Original title: Why are music variety show blockbusters becoming more and more difficult to see when various forms of programs appear together?
The data shows that the total number of music variety shows has been on a downward trend in the past five years, especially in 2021. Major variety shows such as “Singer”, “Summer of the Band” and “China New Rap” will disappear, making music variety shows look bad both inside and outside the industry. Viewers’ aesthetic fatigue and market turmoil became the focus of discussion. However, where there is a crisis, there may be opportunities. In the past 2022, music variety shows such as “Endless Sound” and “China Rap Showdown” have continued to innovate and debut, and the music variety has been revived with full blood, allowing the audience to see the tenacious strength of this variety show. vitality. Music variety shows are still a rigid demand in the variety show market, but super hits are becoming increasingly rare.
New types and small cuts
In 2022, multiple music variety shows will present new creative features and trends. Some programs are directly made in the form of concerts, pursuing the sense of presence and atmosphere of watching; some programs integrate metaverse and virtual technology, and use technological innovation to innovate programs; Create a richer program highlights.
The music variety show creation market is becoming more and more subdivided, and new types of programs such as folk songs, chorus, and concerts have emerged. For example, “Our Folk Songs 2022” gathers 29 groups of musicians, including Zhou Yunpeng, Landlord Mao, and Chen Li, to sing life stories with folk songs and focus on the latest development of folk music. Whether the show can find the audience’s emotional release point, and the popular folk songs are worth looking forward to; “Time Concert 2” has old singers such as Tian Zhen, Sun Yue, and Gigi Leung joining in. The time stories they share are the biggest highlights outside of music; “Chaoyang Playing Song Center” brings back the retro form of playing songs, allowing the new generation of musicians to “open the microphone to meet the challenge” and look forward to discovering more high-quality music idols; “live music comprehensive”, Zhang Xinzhe, Dai Penny, Jiang Meiqi, Wu Sikai, Chen Chusheng, Zhou Hui and other singers participated in the recording in the form of a theme concert, which successfully awakened the desire and expectation of music fans for high-level concerts. The biggest innovation of Yinzong is to start to pursue the sense of presence and scene of the concert, so as to meet the audience’s demand for a sense of companionship, and bring everyone an immersive and resonant viewing experience.
In addition, Metaverse and virtual technology are also constantly innovating the audio complex, adding high-tech elements to such programs. The metaverse music show “Vowel Adventure” gathers players such as Zhang Wei, Xiao Jingteng, Zhang Yuqi, etc. They contribute hilarious and hilarious scenes in various cool and exciting VR games, and bring imagination to the music levels Powerful virtual world show. In “2060 Vowel Realm”, Wilber Pan, Hanyun Zhang, Jingteng Xiao, and Yuxin Liu staged a duel between a real-life stage show and a virtual image stage show. With the help of technology, the four guests showed various “superpowers” on the spot. For example, Liu Yuxin’s teleportation, Wilber Pan’s time and space stillness, Xiao Jingteng’s triple identity, etc., added a sense of surprise to the scene.
Complex Narrative and Emotional Value
Looking back on 2022, Yinzong pays more attention to content subdivision. In addition to the N-generation comprehensive, new programs try to find new directions from virtual idols, musicals, national trends, nostalgic trends, and slow variety shows. After years of development, music variety shows have not only presented musical attributes and skills, but have also begun to seek complex narratives, pursuing the audience’s “pain points” from form to content, and carrying out innovative transformations one after another. The competition in music dramas is fierce, and it is difficult for many music dramas to attract investment. Under the shaping of the market and industry, more programs are beginning to pursue good content with valuable expression.
The biggest wave of sound in 2022 is the wave of nostalgia. “Riding the Wind and Waves 3” made Wang Xinling popular again; “Our Song 4” invited old singers such as Zhou Chuanxiong and Priscilla Chan to cover classic songs and awaken the melody in everyone’s memory; in “Flashing Band”, Zhang Zhenyue, Liang Long, Zhou Xiaoou, Zhang Chu Waiting for the musicians to sing the classic songs, the audience quickly travels through time and space to freeze the memory; programs such as “Riding the Wind and Waves”, “Overcoming the Thorns”, “Endless Sound·Hong Kong Music Season” and other programs arouse the audience’s memories and make old singers and classic songs revisited. There are also programs such as “The Wonderful Year” featuring the theme song of classic Hong Kong dramas to be broadcast. With the help of these programs, classic old songs have re-entered the public eye and are loved by young people. At the same time, the nostalgic soundtrack not only reflects nostalgic emotions, but also incorporates humanistic feelings and value delivery into the performance of the classic Cantonese opera “Endless Sound·Hong Kong Music Season”, making the program full of a sense of the times and depth, and touching the audience with emotion , resonate.
In 2022, there will be more programs pursuing more specific and profound value expression. For example, “Sing My New Voice” focuses on music fusion, showing young people’s grand youthful aspirations, family and national conditions. For example, “Happy Restart” participated by the singer “Fast Boy” integrates music with urban cultural life, individual emotion and growth expression, and conveys music, culture and optimistic spiritual pursuit. In order to meet the needs of the audience to slow down and seek spiritual healing, many variety shows focus on “slowness”, and bring warm feelings to the audience through the eloquent music narrative. For example, “Time Concert” allows musicians such as Alan Tam and Lin Zhixuan to go outdoors to return to nature, reinterpret classic songs, and then share their own insights and precious life experiences through a handwritten letter, evening chats around the stove, etc., to open more narrative space. The “slow” music variety show pursues storytelling, humanity, and thoughtfulness, allowing music programs to carry more value expressions.
There are many difficulties facing
From “Super Girl” to “The Voice of China”, “I Am a Singer”, “Summer of the Band”, and then to “Riding the Wind and Waves” and “Sounds Everlasting·Hong Kong Philharmonic Season”, the audience can find that music synthesis is not only just needed, but also released The probability of a variety show hit is very high. However, judging from the volume of the resurgence of audio comprehensives in 2022, it is becoming more and more difficult to produce big hits, and there are many difficulties faced by audio comprehensives.
Popular music can create new stars, make grassroots counterattacks, and old singers become popular, but judging from recent programs, there is a large area of overlapping guest resources, scarcity of original music, and it is difficult to see professional and creative fresh faces. Qualitative and other issues are testing the quality of the sound synthesis. In 2022, male gods Alan Tam, Hacken Lee, Zhang Xinzhe, etc. of the older generation, Wilber Pan, Xiao Jingteng, Zhang Jie, Hu Yanbin, Angela Chang, Li Ronghao, etc. of the Mesozoic generation, and younger Zhang Bichen, Mao Buyi, Wang Sulong, etc. These musicians shuttled between different music programs As a guest in the show, the resources of high-quality guests are overdrawn, which tests the aesthetic fatigue of the audience.
On “The Voice of God 3”, singer Su Jianxin raised a question for everyone to think about, that is, all the singers are doing cover songs, and the arrangement and singing skills have improved, but no original works have appeared. What is the significance of the show? The lack of original music in the music comprehensive market has led to various programs focusing on nostalgia, changing tricks and singing old songs in different forms. The collective nostalgia of the music complex, excessive cover singing, and insufficient originality have also prevented many programs from getting out of the circle. “Black Scared Girl”, “The New Generation of Rap”, “Do You Listen to My Music”, “Who Is the Treasure Singer” and other programs, although some “post-00s” newcomers and trendy modes of play are brought in, these programs are either narrow-popular verticals Such programs, or the format of the program itself is not eye-catching, and after several rounds of programs, it will be difficult to get young singers out of the circle.
Judging from the number of rating audiences, it will be difficult for the top music variety shows in 2022 to continue the glory of previous years. The previous blockbuster music variety shows had hundreds of thousands or hundreds of thousands of viewers. Not bad. Behind the difficulty of finding popular music variety shows, in addition to the difficulties faced by such programs, there are also the influence of the general environment such as diversion of music variety show audiences by short videos, changes in the market environment, and high copyright fees for popular songs. Under such circumstances, the current music comprehensive is not interested in digging newcomers and unique music resources, but doing a lot of work on the emotional satisfaction of the audience. The advent of the era of music audience focus also makes it difficult for Yinzong to produce popular programs for the whole people.
The fatigue of music variety shows is in line with the development law of the variety show market. Any variety show type has a bottleneck period, but the current music variety show can survive in the fiercely competitive variety show market through model innovation. In fact, for music variety shows, it is advisable to pay more attention and patience to original music. Returning to the music standard is more conducive to the sustainable development of this type of variety show.
Symbiosis between music synthesis and music industry
Compared with other types of variety shows and industries, the symbiotic relationship between music variety shows and the music industry seems to be closer, and music variety shows also play a certain role in the music industry chain.
In the era of vigorous development of talent show variety shows, programs such as “Super Girl”, “Fast Boy” and “Good Voice” selected newcomers from the conservatory of music, continuously injecting vitality into the music industry, and music variety has become an important force for star-making. In recent years, the most typical example is the popular program “Summer of the Band”. This program, by its own power, presents bands that were originally small circles such as Pain, New Pants, Face, Hedgehog, Remodeling, and Wutiaoren. The stage of public attention has allowed more young people to see the development results of different types of music. After the show was broadcast, each band quickly gained fans, the performance fee doubled, commercial performances and endorsement invitations flew in, and some bands that were about to disband also lived a good life. The emergence of “Summer of the Band” coincides with the rapid development of offline consumer markets such as LiveHouse and music festivals. When music festivals and LiveHouse need a larger and more efficient promotion platform, “Summer of the Band” follows the trend and becomes an industrial chain It is an important link to promote the improvement and standardization of the independent music industry chain.
In 2022, the music industry changed its direction again, and began to invite singers to do concert variety shows with a high sense of presence and a high degree of scene experience, so that the audience can feel the atmosphere of live music. At the same time, a singing stage also appeared in the new program at the end of the year, and began to pay attention to finding outstanding newcomers who have not had the opportunity to perform in two or three years, providing them with a stage, and promoting the healthy development of the industry. Music variety shows are like a glue, reflecting the status quo of the music industry, and also participating in it, assuming some boosting effects.
Generally speaking, the win-win situation between the music industry and the music industry is hard to come by, and the music industry that entertains the public cannot solve many problems in the music industry. The cultivation of music talents, the guidance of the public’s aesthetics, and the dilemma of music creation only flow theory, etc., all need to be solved by the music industry itself. Music variety shows need to rely on a well-developed music industry tree in order to seek a larger market. Although the market share of variety shows is declining year by year, dozens of music variety shows are broadcast each year, and the volume is still not small. It is worth looking forward to how music variety shows will develop better.