Last summer vacation, The Voice of China, a music TV show very popular in China, came back. Among all the singers, Double Angel raised nationwide dispute about their music. They are a group of two girls, namely Big Angel and Little Angel. Big Angel was previously a singer of a band in Wuhan and Little Angel is a frequent singing competitions participant. They two play different roles. Big Angel is responsible for the black metal part of the song and Little Angel is responsible for the soft and soul part of the song.
Quan Yu Tian Xia (meaning Power over the World) is their most popular piece of music. This song itself is not an ordinary song. First, it is of mixed music style. Second, it is originally created for Luo Tian Yi, a computerized virtual female singer in China. This novel song of mixed music s
...tyle easily attracts the attention from the public. However, this trial of combining two quite different styles together into one song is risky. If the creative combination does not meet the expectation, it will arouse widespread complaint and discontent.
And it did arouse nationwide dispute, mostly are criticism, especially on the black metal part of Big Angel. According to poll done by a TV program, nearly 90% of participants disliked her part. Compared to black metal, the soft and soul part of Little Angel is more approachable and familiar to the public. Therefore, the Little Angel didn’t receive too much doubt. However, case is quite the opposite to Big Angel.
First, the public thought she was not singing at all, but just roaring, meaningless roaring. They rated her part as “awfully unpleasan
to listen to”, “the harshest voice in human history”, “so nightmare noisy”, etc. Worse still, they were not content with just attack on her music. They went further to attack Big Angel. They doomed her to death and doomed her boyfriend and even her parents. It seemed the public waged a nationwide cyberbullying on her. Finally, she was forced to leave the group and end her contest halfway.
Second, compared with the version by Luo Tian Yi, this version is too far away from the original version. It feels like that you are suddenly transported to a very fast-paced and noisy metropolitan without any warning when you have accustomed to the quiet and leisure way of life in a house near the sea. For anything quite different from what we have been accustomed to, our first instinct is aversion.
However, there are also some, including some professional music critics, who highly value this innovative and bold creation. I’d like to speak for Double Angel.
As for the widely criticism on roaring, that’s mainly because the Chinese know little about Black Metal music. It was first introduced by some trash metal and death metal bands during the 1980s. It was already a very mature field in the western music world although it is relatively very new to China. As a special type belonging to the heavy metal music, black metal features fast tempos and shrieking. However, in Chinese traditional culture, shrieking and expressing emotion so directly are not acceptable and even forbidden in some cases. Traditional Chinese culture encourages a calm, quiet and obedient way. We never show our love or hate for something so directly, as the way
in black metal music. Shrieking or roaring out emotion is regarded as a rebellion against the tradition. It was also the same reason why rock music was regarded as rebellion when it was first introduced to China. Therefore, what the public is doing is not criticizing the black metal music itself, but defending their own belief. They vent out their own discontent with this new form of music on a girl.
In terms of the big contrast between the original and modified version, if we appreciate it with our heart, but not only with our ear, we can find something new. The soft part by Little Angel gave us a moment to immerse ourselves in the warm voice of the angel. It was a kind of enjoyment. The black metal part of Big Angel let us shout out own inner voice about our desire for power, power and power! If you desire, then let’s shout out loud! Why hides our feelings? Why hides our desires? Just shriek out. It was like you were exposing yourself to the bright sunshine. Any dark part of you was lighten. In this sense, black metal music is not “black” or “dark” at all. From another aspect, without such bold try, where all those new music forms come from? Would our world be too boring and monotonous? This word is beautiful, attractive and interesting because of diversity. We should clap for their courage to make such innovative creations, instead of killing their hope from the very beginning. Time will tell all. Leave all judgement to time, the master of human being.
Regardless of such wide oppose against The Double Angel, their works
still mark a great leap forward in terms of musical diversity.
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