Red Star Rock 2000
Reviewed by Lisa Movius
For better or
for worse, compilations seem to dominate Chinese rock
releases. For better, they help introduce new artists to
the industry and audience. For worse, the volume of
compilations often results from the failure of bands to write
enough songs to fill an entire album, or the reluctance of
record companies to invest too much in any particular band.
Late ?9 promises a bumper crop of compilations, and Red
Star Rock 2000 is among its first fruits. Red Star 2000
is the latest in the long, long series of Red Star compilation
albums, which had reached six at the last count. The first Red
Star compilation in 1994 was a good album, really good for its
time. Red Star 2 met the same standard. By Red Star 3,
however, we started getting that déjà vu feeling. The music
all sounded vaguely familiar, and it was. The Red Star formula
is to gather material from its artists?previously released and
badly distributed albums and repackage them into new releases.
Hence, the undiscriminating enthusiast ends up with three
or four copies of the exact same song, and often a song never
liked in the first place. I previously had three albums
and one VCD containing the song Mercy?(Ci Bei) by Paradise
(Tiantang), the countryside cousins of Bon Jovi. Red Star 2000
makes it four. Here we have yet another band trying
desperately to be Black Panther (Hei Bao). Why so many Beijing
bands want to be Black Panther remains one of the Great
Unsolved Mysteries of the universe. In addition to headlining
all of Red Star’s compilations, Paradise has two albums of
their own and is working on a third. This all supports
my suspicion that anyone can get a record contract in Beijing,
and kinda makes me wish I’d stayed with those ukulele lessons
in pre-school.
The album also includes Xu Wei’s My Autumn. Xu is a
sadly underrated musician and songwriter, and his Two Days
from the first Red Star album figures among the few songs that
I can listen to over and over again. However, there’s
something about Xu Wei’s music, and this song in particular,
that sometimes makes me think the batteries in my walkman need
replacing. Not so much slow as slowed down.
We get a taste of Zheng Jun’s popular but uninspired rock
for the masses, as well as quite a few other samples from Red
Star’s first compilation. Catcther in the Rye, Red Star’s
newest act, add their typical blend of perky, peppy, poppy
punk.
The strongest works by far on the album are by its female
artists. Heading the pack is three-member, all-girl punk
band Hang on the Box (Gua zai hezi shang). They exhibit all
the freshness of an underground punk band without the typical
sloppiness. Another review has taken them to task for
trying to be overly aggressive, and the cutesy Chinglish
lyrics do little to support the “riot grrrl?image they
attempt. Nevertheless, their angry alienation comes off
as no less contrived than the rebellion and self-indulgent
angst of their male contemporaries. As long as the band’s not
jinxed by this album, I doubt it’s the last we’ll hear of
them.
Zhang Qianqian offers a pleasant surprise, combining
thumping, new-age music with her clear, haunting vocals.
Cobra’s Traffic Light is a great song, albeit badly produced,
and brings fond memories of compilations of Christmas past.
Tian Zhen’s Shun qi zi ran is also solid, with those lush,
throaty vocals we love her for.
There is a Chinese saying, “A wounded dog will jump a
wall.?nbsp; Red Star Rock 2000 shows its obvious purpose as a
desperate grasp at survival by a company teetering on the edge
of bankruptcy. If this is the best they can do, it will
be more like a dying gasp. At this rate, Red Star is likely to
stay, well, in the red, and whether they’ll manage to rock
into 2000 remains to be seen.
