YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT THIS CHINESE BAND!

     As indeed a Chinese, I barely listen to Chinese music. Instead, my favorite bands are My Chemical Romance, Radiohead, etc. The problem that I have with our music is a lot of the time we don't have a great and unique sound, or I just don't care for that much. However, I do LOVE this rock band called "万能青年旅店" (Omnipotent Youth Society).

    

万能青年旅店(Omnipotent Youth Society)

    Founded in 2002, they've only released 2 albums in 20 years. The band members actually met in 1996, Shijiazhuang, which is the capital of Hebei Province. Two albums are 万能青年旅店(Omnipotent Youth Society (Self-titled)) and 冀西南林路行(Inside the Cable Temple). 

    As an outsider, you may find these lyrics quite hard to narrow down. Even if you are a "Mandarin expert", they are still inexplicable because quite a lot of them wrote in a Classical Chinese way and most of them were related to the history of Shijiazhuang. With that being said, the band is heavily influenced by alt-rock and prog-rock bands such as Pink Floyd and King Crimson, so you can still understand the emotions through instrumentation. They combined the alternative rock sound with some traditional Chinese horns and trumpets which made their sound so special, in my opinion.

Self-titled

    

    The most praised part of their music is the lyrics. I've never heard a single Chinese band talk about politics metaphorically like them. I'm not even going to try to explain some for you, but the interesting fact is: one of their songs from the self-titled record called 在这颗行星所有的酒馆(Throughout the Drinkeries of This Plane) was banned in China due to the hidden massage referred to the June Fourth Incident. 

    Overall, Omnipotent Youth Society is a great indie rock band. You should definitely check them out if you are interested in Chinese music.

    Peace!

    Spotify Links:

    万能青年旅店

   冀西南林路行