開天闢地 – 中國新音樂系列之一 = Chinese New Waves Volume 1 ・ The Window Is Opened, CD (published by Sound Sound Music Publishing Co., Ltd., 1988)

In 1988, a decade into the Reform and Opening Up period, as the local Rock music is asserting itself as an alternative popular music to the ubiquitous gangtai yinyue (‘music from Hong Kong and Taiwan’) or oumei yinyue (‘music from Europe and the US’), and a year before the radical deflection of this emergence by the events of 1989, we find this compilation being published in Hong Kong representing the state of the Mainland’s musical output. Perhaps in a move to broaden its appeal to the Hong Kong market, the material on the CD is at the lighter end things, with vocal-driven soft rock, heavy on the synths, typical of the mainstream music in that period.

However the first track on this CD is《最後一槍》, composed and sung by 崔健 Cui Jian, who in a few years would be the most famous rock musician in China, but at this moment is preparing for the release of his first album which would appear the following year. This track is certainly at the milder end of his material, but—unlike the other, rather mellifluous singers on this CD, maintains Cui’s rough vocal delivery (to be fair, 王廸 Wang Di also sings in a similar fashion on this release).

It’s also interesting to note that the CD’s second track is also a Cui composition:《一無所有》. Reportedly first performed in 1986 in Beijing, this track would later become infamous for the way it spoke to the wider social situation in China. However, that moment is still a year away, and this version is sung by the popular singer 吳小芸 Wu Xiaoyun, the track becoming a sentimental ballad whose future significance would have been impossible to predict.

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