The reflections of Taiwanese Indie Music
By: Charlie Tsui
Tags: Rock, Music, Indie, Society, Taiwan

The word “Indie” is the abbreviation of “independent music”. Indie Rock was rooted in the 1970s to 1980s in the United Kingdom and the United States’ Punk Rock and Post-Punk. Mainly produced and sold by independent brands or bands in the form of “DIY”. Indie Rock challenged the mainstream music and pop music companies. It brought a new wave of rock music and still has a very strong influence on the world. The word Indie gradually became a genre during the 1990s, and in the 2000s indie had developed many different genres like math rock, lo-fi, and post-rock. Alongside the age of the internet, independent production becomes more and more universal. Azerrad, who is an American Journalist and writer, mainly focuses on American Indie music studies. He points out the meaning of Indie music is not only different from the larger companies like Sony, Warner. The point of indie music is not about how popular the music these musicians made is, or how influential, but the point is these musicians may do what they want to do, and what they want to produce. They do not have to compromise the music industry market to find out their audiences. They just being themselves as artists (Azerra, M, 2001). Indie music forms small groups of communities, which embodies the idea of pluralism, that is diversities and freedom. People have more options to choose what kind of life they want to live. Like many art forms, indie music is also a way of self-expression. They focus on the original style and individual feelings. The word “independent” contains the meaning of freedom and liberty. However, the Indie style changes the mainstream or even takes the place of the mainstream, Indie could become mainstream too, then should we keep naming them as Indie? In the 1920s, Jazz music was pop music at the time, the year is called the “Jazz age” but today Jazz becomes one kind of traditional music or classical music. Jazz is probably not mainstream in 2021 anymore, then I guess we perhaps could call Jazz a piece of Indie music in 2020 today.

Rebellion Indie Music

Music as a culture and art form, usually along with the political elements. Hip-Hop using lyrics and poetic words to criticize the injustice and struggle life of black communities. Like N.W.A (Niggas With Attitude), one of the classic Westcoast Hip-Hop groups active in the 1980s and 1990s. Their song Fuck Tha Police expresses their anger at the injustice of American Police officers’ stereotypes of black young men.

Fuck the police comin’ straight from the underground

A young nigga got it bad ’cause I’m brown

And not the other color so police think

They have the authority to kill a minority. (N.W.A. 1988)

It is the same in the field of Indie Rock music. Many rock bands against society, shout out their anger to the government. These rockers could be described as activist youth. The image of metal rock or indie rock is often be thought of as mavericks and rebellions. One classic band Rage Against the Machine, the name shows the rebellion of state apparatus. And the band uses a lot of visual images of The Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN), often referred to as the Zapatistas. The Zapatistas is a libertarian socialist and militant group that has been nominally at war with the Mexican state. The group mainly represents and supports the indigenous people in Mexico. They control a substantial amount of territory in Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico. The group also has some supporters in urban areas and internationally. The songs made by Rage Against the Machine, like People of the Sun or Evil Empire, are inspired by the Zapatistas.



The “black flag and a red star” image of Rage Against the Machine is inspired by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN).

In the book of Tieh-Chih Chang, who studies social movements and rock music culture, Sound and Fury: Can Rock&Roll Change the World? The book mentioned the history of indie musicians caring about anti-war activities, the civil rights movement, and environmental protection from the 1960s to the 1990s like Bob Dylan and The Beatles. Rock music is always an image of rebellion and looking for justice. (Tieh-Chih Chang, 2004)

Indie Music in Taiwan

In the article written by Tieh-Chih Chang Sing a Song For Ourself, Tieh-Chih Chang tried to divide Taiwanese pop music and youth culture into three stages in history. The first stage is in the 1970s, political movements and cultural reforming just started. It was the first time folk song movements became a cultural expression of youth. The second stage is after 1987 the lifting of martial law in Taiwan, the youth power was released, which leads the wave of new pop, indie music, and even singing in Taiwanese (a dialect that was suppressed by the government for years). The movements affected pop music culture in Taiwan much. The third stage was after 2000, passing the 20 years of social transformation, Taiwan society started pursuing stability of lifestyle and simple life. The rising of indie, especially the “little fresh” Taiwanese hippie style increasingly become mainstream. However, in recent years, the increase in social contradictions, social media, and the climbing gap between wealth and poverty. The emotion of youth turning the mood of stability into fury and anger.

In the 1970s, during a long time of the Chinese Nationalist Party’s thinking imprisoning, the Consciousness of liberal and individualist started growing in Taiwan society. People started being self-suspicious of the nationalist. And Taiwan started reforming and opening the policy, non-party people start to organize. Such as publishing magazines, holding activities, and filming movies. The atmosphere of Taiwan’s society was changing. Young people raised to search for self-recognition, and localization. Before that, the whole society was covered by Chinese nationalism from the government. The cultural arts developments were full of the government’s colonization ideas and thoughts. However, the people who can really feel the culture of China are those military soldiers. Because of 50 years of Japanese colonizing, most of the Taiwanese people can only remember the lifestyle of Japanese culture and the ancient values of immigrants during the Qing Dynasty time. Being muted for over 20 years by White Terror, Young Taiwanese finally can speak out and shout out the pressure, which is what Tieh-Chih Chang says “Sing a Song For Ourself”. Influenced by the Rock n’ Roll and country music culture from the United States, youngsters grab guitar making their own songs, and mass media like radio, television, and movies also join the movement by hold competitions and shows to encourage the people. But before 1987 the enforced martial law still existed. It was after 1987, the real freedom started appearing. (Tieh-Chih Chang, p139–147)

The frustration of Taiwan youth

Cynical characteristic appears in many different kinds of culture and country. It is an expression of unsatisfying to society. Cynical emotion can be often seen in groups of youth people. When they encounter helpless or hopeless things they cannot change, the feeling of powerless could make a person passive and cynical. Sometimes cynical is a normal emotion, but what if the whole society becoming cynical?

In a series of journals, The Cynical Generations: low-paid, poverty, and no future by The News Lens, the topic discusses how is Taiwan youth so cynical and helpless. There are 14 articles in this series. Mainly interviewing different young generation people talking about how they struggle for living in Taiwan. Because of the structure of the economy, although Taiwan’s GDP keeps growing, many college graduate students cannot get a fairly paid job. According to Chief Accounting Office in Taiwan, in 2015 the average life expense per month is 20,421 NTD, and in the Capital city Taipei the average is 27,216 NTD. However, 40 percent of the laborers, age between 20 and 34, whose wages are below 25,000 NTD per month. Most young people have college degrees but have low income, which could be attributed to industry structure, increasing in real estate, or inflation of diplomas. It is a very complex social issue; I am not going to discuss too much this issue now.

After Taiwan moving toward democracy, the value of people gradually become diverse, which means there are more voices we can hear. The concept of success could be many different shapes, not like the common value we see, like power and money. Young people tend to pursue their own happiness and success, which cannot be defined by others but their own. They do what they want to do and listen to their own hearts. However, due to the economic structure, young people are facing a “not starving but not fulfilled as well” contradictory life. No Party for Cao Dong(草東沒有派對) is a Taiwanese indie band, they won many awards in the Golden Melody Awards in 2017. Golden Melody Awards can be described as Grammy Awards in the Chinese language world. No Party for Cao Dong’s songs like Wayfarer, describing how we give up our dream because we cannot afford it. Or the mud, describing we are just like mud cannot do anything we want, and those wealthy have already done it. The Servile is No Party for Cao Dong’s first album, most of the songs in the album are rather dark, negative, and sarcastic. However, No Party for Cao Dong stands out from the rather popular music in the past 10 years singing about love, friends, and happiness. The band’s songs seem to wake the empathy of the younger generation, they sing out loud the hopelessness and frustration to make sarcasm to the society. There are many bands like Your Woman Sleep with Others(老王樂隊), they have songs like Teens Edge, that singing about drinking and smoking much since we are still young, which expresses the emotion of helplessness, and young people don’t care about the future; we just want to live in the moment. People often call No Party for Cao Dong as No Tickets for Cao Dong for a joke, that it is so hard to buy a ticket to No Party for Cao Dong’s concert. On March 15th, they suddenly announced that they are going to have a concert in May. When the ticket website opens, around 11,000 tickets are sold out in 1 min. The indies are becoming mainstream now.

I look at myself, at the young and innocent face.

He belongs to my past, from which I’ve vanished without a trace.

He waits for me, for my answer,

A reason why I am nowhere.

He knows he knows; I have no answer.

So he turns and walks towards the mountains.

He knows he knows; I have no answer.

So he turns and walks towards the oceans.

I hear his voice from the past when there was still a future.

He longs for something better.

But what he sees is not himself in the mirror.

He knows he knows, I have no answer.

So he turns and walks towards the mountains.

He knows he knows, I have no answer.

So he turns and walks towards the oceans. (No Party for Cao Dong- Wayfarer, 2015)

Reference

Azerrad, M. Our Band Could Be Your Life: Scenes from the American Indie Underground, NY: Back Bay Books, 1981–1991.

Ankeny, Jason. “Rage Against the Machine — Biography”. Allmusic, Sep 08 2008, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/rage-against-the-machine-mn0000863790/biography. Accessed Mar 21, 2021

張鐵志Chang, Tieh-Chih. 台灣的社會轉型、青年文化與流行音樂. 思想24期, 2013.

張鐵志Chang, Tieh-Chih.《聲音與憤怒》搖滾樂可能改變世界嗎？. 印刻, Feb 13, 2015.

簡,妙如. 台灣獨立音樂的生產政治. 思想24期, 2013.

吳, 承紘. “厭世代：低薪、貧窮與看不見的未來.” The News Lens 關鍵評論, May 04, 2017, https://www.thenewslens.com/feature/millenial-angst/67092. Access Mar 18, 2021.

草東沒有派對 No Party For Cao Dong. “草東沒有派對 No Party For Cao Dong — 山海 Wayfarer 【Official Music Video】.” YouTube, uploaded by No Party For Cao Dong, Dec 30, 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2311FZWoFQ