Hakka pop songs have gone through stormy times for more than 20 years, and nowadays the development speed is very rapid, and has shown a diversified appearance. The following is a categorization of Hakka pop songs in terms of their contents, styles and regions. Songs related to Hakka culture
Songs related to Hakka culture are created by creators who recognize the crisis facing Hakka language and culture, represented by Tu Minheng, Lin Ziyuan, Lin Zhanyi and Gu Chongli. These songs have been widely circulated in Taiwan's political arena and Hakka society. Representative songs include "Hakka True Colors", "Hakka March", "A Branch of Tankan", "Hakka Stage", "I am a Hakka", "I'll Sing a Hakka Song", "Hakka", "Ancestral Traditions", "Third-Class Citizen", "Hakka Words", "Hakka Children", etc. Among them, the song "Hakka True Colors" is the most popular song in Taiwan. Among them, the song "Hakka Honour" has been known as the national anthem of the Hakka, and has been widely circulated both in the political circle and the Hakka society. The lyrics mainly advise the Hakka people of the world that no matter how the society has changed, they should not forget the hardship of their ancestors in reclaiming the land, and they should follow the lessons of the forefathers and be a good human being. The song "A Stretching Pole" is also very popular. In the lyrics, the elasticity of the pole is cleverly used to symbolize the Hakka people's spirit of perseverance. From ancient times to the present day, from Tangshan to Taiwan, the spirit of the tandem pole has been passed down from generation to generation through the barrier of time and space, and has a long history.
Inspirational songs
such as "Heaven is not responsible for the bitter hearted people", "to be a man who loves to have ambition", "Benben Department of heroes", "fate of their own to arrange", "ideal dream", "people fight for a breath", "crossroads of life", "and then fight to sub-persons to see", "after the life of the Department of the principal", "the life of the road" and so on are all inspirational songs. The song is a representative song of Mr. Lin Zhan Yi, the whole song gives a positive feeling, as the saying goes, one point of hard work, one point of harvest, the sweat of the sower will be able to rejoice in the harvest; "to be a man who loves to have a will" is a representative song of Qiu Xiaoling, the lyrics of this song are very short, as if the inspirational phrase, and constantly motivate men to strive for upward determination.
Love songs
Love songs are represented by the works of the Hakka love song prince, Yau Siu-ki, and the representative singers are Liu Ping-fang and Wei Hai-shan, who are big names in the Hakka pop scene. Representative of the love songs are "end is your personal", "heartache", "the first love of the season", "I'm willing", "Yin Gang love", "a flower handkerchief", "18 years old mood", "leave you have no choice", "love between the debt", "Yin Gang love", "this love is like sand", "love", "love", "spring love", "hard to part", "jet age", "nine down the wind", "good good", and so on. The song is easy to learn and easy to sing, and is still very popular, with a high radio broadcast rate; "Heartache" is a song sung by Liu Pingfang, whose love songs are very charming, especially in the sense of sadness and bitterness, and because the Hakka voice itself pronounces the words close to the depths of the throat, it has a feeling of vomiting out of the heart when singing a love song.
Hometown-sickness songs
This kind of songs is composed by the songwriters with the feeling of longing for their hometowns, and the representative singer is Chen Wei. The representative songs of homesickness are "miss hometown", "hometown a small river", "homesickness", "hometown song", "looking at the moon and thinking of hometown", "unforgettable hometown", "the prodigal son's heart", "rolling jia ying love", "foreigners" and so on. The song "Thinking of my hometown" (sung by Chen Wei) mainly expresses the deep longing for my hometown, and sings the heart of the wanderer, especially the Hakka people who have left their hometowns to work in the metropolis, and the feeling of homesickness is more prominent.
Other Songs
The alternative songs mentioned here refer to songs that are an alternative to the mainstream Hakka pop songs: songs that are different from the traditional mountain songs, songs that are both inherited and innovative. Alternative songs are mainly Hakka nursery rhymes, ballads and rock songs, such as "Stray Puppy", "Ninja Turtle", "Chicken Cracker Fairy Meets Puffy Wind Gul", "Big Dumpy Gul Car", "I'll Teach You to Sing Mountain Songs", "Stray Puppy", "Fresh Fresh River Water" and so on, which all belong to alternative songs.
To Tu Minheng, Lu Jinshou, Lin Ziyuan, Chen Zhiming, Chen Yuan and other musicians as representatives. Since Eastern songs were very popular in Taiwan after the Japanese rule era, these Hakka musicians were influenced by Eastern songs and created songs with Eastern styles, which had a very large share in the early Hakka pop music scene. Representative singers include Liu Pingfang, Wei Haisan, Gu Huihui, Liu Xiwei, Xie Lei, Gao Xiangpeng and Peng Yuechun. Representative songs include: "Broken Dreams", "Thousands of Mountains", "Ode to the Goddess of Mercy", "Broken Love", "A Couple in Love", "A Quantity of Possessions", "A Collar of Sewing Shirts", "Moth Eyebrows and Moon", "Flower in the Wine", "A Woman's Heart", "Lotus Mist and Flower Blossoms", and so on.
The Rock School
The band is represented by the former Jiaogong Band, the Hospitallers and the Hard Neck Band. In the 1990s, the band joined with the "Meinong Ai Xiang Association" to fight against the system and the construction of a reservoir that might jeopardize the ecology. During the process, the band recorded the Hakka's hard-necked character and the difficult situation of having no place to retreat to and sang the voices of the laborers in a rock and roll style, which had a very big impact on the laborers. The original lead singer Lin Shengxiang flew solo to continue composing Hakka pop songs, and the other members formed the present-day Hakka Band, whose songs are still mainly in the rock style, but with less of the hardships of the original movement and the impatience of leaving their hometowns, giving people a brand new feeling. Their representative songs include "Chrysanthemum Night March", "Hakka Present + Hakka March", "Ah Cheng Goes Down to the South Seas", "We Beckon to Happiness", "Workers' Infant Song", "Wind God", "County Road 184", "Sorrow Up and Sorrow Down", "Tiny Sisters", "Fine Sisters Thou Shalt See", and so on.
The Stiff Neck Orchestra is the first orchestra in Taiwan to sing Hakka pop songs in the Hakka language, completely subverting the traditional Hakka music and allowing everyone to realize that singing Hakka pop songs is just as good as jumping up and down. Their representative songs include "Black and White Movie", "Eighteen Years Old Girl", "Rice Pocket", "Hard Neck Passes on for Ten Thousand Generations", "Being Content", "Remembering the Cold Days of That Year", and "Smoky Past", among others.
The Countryfolk school
is represented by Yan Zhiwen, Xie Yuwei and Chen Yongtao. Founded in March 1997 with Yan Zhiwen as its leader, the Mountain Dog Big Band's main purpose is to promote the creation of new Hakka music and the rearranging and singing of inherited Hakka ballads in the hope of infusing Hakka songs with a youthful, modern flavor, which has created ripples in the mainstream music scene over the past few years. Representative songs include: "Ya Teach You to Sing Mountain Songs", "The Winds of March", "Taipei in Early Autumn", "Paper Harrier", "Beautiful Sound", "New Hakka New Expectations", "Hakka Hakka in Pingpu", "Ah Shue's Grocery Store", "Let's Sing a Happy Song", "Selling Flowers to a Fine A-mei", and "The Big Man's Room", among many others.
Sheu Wei, who already has a place in the mainstream music scene, doesn't like to be confined to Hakka music, nor does he like to bind Hakka with his music. Sheu Wei creates every piece of work with a small story behind it, and his songs are mainly adapted from traditional Hakka ballads. Representative songs include: "Ask the Divination Song", "Eighteen Girls and a Flower", "From the Beginning", "One Peer", "Peach Blossom", "Mountain Song", "Nai Ho", "Moonlight", "Under the Flowering Tree", "Walking Straight Ahead", etc.
With the title of Hakka Folk Ballad Poet, Chen Yongtao (Brother Amoy) has a style of music that combines folk rock, blues, and other forms of music, which is mainly, deep with the characteristics of touring poetry, and has a great influence on Taiwan's The influence of his songs on Taiwan's popular music is very strong, and his songs have a very wide popularity among both Hakka and non-Hakka communities. His representative songs include: "Head Swinging You", "Yang Ge Sha", "The Blind God Comes", "Hair Dreams", "Heaven's Question", "The Waterway", "Fresh Water", "Lullabies", and "The Wind and the Waves Are Calm", and so on.
Electronic dance music jazz (jazz) faction
Represented by Liu Shaoxi. Famous Hakka pop musician Liu Shaoxi based on his many years of behind-the-scenes creative experience, using his native language - Tai Po Hakka with JAZZ, Latin, funk, electronic and other musical elements of the formation of the jazz style of pop songs, representative of the songs are "Enchanting Fine Sisters", "to pass the electricity," "I am CrazyJazz", "Sanfan City Coffee House", "The Café of the City", "The Café of the City", "The Café of the City", and so on. Coffee House in Sanfan City", "Hell Floating and Sinking Record", "Guests from Eight Sides", "Green Bird Lyrics", "The Earth Dodo", "That Year's Autumn" and so on.
Western, City Song School
Represented by Dongdong Dong, Li Yifan, Xu Xiaoning, Gu Chongli, Qiu Xingyi and others. In the past few years, due to the addition of many new generation singers, Hakka pop songs have developed towards the western and urban song school and have a large lineup. Representative songs include "Love to Say", "True Love", "What is Love", "Drums in a Faraway Place", "You Dare to Remember", "Hakka DJ", "Direction", "Nine Drops of Wind", "Lost Roots of Flowers", "Hope Today", "The Most Favorite Thing is You", "Snow in May", "Mother", "Heart and Hands Together", "Dear Baby", "Moonlight", "Swallow", "You Don't Know the End of the World", and so on. Taiwan
Taiwan is the most active region in the development of Hakka pop songs, and more than 95% of the Hakka pop songs released in the world are from Taiwan. This is inseparable from the awakening of the consciousness of the Hakka community in Taiwan, the Hakka people began to actively strive for political, economic and cultural status, especially some Hakka political organizations such as the Hakka Council of the Executive Yuan was established, the creation of Hakka pop songs play a very big role in promoting.
The works of two musicians, Mr. Tu Minheng and Mr. Lin Ziyuan, still account for a large portion of Hakka pop songs in Taiwan today. Among them, Mr. Tu Minheng has composed more than 2,000 Hakka pop songs. As for singers, Hakka pop singers who have published more than ten solo albums include Liu Pingfang, Peng Yan, Lin Zhanyi, Chen Shufang, Gu Huihui, and Wen Ruiyang.
Indonesia
Indonesia is home to about three to four million Hakka people, and due to the Indonesian government's long-standing anti-Chinese policy, Chinese Indonesians, including Hakka people, do not have a high level of Chinese language proficiency. Hakka pop songs in Indonesia are mainly covers, such as taking more popular Chinese songs and rewriting the lyrics in Hakka to express emotions as the main theme, with a relatively large amount of compositions, but fewer compositions are original.
Malaysia
Malaysia has a lot of Hakka people, but not a lot of Hakka pop songs. According to what we know, most of the Hakka pop songs in Malaysia are the works of Qiu Qingyun, Hsieh Lingling, Zhang Shaolin and Tang Ni. Among them, Qiu Qingyun, known as the king of Hakka songs, has the greatest achievement, and his songs have a certain influence in the global Chinese record market. Up to now, Qiu Qingyun has released more than 10 albums of Hakka pop songs.
Continental
Although more than 90 percent of Hakka people are in the mainland, Hakka pop songs in the mainland have not developed and are still in a nascent state. Professor Yan Xiu-hong of the Hakka Style Network made an analysis of this, suggesting there are three reasons: first, the Mandarin culture has overwhelmed the local dialects, and there is a great unity and lack of a free and pluralistic ideological base; second, there is a lack of Hakka folk culture talent; and third, there is a lack of stimulation of traditional culture and a lack of innovative consciousness in form and content.
Fortunately, a few years there have been some developments: Hakka dialect pop song album "Moonlight" is sung by Xu Qiuju, the queen of the Hakka mountain songs in Meizhou, this album *** included 10 songs, but due to poor publicity, sales are not ideal, did not cause much impact. There is another one, the principal of Heping County, who was once popular on the Internet. He has covered some famous songs in Hakka and some of his own compositions, and he is working with Meizhou Extraordinary Film and Television to publish an album of Hakka pop songs sung by him, and it is expected that he will create more Hakka pop songs to drive the trend of Hakka pop song creation on the mainland.
Folk also include Qiu Lin from Shaoguan, Liu Qianlong and Zeng Hui Bin from Meizhou, Pan Haibing and Lai Zepei from Huizhou, Xitongmu from Maoming, and Lu Xiaojuan from Longyan, all of whom have written or sung many Hakka pop songs.