Sounding the Bromance: The Chopstick Brothers' 'Little Apple' music video, genre, gender and the search for meaning in Chinese popular music

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dc.contributor.authorStock, Jonathan P. J.
dc.date.accessioned2017-04-03T12:10:56Z
dc.date.available2017-04-03T12:10:56Z
dc.date.issued2016-01
dc.date.updated2017-04-03T12:03:36Z
dc.description.abstractThis article analyses the music video of ‘Little Apple’ by Wang Taili and Xiao Yang, also known as the Chopstick Brothers, one of China’s most successful productions in 2014, and one that exemplifies certain emerging trends in Chinese popular music more generally. The music video draws on K-pop models but also on Western inspirations (biblical, historical and contemporary) and has proven hard to reduce to a single, definitive narrative or interpretation. The analysis proceeds by introducing the song and its video, in the context of the Chopstick Brothers’ wider work. Its musical structure is presented, leading to questions as to its particular retro aesthetic. This leads to a study of the emergent genre of shenqu (divine song), which is based on notions of virality, epic craziness and the earworm effect, and to which ‘Little Apple’ contributes. The final sections of the article look at the production of gendered positions within the music video— noting that it is a love song sung by one man to another—and examine the public square dance setting where this song has been so widely picked up. Finally, I suggest why it may be that ‘Little Apple’ particularly can open out a space temporarily in which participants can experience a warm sense of human collaboration.en
dc.description.statusPeer revieweden
dc.description.versionAccepted Versionen
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen
dc.identifier.citationStock, Jonathan P. J. (2016) 'Sounding the Bromance: The Chopstick Brothers' 'Little Apple' music video, genre, gender and the search for meaning in Chinese popular music'. Journal Of World Popular Music, 3 (2):167-196. doi: 10.1558/jwpm.v3i2.32607en
dc.identifier.doi10.1558/jwpm.v3i2.32607
dc.identifier.endpage196en
dc.identifier.issn2052-4900
dc.identifier.issn2052-4919
dc.identifier.issued2en
dc.identifier.journaltitleJournal Of World Popular Musicen
dc.identifier.startpage167en
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/10468/3852
dc.identifier.volume3en
dc.language.isoenen
dc.publisherEquinoxen
dc.relation.urihttps://journals.equinoxpub.com/index.php/JWPM/article/view/32607
dc.rights© Equinox Publishing Ltd 2017, Office 415, The Workstation, 15 Paternoster Row, Sheffield S1 2BX.en
dc.subjectChinese popular musicen
dc.subjectGenderen
dc.subjectGenreen
dc.subjectMusic videoen
dc.titleSounding the Bromance: The Chopstick Brothers' 'Little Apple' music video, genre, gender and the search for meaning in Chinese popular musicen
dc.typeArticle (peer-reviewed)en
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