What does the popularity of "Black Plum Sauce" reflect?

I believe everyone has been brainwashed by the song "Wumeizijiang" recently. It is such a lighthearted and cheerful song that has triggered widespread discussion on the Internet. We can see that the Chinese music scene is still being paid attention to, remembered, urged and encouraged. What can we see from the popularity of "Wumeizijiang"? Let's take a look.

"Wumezi Sauce" became a huge hit.

First, Douyin influencers began to cover this sweet song, and then a large number of short video platform users picked up this song as the background music for their videos. With the lyrics "Spring is the season for love" and "Valentine's Day", Li Ronghao's sweet song quickly became a hit on the Internet, and led to a rush to buy "Plum Sauce" on e-commerce platforms. #What is Plum Sauce?#, #Plum Sauce search volume soared 200 times#, and #What is the divine taste of Plum Sauce# appeared on various hot search lists.

Subsequently, music critics in the music circle launched a debate on whether "Wumeizijiang" was too catchy and tacky. A video of representative figure Ding Taisheng suddenly "went viral", and #丁太升说乌梅子酱不耐# became the number one trending search on Weibo. According to Weibo front-end data, as of the evening of the 22nd, the number of views of this trending search had reached 370 million, with 21,000 discussions. #如何评价李荣浩的乌梅子酱# also became a trending search with 190 million views on the same day.

Related topic trends, from Weibo screenshots

At present, the entire music circle and netizens on social media have formed a "fighting" collision of opinions. Just as Ding Taisheng said that this work is "vulgar", some people think that Li Ronghao's work is "not that bad" and "not vulgar", and some people directly explore how musicians should play between "sincere creation" and "getting close to traffic" and other industry perspectives...

Standing apart from the controversy, "Wumeizijiang" actually directly reflects the new trend of "Tik Tok song promotion" and even the changes in the Chinese music scene.

1. Timing, Mood and Creation

"Your shallow smile is like black plum jam." In the past few days, whether it is Tik Tok surfing enthusiasts or passers-by with 2G network speed, they have actively or passively received this song "Black Plum Jam" that has become popular on the entire Internet. The brainwashing melody and the somewhat straightforward sweet lyrics make people feel "addicted" after listening to it, and it feels a bit like "The Lone Hero 2.0."

Many people wondered why this song, which was released in November 2022 and written, composed, sung and produced by Li Ronghao, suddenly became popular on Douyin?

In fact, "Wumeizijiang" was on the hot search list on various platforms several times as early as November when the song was just released. It was also covered by artists such as "Xiao Liuzi" Cao Yang in January this year and became popular in a small circle.

Tik Tok screenshot

The song became popular again in February, which was the result of the joint efforts of all three factors, including the special time node, the collective emotions of netizens, and the characteristics of the song itself.

Specifically, the second round of popularity of "Wumeizijiang" was first triggered by Douyin, and then gradually spread to other social platforms. From a time perspective, it was a linear diffusion development with Valentine's Day as an opportunity.

According to Yunhe data, on February 8, a week before Valentine's Day, #你浅浅的微笑就是乌梅子酱# first appeared on Douyin's hot search, with more than 5 million searches and struggling to reach the 36th place in the hot search. A week later, on Valentine's Day, this work was truly "breaking the circle".

In the early morning of Valentine's Day, #白鹿唱乌梅子酱# became a hot search on Weibo, and entered the top 12 of Douyin's hot searches with more than 7 million searches that night. On the weekend of Valentine's Day, when busy workers finally had some time to lie in bed and browse Douyin, this work became a real "hot" hit - even on Kuaishou, the short video platform with the most friends and the most down-to-earth, this work accounted for 4 hot searches.

White Deer Singing Plum Sauce

But Valentine's Day is just an opportunity. What really touches young people is the sweet sugar that "transforms" in the song, allowing netizens to feel the "love" atmosphere given by Valentine's Day. Coupled with the love story of Li Ronghao and Rainie Yang, the chemical reaction that occurs when the three are combined.

Under the dual pressure of micro-individuals and macro-environment, young people have been "bored and in a bad mental state" in recent years: learning to crawl and walking cardboard dogs have become frequent hot searches on social platforms. As the first exclusive holiday for young people after the recovery from the epidemic, this year's Valentine's Day is undoubtedly given more special meanings - even if there is no real love in the real world, you can go to the trash can to deeply participate in the Valentine's Day, or listen to "Wumeizijiang" on the short video platform and have a cyber love.

More importantly, young people have finally regained their ability to love, and the emergence of "Wumezijiang" is like a fuel that makes this collective emotion even more intense.

2. The debate between “vulgar” and “unvulgar”

However, as the popularity of a song grows, so does its popularity. "Wumeizijiang" once again brings up the old joke of "Is the Chinese music scene over?"

The most typical and inciting comment was made by music critic Ding Taisheng.

He said helplessly in the video, "As soon as the chorus begins, a strong Chinese folk style mixed with the popular elements of current short videos hits you in the face, and you can't avoid it." Ding Taisheng even said that this work "is simply vulgar" and "Using the word vulgar to describe this song, the word vulgar has become vulgar."

Ding Taisheng's review of "Plum Sauce"

Ding Taisheng also commented on Li Ronghao and his statement on Weibo that "there is no distinction between high and low in music."

"Li Ronghao's current problem lies in his personal cognition," Ding Taisheng believes that Li Ronghao is not only biased in artistic cognition, but also has a narrow personal vision. "Li Ronghao's biggest problem is that he has not read much," Ding Taisheng believes that these can be seen in the lyrics, "he is really uncultured" and "loves speculation."

Regarding music creation, Ding Taisheng believes that artists should break through upward rather than be downward compatible.

• In the video account, this video has more than 2,000 comments, and the first comment reads: "Pertinent and correct", and has received more than 1,000 likes.
• On social media platforms, many netizens once again lamented that "the Chinese music scene is over." Some practitioners also said that this work "is not that bad."
• Music critic and Weibo blogger @光荣 said on social media, "Li Ronghao's "Wumeizijiang", considering the state of Li Ronghao's music in recent years, is not that good, especially not as good as Li Ronghao's early works, but it is not as bad as some people criticize."
• Weibo music blogger @real干大滋 believes that "Wumeizijiang" makes people "see that Li Ronghao has always been a person who likes new things." He believes that this work "has no problem and is not tacky." He also said that "Wumeizijiang is directly defined as the exclusive property of young workers in small towns, which is actually a class offense. This view itself is discriminatory."

Screenshot of the MV of "Plum Sauce"

In fact, "Wumeizijiang" itself is also a work with very Douyin characteristics.

Whether it is the very visual lyrics in the chorus, or the rhythm, direction of the melody line, and the alternating true and false voices brought about by the jumping intervals, they can all remind people of many similar Tik Tok hits that have become popular in recent years, especially the melody line that is full of contrast and drama. Whether in the field of music or art, it is the focus of traditional aesthetics and an important means of artistic creation.

However, from another perspective, the arrangement style of this work is also very characteristic of Li Ronghao. It reminds people of songs such as "Li Bai" heard a few years ago, and also reminds people of Jay Chou's "Romantic Cell Phone". In a sense, it also triggered a wave of memories again.

However, compared with the popularity of the song itself, the public's attention to the Chinese music scene is more gratifying. Different viewpoints will resonate through collision, and the Chinese music scene will become "clearer through debate."

3. Is “Tik Tok Song Promotion” different now?

In fact, although this year has just begun, whether in terms of the timing, the identity of the promoted singers, or the songs themselves, etc., Douyin, as an extremely influential large-scale music promotion and traffic pool, its platform's hot songs have shown many new trends that are different from the past.

1. At the time point, Douyin pays more attention to new song recommendations

Not only is "Plum Sauce" released at the end of 2022 popular, but according to the data updated on February 17, the Douyin Music Chart, which ranked first on the Douyin Hot Songs Chart, "The Only Bitter Coffee" and "The Stupidity of Love" ranked second, were both released in 2023, and the third and fifth "Popipo" were both released in 2022. Last year, the renovation of classic old songs such as "Azhen Loves Aqiang", "Lonely Sand Island" and "The Farthest Place to See" also occupied an important position on the music charts - the frequency of recommendation of new songs is significantly different from the characteristics of the renovation of old songs in the past.

Tik Tok Music Chart

Why does Douyin pay more attention to new songs? One of the reasons may be related to music copyright. The two works ranked in the top two of Douyin's hot songs list both have Douyin music behind them. The classic old songs recommended in previous years often lack copyright issues, which makes Douyin unable to receive traffic and eventually becomes a tool for streaming media platforms to divert traffic.

2. From the Internet celebrity trend of "promoting songs instead of people" to the mainstream trend of "people's songs are all popular"

Yiyuguancha once argued in the article "Are the Douyin Divine Songs Still Affecting the "Chinese Music Pill"?" that the Douyin platform often has the phenomenon of "the songs are popular but the singers are not famous". However, according to the analysis of this year's popular works, whether it is Zhao Lei's "I Remember", Joey Yung's "Let the Rain Fall", or Li Ronghao's "Wumeizijiang", the owners of these works are all mainstream singers under the mature system of the Chinese music scene, and these well-known singers have also played the role of "singer identity empowering works", thereby attracting more music lovers and passers-by to join the circle, and the celebrity effect has begun to come to life on the Douyin platform.

3. The song abandons the picture and becomes the protagonist

Douyin promotes music, and many works have become popular with gesture dance, card points, editing and other gameplay, which is consistent with the general feature of Douyin that "music serves video", but this year it has shown the characteristics of music abandoning dance and "flying solo". Taking "Wumeizijiang" as an example, Yiyuguancha analyzed the hot searches of this song on Douyin and found that Douyin "Wumeizijiang" had 10 hot searches, but the hot search topics focused more on music. After sorting, it was found that related hot searches accounted for 70%, including both the performance and singing of the music itself, as well as comments on the song itself, and hot searches of netizens' secondary creation, all of which revolved around music, which is a high proportion.

According to the "2022 China Digital Music Industry Insight Report" released by Fastdata, the size of China's digital music market in 2022 was 49.47 billion yuan, a year-on-year decrease of 3.4%. The industry development has entered a plateau period and is facing a slight stagnation.

This time, "Wumeizijiang" brought the first widespread attention to the Chinese music scene in 2023, and even the entire Internet was hotly discussing it, which also allowed practitioners to see that the Chinese music scene is still being paid attention to, remembered, urged and encouraged at all times.

I sincerely hope that more and more topical songs will be paid attention to and discussed in the future, so that the voice of "pill" in the Chinese music scene will disappear amidst the heated debates, and the music industry will smoothly usher in new high-quality growth.

Author: Bono

Source: Yiyuguancha (ID: yiyuguancha), the telescope and sonar of the pan-entertainment industry.

Original title: "Wumeizijiang" becomes a huge hit, is the Chinese music scene in trouble again?