Popular Music and Youth in China: The Dakou Generation

                  Popular Music and Youth in China: The Dakou Generation Name Institutional Affiliation Popular Music and Youth in China: The Dakou Generation The illegal importation of Compact Discs (CDs) from the West in the mid-1990s led to the regeneration of the Chinese rock nation. These unlawful CDs were referred as the “dakou CDs” (De Kloet, 2005). The contemporary bands were motivated by multicultural goals, and the anti-establishment groups show the reoccurrence of politically inclined music, and the contemporary composers express a sentimental desire (De Kloet, 2005). Primarily, the article analyzes the rise of the dakou culture based on the interconnected processes of globalization of the Chinese way of life. The admiration of Chinese rock music in the early 1990s is seen as a furtherance of the rebellious spirit experienced in China in the early years (De Kloet, 2005). A close study of the number of listeners, the number of releases and concerts in the 1990s shows contemporary and rock music as the most widely listened to genres of music amongst the youth in Beijing. However, based on the intensity of passion with the music, it is clear that the audience considers rock music more important. The rock music audience is more involved in the music in comparison with the pop music audience. This difference in involvement is demonstrated by the fact that rock music listeners spend an average fifty-three minutes listening to it as compared to the thirty-four minutes spent by pop music listeners (De Kloet, 2005). To accentuate further the popularity of rock music within the Chinese youths, it is seen that the number of Chi...