2010 CCTV-MTV music awards: what the other 90% listen to in China

sure, if you’re a regular reader, you know what this blog is all about and that i spend a fair amount of time listening to what a lot of friends call “obscure and underground music”. my coworkers and a lot of my chinese friends have no idea who Xie Tian Xiao, Miserable Faith, Nanwu, Guai Li or even Hanggai are…. and i have no idea who the people they listen to are either. thing is, there’s a lot more of them than there are folks like me and a lot of bands would love to be in a position where the other 90% know about them.

I was curious when i heard about the 10th MTV-CCTV 2010 music awards, held in Beijing’s Wukesong Arena on October 18th, to see who and what would be nominated/win the corporate side of the music business… after all, none of those folks would ever get the honor of taking home a MIDI award… maybe.

For a detailed list of winner from all over asia, you can check here.. I’m just really looking at the ones mainland-specific:

Best female singer: Han Hong 韩红
Best male singer: Sun Nan 孙楠
Most popular female singer: Na Ying 那英
Most popular male signer: Han Geng 韩庚
Best band: Phoenix Legend 凤凰传奇

I’m surprised at the results as I expected a younger pool of winner but that’s not the case: Han Hong has been around the block a few times, so have Sun Nan and Na Ying. All come from somewhat ethnic backgrounds, born around the 60s and have some decent stuff released.
Hang Geng, winner of “most Popular” male singer is more along what i expected to see with his Boy Band background… kinda like the Chinese Justin Timberlake of sorts.

Phoenix Legend is a puzzling but really cool choice for Best Band: Inner Mongolia meets Electronica/rap… Think of them as Hanggai missing the guitars and adding a keyboard + loops. They got a few records out by now and some of it seems quite potable.

Interesting to see the results… I’m gonna have to find out more about all these guys or at least about Han Hong’s new material if she has any. Her song, 家乡 ( find it on tudou) is one of my absolute favorite Chinese songs and I’m happy to see her win some extra recognition. Can’t really see she fits the cookie cutter prototype of a Chinese star