CHINA // INDUSTRY NEWS
// EDITOR’S NOTE
Chinese New Year is behind us, warm weather ahead. Thanks to everyone who shared the newsletter last month, and welcome to the new subscribers! If you like what you see, tell a friend to tell a friend. A lot of people reacted to last month’s live music writeup, and this month was a bit slow news-wise, so I’m writing a bit on the success of some of the newer short video platforms in China. Let’s go!
// THE SHORT VIDEO PLATFORMS COMPETING FOR MUSIC FANS’ CLICKS
Anyone who’s been paying attention to China even a little knows Douyin, China’s version of TikTok. Owners ByteDance upped their game recently with Luna Music, their own DSP, which now very cleanly links to tracks from Douyin, providing some revenue for the millions of eyeballs that cross the platforms these days. Though they were the first in this space, they now have a slew of competitors which are taking bites of market share bit by bit. Kuaishou was the first true competitor to the platform, and has significantly less users, but notably a lot of reach in rural areas and less populated cities, which can be valuable depending on the demographic (note: music fans are more generally in bigger cities, and more middle class, making it less valuable for music accounts).
RED (aka 小红书 or Little Red Book) has been somewhat of a sleeper hit in China, growing quite a bit but without the mainstream attention on it. It started with a reputation similar to Pinterest, with a largely female demographic, and content focused on fashion and cooking. As their user base has widened, so has the topics that perform well on the platform. Anecdotally, people now trust the app (and the KOLs on it) more than search engines for finding recipes, tutorials, and other market segments, which means some content can be very popular. They have a very recent push to get more artists and musicians on the platform, especially leaning into acoustic / singer-songwriter content.
WeChat Channels is the latest addition to the WeChat application (you know the one, with a literal billion users that has every possible use case including my own chats, food deliveries, gym membership, and electric bill). Once again, they’ve been making an effort to court artists and music accounts on the platform, but this is a small segment of a very crowded app. WeChat Channels grow most effectively by being shared in chat groups, making it a favorite for up-and-coming artists who have a lot of fans in their hometown or friends group.
Side note that while Bilibili is not by nature a short video platform, it allows uploads of all dimensions and durations, and short content often does very well on the platform.
Two questions loom over all of this. “Which one should I be on now?”, and “Which of these will still be popular in a year?”. The first question is easy, all of them, if you have the time or budget for it, as they do each provide a unique value or market demographic. If that’s too much to ask, start with Douyin. The second question is harder to assess. It’s hard to imagine they all will be, but that is the trend of social platforms these days. More segmented, more refined demographics, with fanbases that don’t want to leave the apps they love. Douyin (TikTok) seems fully ingrained in our lives now, for better or for worse, and it’s hard to imagine an app owned by Tencent to fail on this scale. The others have each been growing at a good pace, so we’ll see where the cards fall in the coming months and years. Watch this space!
// EVERYBODY LOVES JAY CHOU
Have I covered Jay Chou on a previous newsletter? I’m not sure, but if you haven’t heard of him, I don’t know how. He is easily one of the biggest Mandopop stars in China at the moment, and last year went on to sell out shows in London and Paris, and was on Instagram yesterday with pics of a stadium in Sydney he’ll be playing at soon. In December, Universal Music made a deal for his global distro rights and the formation of a new label. Personally, it’s great to see one of the few stars from the region achieving recognition worldwide, and he is no doubt single-handedly creating a bigger market for the genre. As Music Ally reported last year, Mandopop music is now generating 500m streams a month on Spotify alongside non-Anglo genres Reggaeton, K-Pop and Afrobeats.
FT // Jay Chou is a megastar in Asia and fills arenas in Europe
Music Week // Universal Music Greater China forms strategic partnership with Jay Chou
Spotify Newsroom // Share Your Biggest Mandopop Moments With ‘My Mandopop Memories’
// INDIE MUSIC IN CHINA
The big news out of Spotify recently was that about half of all their royalties are now being paid to independent artists. In China, this has been a deliberate push for several years running across many platforms. A MBW interview from December with NetEase Cloud Music highlighted their community and plans, “According to NCM, those 646,000 indie musicians have generated over 2.6 million music tracks that are currently available on the platform. NCM also tells us that those artists’ music accounts for around 44% of NCM’s total music streams.” Great news for the bands that are getting these plays. If you’re looking for some things to check out, the television show The Big Band produced by iQiYi features a ton of indie rock artists in a classic Chinese format, and the whole season three is now available on YouTube with English subs.
MBW // Netease Cloud Music Wants To Be ‘The Bridge’ Between Artists and Audiences
YouTube // The Big Band S3 | 乐队的夏天3
SPOTLIGHT // CHINESE MUSIC
This section highlights local Chinese artists, DJs, and labels.
// LAY & LAUV – “RUN BACK TO YOU”
Lay Zhang, aka LAY, is another Chinese pop star making waves and doing great collabs worldwide. Feb. 23 saw the release of “Run Back To You” with American pop star Lauv. It’s catchy as hell and performed only in English, already getting 5.5M plays at the time of writing. LAY is also an actor and was previously part of K-Pop group EXO.
Spotify // Run Back To You
