An Open Letter To Pop Music From China

posted in: Music News • Pop

From the desk of the Cultural Authorities at the Ministry of Culture

To the Citizens of the People’s Republic of China:

Addressing the immense quantities of vulgar media assaulting our Internets, we, your Cultural Authority, have taken to protect you, the People, with a nationwide ban of an additional 100 songs to our already existing list. The outrageous influx of western popular “artists” into our Internets is absolutely unacceptable. Western “Pop Music” no longer represents beauty: it has come to stand for excess, for irreverence; it strives to shock, disturb and break taboos. Is this the moral compass that the youths of nations are supposed to be following? This art form has become soulless, sterile, and focuses on the egoism of the individual.

In our original treatise, we exposed our reasoning on the decision. Unfortunately, it seems that our release wasn’t presented in a simple enough format for the mass divulgence of our message. Therefore, we present here an abridged list to the reasons by which we believe this music is undermining our national culture:

– By limiting both illegal and legal material (as we have said before, the content [doesn’t] necessarily contain illegal content), there will no longer be a  general lack of supervision and regulation over market behavior. We can’t have people not doing what we tell them to!

– Considering the wealth of music in our country, we don’t see the need to listen to the same forty songs, eight times a day.

– The formulaic nature of the imported songs isn’t enough to keep our attention for long enough. Sorry, please try again.

– We see no reason to feature T-Pain in every song.

– You will no longer catch our attention only by being brash and outrageous: been there, done that.

Western pop music has become utilitarian: it only has a value if it has a use. The audience craves nothing but a quick dose of perceived happiness and satisfaction, only due to the comfortable safety given by familiarity and association. How many of these songs would you describe as “beautiful”?

Until pop music gets its act together and stops sucking, we’ll be enforcing the country-wide ban.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Sadly, this is only a fictionalized account of why the Chinese government decided to ban 100 songs. If only these were the actual reasons. . .