I always enjoy listening to good music, and ever since I became interested in China I’ve been searching for some music that could really get me going. However, and as I’m sure you are aware, while there is a great abundance of pop music in China (I love you, you love me, why don’t you love me, that kind of thing), I always found it really hard to find anything with my kind of style, anything with a bit more character, or anything without that suggary sachrine style which seems to define a lot of Chinese music.

When it comes to English music I listen to quite a variety, from Elliot Smith to Jack Johnson, RJD2, Gorillaz, The Rolling Stones and more (I’m also a big bluegrass fan). If you are interested you can check out my profile on last.fm to see what kind of stuff I listen to. Finding the Chinese equivilent of these kind of music isn’t always that easy, and in fact I guess I had to learn to appreciate Chinese music in different ways before I could find some more enjoyable music.

I’ve now stumbled across a few good songs which have managed to make it into my regular listening cycle. I’ve come across these songs in a number of different ways – going to karaoke with friends is certainly a big one (and hence I can actually sing some of these songs in Chinese), my friends ringtones/dialtones (it plays songs when you call their phones), the occasional recomendation (although this hasn’t been very successful to the different tastes I have from most of my friends), and through assorted things that I listen to across the Chinese internet.

And so, here is a selection of a few songs that I’ve really got into (sorry about some of the videos – quality isn’t too great) with videos and MP3′s (via Baidu – not me!) – hope you like them!:
Continue Reading