2024-07-30
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Author | Li Qinyu Editor | Fan Zhihui
Recently, the Chinese music scene was revitalized by a "mother-born nose".
After internet celebrity Qin Xinyu’s nose surgery failed and communication and rights protection efforts were fruitless, he had no choice but to choose a different way of rights protection - he created this 38-second song "Give My Mom a Nose Again", which not only topped the Tik Tok entertainment charts, but also fed back to streaming platforms, with good playback data on QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music.
Under the huge attention, the song rights protection was successful. On July 28, Qin Xinyu released a video, saying that after several months of continuous rights protection, he was about to get a fair result. He also said that this matter was beyond his control and called on everyone to stop playing memes.
However, the song is not about the person, why can "Give My Mom a Nose" set off a wave of enthusiasm across the Internet? After making people laugh, what else can it bring to the market?
The story began a week ago. On July 19, Qin Xinyu's Douyin account posted a video in which he stood in front of a store called "Ou Ya Medical Beauty" and exaggeratedly recounted his failed plastic surgery experience. On July 24, Qin Xinyu's Douyin account "Xinyu (Gargamel Version)" posted the song "Give My Mom a Nose" to defend his rights.
The song has a simple catchy melody, with the first half of the 38 seconds being the accompaniment, and the lyrics are extremely colloquial, with only 6 sentences. The cover is a photo of Qin Xinyu himself with red eyes after a failed plastic surgery. However, the song has a very good spread effect, with more than 6,000 people listening to it on QQ Music at the same time, and it has exceeded 1 million views in just 5 days, and has tens of thousands of collections on NetEase Cloud Music.
As the incident gradually fermented, this work also spawned many derivative versions on music platforms, such as "Give Me Back My Mom's Nose" (what happened version), "Give Me Back My Mom's Nose" (rap version), "Don't Give Me Back My Mom's Nose" (hospital response version), etc. There is also a "response song" "Don't Give Me Back My Mom's Nose (So What)" which took advantage of the traffic and ranked second on the soaring list.
Most of these songs follow the conventional production pattern of "popular songs", lacking melodic highlights and emotional dynamics. The only purpose of them is to "eat the nosebleed buns" to attract traffic. Listening to them too much will always give people a sense of the impetuous atmosphere of the 21st century Internet environment.
As the popularity of the work soared, Qin Xinyu also created his own hand gesture dance, which triggered many dance clubs and individuals to make magical changes to "Give My Mom a Nose". What's even more outrageous is that some fans of idols have also joined this rights protection action, speaking out for those idols who were harmed by the company's failed plastic surgery. Some netizens bluntly said: "It is recommended that HYBE artists sing on demand."
OuYa Medical Beauty has not only become a backdrop for fans to defend the rights of their idols, but also a check-in destination for netizens to "have fun".
As of July 29, the fourth day after the song was released, it had a 93% completion rate on the music platform and received more than 13,000 comments on QQ Music. By comparison, last year's FIFTY FIFTY hit single "cupid" received only over 14,000 comments on QQ Music.
With 1 million views in 5 days, the royalties would be enough for Qin Xinyu to have his nose fixed again.
"The world kisses me with pain, but I repay it with song." The plot of "Give My Mother a Nose" is funny, the song is unpleasant, and the core is empty.For musicians who write songs seriously and earn a few dollars in royalties a year, the critical damage is even greater.
It is not difficult to see that both creators and internet celebrities, while over-pursuing traffic and commercialization, are neglecting the depth and artistry of music creation. This industrialized functional music is also invisibly eroding the aesthetic taste of the audience.
In June this year, Mark Mulligan, founder of Midia Research, proposed the concept of "TikTok-core", which refers to the music content that has rapidly risen on the short video platform.
This type of music follows the creative logic of traffic first and is limited by the length of time the short video platform displays content.They tend to prefer elements that can quickly attract attention in a short period of time, such as fast-paced music and popular chord compositions.
Mark Mulligan points out that as the digital world continues to evolve, the nature of music is also changing.
In the 2010s, artists worked hard to create music that would be attractive on Spotify, including elaborate album introductions and beautiful cover designs. However, the music of the 2020s is more emotion-driven and reflects a response to the surrounding environment.
Streaming platforms have become the gathering place for mainstream music, while social networks have become the spiritual home of the fan and creator economy.
Among them, the main impact of short videos on the music industry is its "viral" spread effect. For example, Mae Stephens' hit song "If We Ever Broke Up" became popular on the short video platform and received 312 million plays on Spotify, and was named one of TikTok's "breakthrough artists" in 2023.
This success has also prompted some artists and Internet celebrities to follow a work structure paradigm that is more suitable for popularity on short video platforms, creating songs with melodies and lyrics that are easy to remember. But it is worth noting that Mae Stephens' new album did not reach 500,000 listens.
At the same time, short videos are also shaping the current music culture and industry model.Every player in the music industry value chain has played a role in this process, whether it is shortening song length, adding social attributes, changing the royalty system, or following viral trends, these small changes together have a macro impact.
It is undeniable that in the era of short videos, by using "fast food memes" and "earworm effects" and applying the current sloppy music creation routines, anyone can quickly be labeled a "musician".
With the popularization of music production tools, anyone can easily participate in music creation. They can use ready-made beats, record with their mobile phones, and even quickly adjust the rhythm and edit the speed-changing version of the song on the platform, and upload the work to social media together with other content.
However, it is becoming increasingly difficult to create hit songs, and this method of playing has shown signs of fatigue.
In order to truly create popularity, it takes more than just the nose, the music also needs a "sense of life" to maintain its life cycle.
The hit song produced by the dual traffic of gossip and popular formulas is nothing more than a musical sketch with a dog-like and acrobatic style.When a musical work abandons its creative logic and inherent artistry, it can only be classified as a piece of audio, lacking the vitality and core of the musical work itself.
For example, this type of functional songs, like the celebrity-driven remakes that were popular a while ago, are all the same and lack original beauty, which also poisons the audience's aesthetic taste. Their life cycle is comparable to that of a short-lived work, and they can only be barely maintained by the popularity of patchwork.
So, are songs written for fun destined to be low quality? Actually, not really.
In 2016, the song "Zhang Shichao, Where Did You Put My House Keys?", composed by Jin Chengzhi and performed by Shanghai Rainbow Chamber Choir, became popular on the Internet. The song was inspired by a real event in 2012, telling the story of a protagonist who was locked out of his friend Zhang Shichao's house because he forgot to bring his keys, and then searched for his keys over the phone.
This work cleverly combines a variety of musical elements, including unconventional instruments such as the kazoo, making it a good work that contains serious musical characteristics under the guise of a divine comedy. From it, we can see the development of music in different periods and the evolution of creative techniques.
The creator Jin Chengzhi once mentioned in an interview that classic and funny are not contradictory. He believes thatPeople are rich, and so are their personalities. Artistic creation is inseparable from interest, and ancient literati actually all had a strange playful heart.It can’t be said to be a strategy, but more of a natural expression. Elegance and vulgarity are inseparable, both are expressions of the contemporary era.
"We are indeed lowering the threshold for appreciation to a certain extent, such as using lyrics that are closer to modern life to resonate with the audience and allow more people to get in touch with "chorus" and "classical music."
There are also many works with similar comedic narrative forms. For example, in 2021, the song "Sunny and Cheerful Big Boy" written, composed, arranged and sung by Guzhe Lingfeng was based on the theme of complaining about the characters who accompanied the whole process in the script-killing game. The lyrics at the end of the song, "I paid and went out, but I was still trapped in the game", made countless listeners who had the experience of "playing the game" instantly empathize, and it was even so real that it made people laugh.
This song naturally entered the gaming world. In the game "Three Kingdoms Killing", players can't help but give serious generals funny and happy expressions. In addition, the in-game character settings and skills are in perfect harmony with the song description, so "Sunny and Cheerful Big Boy" became Xu Sheng's nickname in the game "Three Kingdoms Killing", and many secondary creation videos went viral.
In the author's autobiography of "Sunny and Cheerful Big Boy", the fortune teller Lingfeng admitted that the song was only based on his real feelings when he personally experienced script killing. He did not think that the song would become popular, and hoped that the audience would pay more attention to his other works.
Compared with the academic "meme" works, Douyin musician Wang Bo's "wild" works, such as "Bed-Wetting Diary", "Best Friends and Enemy Friends", are more similar to "Give My Mom a Nose" in terms of creation method. They are all simple brainwash melodies and seem to be "meme-playing".
As for the difference between the two, Wang Bo once gave the answer in an interview: "I just want to bring happiness to everyone by releasing my works. Some people may think that this kind of song has no nutrition, or even say it is a cliché, but it is indeed based on some of the most personal and practical insignificant little things in our lives. I always believe thatThe most ordinary and simple themes contain people’s most primitive and common emotions.”
It is not difficult to see that whether it is works with satire, liveliness and comedy such as "Zhang Shichao, Where Did You Put My House Key" and "Sunny and Cheerful Big Boy", or "Bed-Wetting Notes" which is based on daily life and grassroots culture, there are significant differences in song quality, creative concepts and emotional core from the 38-second "Give My Mom a Nose".
Even the less abstract ancestor of the song, “My Skateboard Shoes,” conveys a simple, pure sense of joy and satisfaction that even the most cynical listeners initially find resonance in years later.
However, "Give My Mother a Nose" is another kind of abstract "in-circle" culture, representing the mental state of some people at the moment, and more stimulating the audience's mentality of watching the show. It is a frivolous musical piece that cannot be understood without the background story.
Music creation is inclusive, but that doesn’t mean it has no bottom line.
In recent years, concepts such as online sense, fans, and operations have almost become compulsory courses for music creators. In this regard, short video influencers are undoubtedly the best after years of platform influence. The diversity of music makes it have the characteristics of unlimited upper limit and downward compatibility. People can use music to express almost any emotion and story.
But whether it is a folk song or a new genre, it should be spread in the form of music based on careful design. This also means that even for relatively niche appeals such as satire or so-called humor, it can be artistically expressed in the form of music through design creation.
Unfortunately, apart from the rights protection nature of "Give My Mother a Nose", there is nothing else to learn from it except that it provides another commercial success case for mid-level musicians.
*The pictures in this article are from the Internet. Please contact us to delete or modify if there is any infringement.
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