Demos and Cassettes for China’s New Music

The history of popular music in China from the 1970s to the mid-2000s is dominated by dakoudai¹ – the excess cassettes (and later CDs) shipped to China for recycling. These were diverted upon arrival into the eager hands of a population finding their own voices after the strictures of the Cultural Revolution. But the new sounds Chinese artists were making needed to find their listeners. Demo cassettes provided one route for artists to reach critics, record companies and, ultimately, a new public.

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