"Is there any half-decent Cantonese pop music, or is it all treacle?  04:41 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Is there really ""westerners"" listening to Cantopop?  I doubt the sentence ""To western ears,..."" is NPOV.

The article fails to mention the composer 顧家輝, singer 仙度拉, and their song 啼笑姻緣 which overturned the preception that Cantopop as a second grade Music (i.e. for old uneducated person only).  And it was Sammy Hui who finally pushed Cantopop to overtake Mandarin pop as the music of choice for HK youths.  
Yes no mention at all of the Gu Gaa-fai,Wong Jim collaboration. No mention at all of the popularity of TVB TV theme songs, while everbody else was sticking their own lyrics onto somebody elses music these two, seemed to be the only people producing original material. 

 I'll try to NPOV the article more, but I claim no responsbility on contentyou can't get much further from my musical domain than Cantopop.  05:06 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 No problem.  I bet you have the chance to listen to the most popular Cantopop songs but not the best.  I will get the same preception if I listen only to Madonna or Britney Spears.

I didn't mean that I wouldn't like it.  I meant that I've never heard any, and I certainly don't know the history behind it, so my editing is limited to grammar and attempts at NPOV. )  05:23 25 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 Tones 

I heard that Cantonese music differs from Mandarin in that Mandarin respects the language tones in the melody, but Cantonese doesn't. Is it true?
 

 Good Cantopops do respect the language tones in the melody, as all Chinese dialects are tone-sensitive. What you heard is a recent disaster in HK music, beautiful face is more important than singing skills and so songs become less important.  But there are still many real musicians care about the tones and the melody. 

Cantonese is more tonal than Mandarin.  Mandarin only has 4 tones for each pronunciation, but Cantonese has at least 6 tones according to most dictionaries.  Some author even claims there are 9 tones in Cantonese.  Even though written Chinese can be pronunced in Cantonese or Mandarin, but the sound differs so much that you cannot sing a Cantonese song in Mardarin nor vice versa.  Many popular tunes get both Cantonese and Mandarin lyrics which are totally rewritten and sometimes with unrelated subjects.   20:31, 25 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Yes but Mandarin has a more pleasant rhythm when spoken with natural darkness and light and this translates into songs pleasnter on the ear.I've heard people talk about Cantonese as sounding like a machine gun on the ear. 

And, how do Cantopop artists deal with music piracy? 
 

 Cantopop artists deal with piracy using the same technique as European or American artists, i.e. virtually nothing they can do!!! 

 But I was under the impression that in HK and Canton, media piracy was much much higher than in Europe or America. But there still are Cantopop artists. Are the economic models different? Do they resort to corporate patronage? ...  

 Curious: How did you hear that ""height"" in Cantonese areas?  00:40 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 I meant South China in general, but it should affect Cantopop. My source is Slashdot . Ehem. I think I read something in Wired of Bruce Sterling finding dirt-cheap pirated media there, but I don't find it. I though tit was common knowledge.  

You have some of the most popular cantopop stars e.g. Joey Yung and Twins going on TV and saying how poor they are and asking their fans not to steal their livlihoods.And yes they do resort to corporate patronage of a sort.In the Joey Yung interview I was referring to, she claimed that she was making no money on her albums, but that she still had to produce albums to keep herself in the public eye and maintain her fanbase. With a large enough fanbase she can make money on personal appearances and concerts.For example Jade Kwan has recently been booked by a chain of bars, in the mainland, for a dozen or so 20 minute mini-concerts.Furthermore if you are popular enough you can make money through endorsments.There isn't a single reasonably attractive female cantopop singer who isn't e