rocker Cui Jian [崔健] gave his first public performance of his most famous song, "Having Nothing At All" [一無所有], and in 1988, he released his first album Rock And Roll Of The New Long March [新長征路上的搖滾]. In 1989, "Having Nothing At All" became one of the anthems of the students protesting in Tiananmen Square in Beijing, bringing Cui Jian to international notice. That same year, his first album was repackaged and released in Taiwan under the title Having Nothing At All. Its impact was such that when a list of the top Taiwanese albums of the modern era was compiled a few years later, it was the only album by a non-Taiwanese artist to make the top 10. Also in the late 1980s, the rock bands Hei Bao (Black Panther) [黑豹] and Tang Dynasty [唐朝] were formed. When their first albums were released in the early 1990s, they would also have a significant influence on the Taiwan music scene.

Up until the late 1980s, the vast majority of rock recordings in Taiwan had been the country's official language, Mandarin Chinese. Songs in Hoklo [福佬語] (also called Taiwanese), the language of the island's largest ethnic group, had generally continued to conform to a style heavily influenced by the old Japanese pop genre known as enka. But in 1989, a group called the Blacklist Workshop [黑名單工作室] released a Hoklo album entitled Songs of Madness [抓狂歌]. “Madness” [抓狂], the title track, was a cover of a song by the Thai duo Asanee Wasan, and the other songs were original compositions in a variety of styles, including folk, rock and rap. The lyrics dealt with social and political issues, also a first for an album in Hoklo.

In 1991, an even bigger Hoklo album was released by the singer Lim Giong. Entitled March Forward [向前走], this album, and particularly the title track, was an enormous commercial and critical success. The song "March Forward", like "Lugang Town" nine years before, was sung from the perspective of a young Taiwanese moving from the countryside to Taipei and even quoted a line from the older song. But rather than looking back with nostalgia to his old home as in "Lugang Town", the young man in "March Forward" sees Taipei as a place to fulfill his dreams.

With the success of March Forward, Hoklo albums influenced by rock began to be released with more frequency. One such album was Homeland [原鄉], released in 1992 by Luo Dayou. Luo had returned to music in 1988 after a break of several years with the commercially successful album Comrade Lover [愛人同志] (though this album was much less political than his earlier work, a 1989 version released in Hong Kong contained a track called "The Dwarf's Song" [侏儒之歌], an attack on Deng Xiaoping in the wake of the Tiananmen incident). Now based in Hong Kong, he oversaw the production of a (mostly) Cantonese album called Queen's Road East [皇后大道東] featuring his compositions sung by a variety of Hong Kong singers. This album, and especially the title track and its ruminations on the future of Hong Kong after the upcoming handover to China, was a massive hit in Hong Kong. Homeland was a Taiwanese version of Queen's Road East, featuring Hoklo and Mandarin versions of tunes from the earlier album plus some new compositions, and looking at different aspect of Taiwanese society, past and present.

1992 also saw the release of the first album by Taiwanese rocker Wu Junlin [吳俊霖], better known as Wu Bai [伍佰]. Wu Bai had written a number of songs for a movie by acclaimed director Hou Hsiao-hsien [侯孝賢] entitled Dust Of Angels [少年也，安啦] earlier that same year. Falling In Love Is A Happy Thing [愛上別人是快樂的事], his debut album of bluesy and funky rock in Mandarin and Hoklo, remains a favorite with many early fans. But commercial success came later, after he had formed the band China Blue and honed his performing skills to a peak through regular live shows. Wu Bai's Live [伍佰的Live], released in 1995, included not only live performances of his own songs, but also rock versions of Hoklo classics from the 1950s and 1960s. The Mandarin albums The Wanderer's Love Song [浪人情歌] and The End of Love [愛情的盡頭] were big hits, but perhaps his best album came in 1998 when he released the Hoklo album Lonely Bird on a Tree Branch [樹枝孤鳥]. While most of his previous songs had musically been pretty much purely Western rock, many of the songs on this album had distinctively Taiwanese melodies. Wu Bai remains Taiwan's best-known rocker, and his recent release Two-faced Person [雙面人], his first Hoklo album since Lonely Bird on a Tree Branch, received favorable critical attention.

Another important artist who released his first solo albums in the early 1990s was Chen Mingchang [陳明章], who had been part of the Blacklist Workshop. Chen had been involved in music as far back as the campus folk song movement, but he first gained substantial recognition in 1986 when his soundtrack to the Hou Hsiao-hsien film Dust In The Wind [戀戀風塵] won the prize for best score at Nantes. In 1991 he released two live albums and a studio concept album, An Afternoon Opera [下午的一齣戲]. His songs were basically Taiwanese folk, strongly influenced by traditional Taiwanese musical forms such as beiguan [北管] and gezaixi [歌仔戲]. Chen remains active today and continues to look to Taiwan itself for inspiration, whether it be instruments like the yueqin (moon guitar) [月琴] or even aboriginal music.

Like Chen Mingchang, Zhu Yuexin [朱約信], better known as Jutoupi ("Pig's Head Skin") [豬頭皮], sings mostly in Hoklo. His first album, released in 1992, was politically oriented folk rock. But in 1994, he dramatically changed his style, releasing his first Funny Rap album and pioneering a humorous Taiwanese style of rap music. In 1996, he released an album entitled Harmonious Evening OAA [和諧的夜晚OAA], which combined house with aboriginal music. His career has continued to be highly eclectic, recently including a compilation album with several other artists called Jesus Rocks [搖滾主耶穌].

Baboo was a critically-praised group from the early 1990s led by singer/guitarist Lin Weizhe [林暐哲], who had also been part of the Blacklist Workshop, and keyboardist Li Xinyun [李欣芸], both of whom had worked with Chen Mingchang on an album called Drama Ant [戲螞蟻]. The group's only album, released in 1992, tackled such subjects as corporal punishment in schools and environmental problems in a mix of Mandarin and Hoklo. The group also appeared on several Hou Hsiao-hsien soundtracks from the early 1990s. Recently, Lin has formed his own production company to promote new rock bands, and Li released a solo album last year.

Underground, i.e., non-mainstream, rock first appeared in Taiwan around 1990 with groups like the punk/new wave band Double X. The lead singer of this group, Zhao Yihao [趙一豪], made a solo album that same year which attracted attention because many of the songs, including the title track "I Pull Myself Out" [把自己掏出來], were banned in their initial form because of perceived sexual content. In the following years, underground bands proliferated in Taiwan. Among the more significant to appear in the middle and later half of the decade were LTK Commune [濁水溪公社], Backquarter [四分衛], The Chairman [董事長], Chthonic [閃靈], Mayday [五月天] and the Clippers [夾子電動大樂隊]. LTK Commune is noted for their wild stage shows incorporating short theatrical performances and props such as beer bottles, motorcycle helmets, and fire extinguishers and for their humorous and often profanity-laced lyrics. Backquarter and Chairman are more conventional rock, but both bands have in recent years experimented with different sounds and styles, and both have dedicated followings due to their long years of performing. Chthonic, Taiwan's premier gothic rock band, uses the traditional Asian instrument the erhu [二胡] in their music and writes songs about legends and myths from Taiwan's aboriginal and Chinese communities. Mayday began as an underground band in the late 1990s, appearing on various compilations including several dedicated to Taiwan's gay and lesbian community, but have since become mainstream, with an enormous following among teenage girls. The Clippers also first began recording in the late 1990s and became known for their over-the-top stage shows incorporating dancing girls and disco lights in a nod to the slightly risqué shows which are often put on in the Taiwanese countryside during weddings and funerals.

Another important rock band from the 1990s was Luan Tan [亂彈], which achieved significant mainstream success with their eponymous debut album, released in 1997. Their music was particularly notable for infusing rock with the traditional Taiwanese music form beiguan on songs like the hit "Conscience" [良心]. They went on to win Golden Melody Awards for Best Group in 1998 and 2000. Other mainstream artists whose rock music had less obvious local flavor included Huang Shujun [黃舒駿], whose 1994 album Who Am I [我是誰] was heavily influenced by the modern rock of groups like U2, and Zhang Zhenyue [張震嶽], whose colloquial lyrical style appealed strongly to teenagers.

Though rock in Taiwan, as in many other places, was dominated by men, there were a few female singers in the 1990s who achieved mainstream success singing rock. Singer-songwriter Sandee Chen [陳珊妮], who released her first album in 1994 has since achieved considerable recognition both as an artist and as a songwriter while remaining defiantly non-mainstream. Faith Yang [楊乃文], under the guidance of Lin Weizhe of Baboo, gained popularity as a rock singer in the vein of Alanis Morissette. The underground music scene has also produced several all female groups, such as Ladybug [瓢蟲] and more recently Cherry Boom [櫻桃幫] and Braces [牙套]. In the last few years, female-led groups have become more common, with examples including Tizzy Bac and Dream Route [夢露].

Most discussions of popular music in Taiwan deal almost exclusively with Mandarin and Hoklo songs, as songs in these languages are understood by the majority of the country's population and so have a much better chance of achieving widespread popularity. However, songs in Hakka and the various aboriginal languages often become very popular within those communities, and some artists singing in these languages have attracted many fans who don't understand the words but nevertheless find a great deal to appreciate in the music.

Hakka popular music was for a long time very conservative, consisting mainly of rerecordings of traditional songs and direct imitations of Hoklo popular music (often simply translations of Hoklo songs into Hakka). The one early exception to this was Wu Shengzhi [吳盛智], formerly the guitarist for a top cover band called the Sunshine [陽光合唱團] in the late 1960s and early 1970s, who in 1981 released a Hakka album which, though it featured mostly traditional tunes, also included several originals in a rock style. Unfortunately, Wu was killed in an auto accident in 1983, but his example inspired many Hakka musicians who emerged in the 1990s.

The first of these musicians to gain notice was Huang Lianyu, who in 1992 formed the New Formosa Band [新寶島康樂隊] with popular singer-songwriter Chen Sheng. Chen Sheng, who had sung in Mandarin as a solo artist, wrote songs in Hoklo for this project, and Huang Lianyu wrote songs in Hakka, and occasionally they would sing both Hoklo and Hakka in the same song. Though the Hoklo songs tended to get more attention, several of the Hakka songs also got some airplay and fans who bought the CDs got to hear all of Huang's often offbeat compositions. In 1996, they were joined by A-von, a member of the Paiwan group of aboriginals, who wrote songs in his own native tongue. Though Huang left the New Formosa Band soon afterwards, his work with the group had given Hakka music new exposure.

Other prominent Hakka artists appearing in the 1990s included Yan Zhiwen [顏志文], Chen Yongtao [陳永淘], Xie Yuwei [謝宇威] and the Labor Exchange Band [交工樂隊]. All of these artists gained critical attention, but probably the most significant was the Labor Exchange Band. This group was formed in the early 1990s and released its first album in 1998. They made extensive use of traditional instruments such as the suona and the yueqin, combining them with rock instruments like guitar and bass, plus the drummer's unique, self-designed drum kit. The group became active in protests against plans to build a large dam in Meinong in southern Taiwan, dedicating their 1999 album Let's Sing Mountain Songs [我等就來唱山歌] to the ultimately successful fight against the project. This album and its 2001 follow-up, Night March of the Chrysanthemums [菊花夜行軍], rank among the most successful attempts to date to create a uniquely Taiwanese sound combining rock and traditional music, in some ways reminiscent of similar efforts by Japanese bands like Soul Flower Union and Shang Shang Typhoon. The L.E. Band went on to win the award for Best Band at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards in 2002. Though the group broke up in 2003, the group's former lead singer Lin Shengxiang gained further recognition for Getting Dark [臨暗], the album he released in 2004 with his new group Sheng Xiang and Water3 [生祥與瓦窯坑3]. The other members of the L.E. Band formed the Hohak Band [好客樂隊] and released their first album, Hohak Carnival [好客戲], in 2005, also garnering critical plaudits.

Like artists from other ethnic groups, aboriginal artists in Taiwan have also made use of rock as a medium for expression, sometimes combining it with traditional sounds. Of the aboriginal artists active today, the one who commands the greatest respect among critics and music fans is Kimbo (Hu Defu) [胡德夫]. As mentioned above, Kimbo was part of Taiwan's folk song movement, and his music, which he refers to as "haiyan blues" or simply "haiyan" incorporates elements of American folk rock and blues as well as aboriginal music, all sung in his inimitably soulful voice. Ironically, despite being active in music for more than 30 years, giving countless performance and appearing on various compilation albums or as a guest on others' recordings (including Jutoupi's Harmonious Evening OAA), Kimbo's first solo album, In a Flash [匆匆], wasn't released until last year. It went on to garner six nominations and two awards at Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards.

Other more younger aboriginal artists include the rock band Yuanshilin [原始林], probably the first aboriginal rock band to receive widespread distribution; singer-songwriter Panai [巴奈], whose melancholy aboriginal folk was characterized by one critic as "Taiwanese blues", singer-songwriter Biung [王宏恩], who incorporates elements of the famed eight-part harmonies of the Bunun aboriginal group to which he belongs into his music, and most recently the aboriginal rock group Totem [圖騰], winners of the top prize at the 2005 Ho-Hai-Yan music festival, who spice up their combination of rock and rap with aboriginal melodies and lyrics.

In the past two decades, rock has become firmly established as an important genre in popular music in Taiwan and in many of its neighbors. The biggest selling artist in Thailand in the 1990s, for instance, was the rock band Loso, whose albums consistently sold in the millions, and many of the other top artists in Thailand are also rock bands or rock singers. In Japan, groups and solo artists running the gamut from soft pop-rock to heavy metal and punk are a big part of the music scene, and rock is a significant force in countries like South Korea, Malaysia and Indonesia as well. In Taiwan, groups such as 1976, Tizzy Bac, Wong Fu [旺福], Cherry Boom [櫻桃幫] and the abovementioned Totem continue to gain new fans for Taiwanese rock. The question for the average Western listener is whether there is anything particularly Asian about this music, or whether it is entirely derivative.

In many cases, rock as performed in Asia remains entirely imitative. At a music festival in Taiwan, the audience will often hear more than one band that seems to have copied its sound exactly from popular American groups like Linkin Park. Certainly it is hard to see much merit in bands which don’t even have their own style. However, it must be said that even among the groups which rely heavily on American and British influences, there is some music worth listening to. After all, Western musicians don’t have a monopoly on rock, and if Asian musicians want to use rock to express themselves, there is nothing objectionable in that. Still, for many Westerner listeners, an Asian rock band which sounds just like a Western one holds little attraction. Fortunately, many of the groups discussed above have succeeded in mixing local sounds and melodic forms into their music to some degree or other.

In Taiwan, as elsewhere in Asia, this tension between imitation and adaptation continues to be a factor in the music scene. Generally speaking, the more commercial mainstream artists tend to adhere more closely to Western musical forms, while non-mainstream artists tend to incorporate more Asian sounds into their music. Some of the most interesting examples are regional, such as the music of Okinawa or the fast-paced dance music of the Thai-Cambodian border known as kantrum; others originate from ethnic minorities, like the Hakka musicians of Taiwan’s Labor Exchange Band. But no matter what degree of local flavor the listener prefers, it can be found if one is prepared to search for it. Those who find Wu Bai, The Chairman, Zhang Zhenyue, Loso and similar artists too Western-sounding may prefer artists like Lin Shengxiang, Kimbo, the Hohak Band, or Soul Flower Union. Artists like these are guaranteed to broaden the listener’s view of modern Asian music, and the lyrics of many Taiwanese and other Asian rock performers provide an incisive view of contemporary Asian society. Both lyrically and musically, much rock music in Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia has a great deal to offer to the discerning listener, and anyone who really wishes to understand modern Asian music should be willing to give it a listen.