Folk songs are making a big comeback
Print Edition
RECENTLY, a contestant on a televised talent show, Zhao Lei’s performance has helped bring folk music back to center stage.
On the show, Zhao, 31, from Beijing, wore a simple T-shirt and a modest smile. His quiet voice, in sharp contrast to his competitors who belted out the high notes, touched many.
Folk music is no longer mainstream, but has returned to the nation’s sitting rooms via popular TV talent shows.
Moxizishi, 38, from the Daliang Mountains in southwest China’s Sichuan Province, is one to have benefited. A bar singer in Beijing like many unknown singers, he found fame in 2014 via a music competition.
Such programs are an excellent channel for folk music, he said, allowing the singer’s talent and the folk song’s charm to shine through.
An evolving music festival scene also offers a stage for folk singers. There were about 150 festivals in 2014, attended by more than 3 million people spending nearly 380 million yuan (US$437,000) on tickets. Since then, the Internet has provided more opportunities.
“University students and the urban middle class are big fans of folk music. They are more than willing to pay for music,” said music journalist Wang Zheng. “It is a very good thing for independent artists.”
But in Moxizishi’s eyes, it is the timeless appeal of folk songs that continues to attract fans: “Folk songs are a kind of poetry, with both strength and humanity.”
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