China’s Age of Innocence in Rock

Talk about a global village.

Gayl Murphy, the peripatetic entertainment reporter for KLOS-FM and the ABC Rock Radio Network, was in China the other day, talking with a young woman who had just been graduated from the Shanghai College of Business. When Murphy finished her interview, she asked the girl if she had any questions about the West.

The girl responded immediately. “Is it true,” she wondered breathlessly, “that Michael Jackson had his face fixed?”

Welcome to the enchantingly oddball world of Chinese pop culture, where Cultural Bureaus approve all rock lyrics (Tipper Gore, eat your heart out!), where John Denver and Karen Carpenter are bigger stars than the Rolling Stones (no one has even heard of Prince, Bruce Springsteen or Chuck Berry) and where rock concerts are such a hot commodity that ticket scalpers lurk outside stadiums--even though the average ticket costs 40 cents!

Japan already has embraced rock’s new generation. Can China, a country still struggling to join the High-Tech Age (Beijing has 10 million people and 40,000 phones) be far behind?

For some answers, Pop Eye turned to Murphy, who had just returned from a three-week tour with the West End Boys, a group of backup musicians for Jan & Dean and the Beach Boys, who have become unlikely Chinese superstars. Performing cover versions of soft-pop Top 40 hits, the West End Boys played 10 sold-out dates at Shanghai Stadium late last month, with Show of Hands, a new L.A. folk underground band, opening the bill.

“Ten years ago no one knew anything about Western music because the government didn’t have an open-door policy,” said Murphy, who interviewed young pop fans during her visit. “But with the government’s new policy of cultural reform there’s much more exchange. There really aren’t many Chinese pop groups, though I did hear a cover version of Madonna’s “Like a Virgin” on Shanghai radio.

“Mostly, the music comes from America. Shanghai TV has a weekly pop program called ‘Culture and Leisure,’ and you can hear Western music each day on Shanghai radio from noon to 2 p.m. But the government exercises strict control over what is allowed into the country. Each city has its own Cultural Bureau, which checks song lyrics or videos before they’re aired.”

With government agents in control, you can imagine that not much daring music surfaces. In fact, due to enter China after performing at a Tokyo pop festival last year, heavy-metal band Dio was refused entrance unless it agreed to wear street clothes on stage and refrain from using exotic lighting. “If a band looked like Twisted Sister, it would be highly unlikely that they’d be asked to perform,” Murphy said. “The authorities are very concerned about groups overly exciting audiences. It’s considered wild just to loudly applaud.”

Interviewed by Murphy, 23-year-old Shelly Chin of Shanghai said her favorite artists were Whitney Houston, Madonna, Michael Jackson, Kenny Rogers and Diana Ross. Chin had heard of the Beatles, but had no idea the group had broken up nearly 20 years ago. Her current heroes were the West End Boys.

“It’s interesting,” Murphy said. “The women like Western men because they’re handsome and masculine, but the men don’t especially like Western women because they feel they look too masculine.”

The members of the West End Boys were obviously delighted by their rousing reception. “It was strange playing so many MOR ballads, but the fans really seem to prefer romantic ballads like Bread’s ‘I Want to Make It With You’ or Lionel Richie’s ‘Stuck on You,’ ” said Gary Griffin, a Jan & Dean backing musician who’s also a member of the West End Boys. “In a way it was like playing the world’s biggest wedding reception. We figured it was just a great payback for all those years we’d all played cover songs at bars and clubs.”

Murphy was struck by the exuberant innocence of this huge nation’s emerging pop audience.”It’s still a strikingly different society,” she said. “Their whole focus is community, where our preoccupation is with the self. But going around China is like seeing a kid bursting into his adolescence. Everyone has such an innocence about them. The mood isn’t like a tough kid who wants to knock off the corner drugstore. It’s more like a kid who wants to be a high school cheerleader. They’re so lacking in cynicism that it’s very refreshing. And everyone has a fascination with Western music--they can’t get enough of it.”