The world of Chinese style creates a prosperous era for girl groups

Times are progressing.

All aspects of society are not static, but constantly changing, especially in the past thirty years when the economy has been developing rapidly and technology has been changing with each passing day.

The "thickness" of human civilization in the last hundred years exceeds that of the previous thousands of years.

The development and changes in the past thirty years have far exceeded the total of the previous seventy years.

The same is true for the arrangement of K-pop.

Technically speaking, twenty years ago it was “synthesizer simulation” and now it is “digital soundscape construction”.

Twenty years ago, due to the limitations of digital audio technology, music arrangements mostly relied on pre-made sounds from hardware synthesizers (such as Roland and Korg). The rhythm group was mainly composed of electronic drum machines (TR-808/909), and the melody lines emphasized "plastic" electronic sound effects (such as the synthesizer sounds in BoA's "No.1"). The overall listening experience tended to be more mechanical, like "arcade electronic music."

Today, it is dominated by DAW (digital audio workstation): through the infinite track superposition and automation control of software such as Ableton Live and Logic Pro, multi-layered dynamic soundscapes are constructed (such as the three-dimensional spatial processing of mechanical breathing and Glitch sound effects in aespa's "Savage").

Today's sound simulation and deconstruction use samplers such as Native Instruments Kontakt to "digitally alienate" traditional instruments (such as stretching cello samples into low-frequency pulses in New Jeans' "Ditto"), while using AI tools to generate microscopic sound details that are not discernible to the human ear.

In terms of rhythmic structure, it has evolved from "linear rhythm" to "quantum segmentation".

The arrangements of songs from 4 years ago emphasized the regular 4/10 time frame. The chorus often used "strong eight-beat advancement" (such as the mechanical rhythm of Lee Hyori's " Minutes"), and the bridges often used programmed breakdowns (such as piano or string transitions).

At present, complex rhythm hybridization is adopted: the Triplet Flow of Trap (such as BLACKPINK's "Shut Down"), the Offbeat of Afrobeats (such as NCT 127's "Ay-Yo"), and the Bounce rhythm of Dembow (such as Jessi's "Zoom") are mathematically reorganized.

“This is a micro rhythm revolution”, inserting Stutter editing on the millisecond timeline (such as the 0.1 second misalignment between the vocal slice and the Hi-Hat in Stray Kids’ “MANIAC”) to create synaptic auditory stimulation.

His harmonic logic also changed from "safe conduct" to "dangerous aesthetics".

?Twenty Years Ago? The classic pop harmony system was followed (such as the IV-vi-IV cycle), and the modulation techniques were conservative (such as TVXQ's "Hug" which only used string glissando to transition tonality).

Now it’s a mashup of modes, combining the Phrygian mode (creating a Middle Eastern exotic feel) with the Blues scale (such as the Funky Bassline in BTS’s “Dynamite”), and even introducing microtonal intervals (such as the Arabic ornaments in LE SSERAFIM’s “Unforgiven”).

? Showing today's aesthetics of harmonic violence?, deliberately creating dissonant clusters (such as the collision of synthesizers and wind instruments in the chorus of ATEEZ's "Guerrilla"), and using Sidechain compression to create a "suffocating feeling" (such as the Drop section of TWICE's "SET ME FREE").

There is also a big difference between singing live or singing in a recording studio.

The main thing is that the spatial processing of sound is also completely different, from "planar sound field" to "metacosmic acoustics"?.

The mixing levels “twenty years ago” were simple, with vocals and accompaniment often on the same auditory plane (such as the balanced reverberation of vocals and piano in Fin.KL’s “Forever Love”).

?

Now, three-dimensional sound and image are integrated, and Ambisonics technology is used to create a 360-degree surround sound field (such as the sound effect of bullets passing overhead in TXT's "Good Boy Gone Bad"), and game engines (such as Unity) are used to preview spatial mixing. It also implants whisper-level sound details in lossless audio (such as the low-frequency heartbeat sound that simulates the vibration of the eardrum in NewJeans' "OMG") to stimulate physiological auditory pleasure.

It can be said that it is the same music, the same K-pop, but it has completely changed from 20 years ago to now.

Then why do some people still like music from twenty years ago and think that today's music is shit and not worth listening to?

First of all, we cannot rule out such a statement. For example, some music works from 20 years ago still sound pleasant to the ears today, just like "Yun Gong Xun Yin", the representative peak of domestic electronic music.

Although it was created in the 1980s and it has been more than 40 years since then, today's audiences still feel excited and thrilled when listening to this song.

However, even "Yun Gong Xun Yin", whether it is the "Black Wukong" version or various online performance versions, they are all rearranged under the current music system, re-using Guan Xuan Orchestra or folk music band accompaniment, and repackaged. They are not the same as the simple electronic music of forty years ago.

In fact, this phenomenon is easy to understand.

Times are changing, but your aesthetic taste was formed and fixed twenty years ago. You are not as receptive to new things that change with each passing day as young people, which leads to your lack of liking for some of today's works.

But there are excellent musical works every year.

Although Xia Haoyang himself prefers K-pop works from more than ten years ago, he will take into account the diversity of age and style when transferring music works and will make multiple choices.

"Teacher Xia? Teacher Xia, it's your turn to comment now." The host, Teacher He, reminded with a smile.

"Oh, sorry, I was so absorbed in the song just now that I'm still savoring it." Xia Haoyang made up an excuse for his distraction, cleared his throat, looked at the nine girls from Class A on the stage and said with a smile, "You are really outstanding. From the singing and dancing of this piece, we can see your wildness and sexiness. You are the most outstanding students in this program and can handle any style of work. How about we just make it direct and let the nine of you debut together?"

Xia Haoyang's straightforward attitude was echoed by the audience, and everyone was shouting: Debut~Debut~.

In fact, it wasn't just Xia Haoyang. Every instructor praised the nine students in Class A highly, almost to the point of exaggerating their praises.

Is their performance really so perfect?

Make up!

Although the program team did not discuss with the mentors how to comment on the students specifically, they had held internal meetings with the mentors and representatives of various music companies, weighed the interests of all parties, and have roughly determined the candidates for debut. The nine people in Class A are now the best choice that meets the interests of all parties.

Therefore, Xia Haoyang and the other mentors will of course spare no effort to praise and compliment, using expert comments to influence the audience's vote.

This is fake.

But compared to using code or programs to directly modify the audience voting results, this method of cheating still has a moral bottom line.