HONG KONGISH
港人 港語KEVIN MA grew up with Cantopop, the music that’s 100 per cent Hong Kong伴隨馬樂民成長的粵語流行曲，是百分百香港風味的音樂
KEVIN MA charts the ebb and flow of Hong Kong’s unique Cantopop culture
IN DECEMBER, ANDY Lau, one of the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ of Hong Kong music, will be performing 20 shows at the Hong Kong Coliseum. When the tickets went on sale in early September, all 60,000 general public tickets were snapped up in hours.
It looks like reports of Cantopop’s death have – yet again – proven to be premature.
So what is Cantopop? Not a genre, as outsiders think. It’s much bigger than that. It’s a music industry that encompasses decades of pop culture history, starting in the 1970s with the Westernisation of local music. It has had its share of ups and downs, a bit like the city that made it: Hong Kong.
I grew up with Cantopop. From the George Lam albums my dad played at home to the Eason Chan songs that my friends and I sing at karaoke, it’s the soundtrack of my life.
Its performers aren’t as hip as the bands taking the stage at Clockenflap this month. But I’m not ashamed to admit that I used to imitate Aaron Kwok’s wrist twist dance in front of the TV. And, absolutely, I was one of those people who bought Andy Lau tickets.
Admittedly, Cantopop isn’t what it was. Album sales plummeted from HK$2.5 billion in 1989 to just HK$200 million last year (though this can be partly attributed to the internet). Its peak was in the 1980s and ’90s, when, alongside Japan, Hong Kong became one of Asia’s pop culture leaders.
In those days, people across Asia not only listened to Cantopop: they aspired to work in it – a bit like K-pop today. Musicians from Taiwan and Singapore broke into the Cantopop industry in search of a piece of the pie.
Like Hong Kong itself, the Cantopop world was, and is, a melting pot of global influences. Before the rise of the internet and global streaming services simplified access to foreign music, record company executives were the tastemakers. During Cantopop’s heyday, they imported hit songs and localised them as Cantonese cover versions (you can hear one of them, Sally Yeh’s cover of Madonna’s Material Girl, in Crazy Rich Asians). Any comprehensive history of Cantopop should list Koji Tamaki, Keisuke Kuwata, Hideaki Tokunaga and the Bee Gees alongside Joseph Koo, Sam Hui, Michael Lai and Anthony Lun as Cantopop’s greatest composers.
Many will remember the ’80s for super idols Leslie Cheung, Anita Mui, Danny Chan and Alan Tam. But thanks to highprofile talent competitions and a huge entertainment ecosystem in which actors sang and vice versa, it also saw singers that shone just as quickly as they faded away (I still treasure my copy of Chow Yun-fat’s second and final album). Names such as Samantha Lam, Agnes Chiang, Terence Tsoi, Cally Kwong and Connie Mak are virtual strangers to millennials, but their hits still get airplay on local radio stations during late-night music programmes.
Cheung and Tam stepping back from the spotlight in the ’90s gave way to the rise of Jacky Cheung, Andy Lau, Leon
Lai and Aaron Kwok – four very different pop stars clumped together by local media as the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’. Not all of them are great musicians by any means – Jacky Cheung is the only one who succeeded on vocal talents – but few Hong Kong pop stars have enjoyed the same longevity as this quartet.
How is it possible Andy Lau concerts can still sell out in mere hours in 2018? Why do we still look back fondly at the golden age of Cantopop but don’t show the same support to this generation of Hong Kong musicians? The continuing love for ’80s and ’90s Cantopop feels like an act of nostalgia – not just for the celebrities from the era who are no longer with us, but also for what many Hongkongers perceive as the city’s glory days.
It’s easier to look at the period through rose-coloured Ray-Bans and shrug a heavily-padded shoulder at the current, much diminished local music industry.
But while the numbers may be smaller and the kings’ thrones are vacant, there’s far more diversity and creativity around: check out the likes of Ivana Wong, Khalil Fong, Killersoap, Aga, Supper Moment and Eman Lam. Hong Kong pop, like the city, has plenty of gas left in the tank.
今年12月，香港壇樂 四大天王之一的劉德華將在香港體育館館行（紅 ）舉 20場演唱會。60,000張門票在9月初公開發售，數小時內已被搶購一空。
這現象再次證明，「粵語流行曲已死」這種說法未免言之過早。
何謂粵語流行曲？一般人以為是它 一種音樂類型，但其實它遠不止於音樂類型是，更 一個有數十年流行文化歷史的音樂工業。香港地本 音樂於1970年起代 深受歐西流行曲影響，朝西化的方向走，期間經歷高低跌宕，與香的港 整體發展互相呼應。
粵語流行曲伴隨我成長：小時候聽家父播放的林子祥專輯，長大後與朋友在卡拉OK大唱奕陳 迅的金曲，這些歌曲均陪我走過人生不同的階段。
粵語流行曲的歌手和音樂人，風格未必本如登月 上Clockenflap音樂節舞台的音樂人那樣新潮前衛。不過我亦不介意告訴讀，者以前我會電在 視前模仿郭富城扭動手的腕 舞姿，而我當然也是其中一個搶購劉德華演唱會門票的歌迷。
無可否認，粵語流行曲已無復當年的
盛況。唱片銷量從1989年的25億港元暴跌至年去的2億，港元 部分原因可歸咎於互聯網興起。1980及90年代粵是 語流行曲的巔峰時期，當時香港與日本並駕齊，領驅 引亞洲流行文化。
在那些光輝歲月，中 亞洲各地樂迷不僅聽粵語流行曲，甚至渴望加入香港樂壇，情況有如現今的韓國流行音樂K- pop。來自台灣及新加坡的音樂人紛紛進軍粵語流行樂壇，望希 從中分一杯羹。
一如港香 這座大都會，粵語流行曲的世亦界 是融會全球流行元素的大熔爐。在互聯網和全球串流服務興起之前，要接觸地外 音樂並不容易，音樂潮流掌握在唱片公司高層手中。在粵語流行曲的黃金年代，唱片公司引進國外 的熱門歌曲，填再上粵語歌詞讓歌手翻唱。在電影《我的超豪男友》你中， 可以聽到這種改編翻唱歌的 曲是蒨唱，就 由葉 文翻 Madonna的
〈Material Girl〉。若要為粵語流行曲的
歷史勾日一個全面的輪廓，除了顧嘉煇許、冠傑、黎小田及倫永亮等出色的粵語流行曲作曲家外，要還 將玉置浩二、桑田佳祐、德永英明及Bee Gees等海外音樂人羅列在內。
很多人都對1980年代紅得發紫的級超偶像如張國榮、梅艷芳、陳百強及譚詠麟等印象難忘，可是除了這些天王天后之外，當時還舉行過很多規模盛大的歌唱比賽，發掘人才。當時娛樂圈人才濟濟，除演了員演而優則唱（我仍珍藏著周潤發張第二 亦是最一後 張專輯）之外，也有歌手變身演員的成功例子。當時樂壇上亦出現過不少一閃即逝的歌手，千禧世代也許不再認識林志美、蔣麗萍、蔡國權、鄺美雲及麥潔文等名字，但本地電台的深夜音樂節目內，仍會不時播放他們的首本名曲。
張國榮和麟譚詠 在1990年代出淡，張學友、劉德華、黎明及郭富城乘時崛起，四位風格迥異的流行巨星被本地媒體封為「四大天王」。這四位並非全都稱得上出色的音樂人只， 有張學友屬唱家班，沒但有位港幾香流行歌星能跟他們一樣在樂壇屹立不倒。
來到2018年，劉德的華 演唱會門票仍然在可 數小時內售罄。為何我們只顧緬懷粵語流行曲的黃金時代，而不以相同的心態持支 這一代香港音樂人呢？ 1980及90年代的粵語流行曲仍有市場，反映我們過對去念念不忘，並非粹純 懷念已經離去的著名歌手；，同時 對不少人來說，那個時期是這座城市的輝煌年代。
對逐漸萎縮的本地壇耳聞樂 充 不 ，只管緬懷昔日樂壇的美，好 其實是日地為牢，令自錯己 過許多精采出色的音樂。雖然唱片銷量非今 昔比，天王天后寶的 座仍虛位以待，但在音樂上卻多更 元化、更富創意；王菀之、方大同、Killersoap（殺手鐧）、、Aga Supper Moment、汶林二 等唱作位單 都不乏好作品。一如這座城市，香港的流行樂壇底蘊豐厚，總能於柳暗花明處走條。出一 新路