21st Century Chinese Rock & Punk

Subs vocalist Kang Mao (photo by Bjørn Gausdal)

Listen to "Asshole I'm Not Your Baby"



Listen to "No! No! No!"



Listen to "Eat Me"



Listen to "Wahaha"



Listen to "爱之过往"


Get the 30-band, 30-song compilation here.


For decades now it seems like the most exciting expressive culture--no matter the discipline--has been coming out of mainland China. Ai Weiwei, Gu Wenda, and Xu Bing are at the forefront of a huge explosion of visual and conceptual art that a number of phone book-thick catalogs published here and in Europe can barely keep pace with. Writers as diverse as Ma Jian, Liao Yiwu, and Mian Mian are creating some of the most raw and genuinely engaging fiction and creative non-fiction in recent memory--and making international headlines in the process. And I don't think I'm alone in thinking there is no greater, more inventive living film director than Jia Zhangke.


So it should probably be no surprise that, over the last decade or so, the PRC has produced quite literally the most thrilling rock, punk and post-punk in the world. Or that much of this music--unlike so much else on this blog--has become increasingly available through western channels.



Watch Subs perform "So Fine Emo"


For this compilation I gave myself a couple of rules: I wouldn't poach from any pre-existing, readily available compilations (although I did wind up using one song from a free comp that some of you may already have) and I would only allow myself one song from each band, no matter how hair-raisingly great their other tracks may be.



Watch Rebuilding the Rights of Statues' "TV Show (Hang the Police)"


I'll keep this post to the bare minimum, hoping the reader will listen and judge for herself, and use the opportunity to seek out more, as the interest strikes, through Amazon, iTunes and the great independent Asian-focused site Tenzenmen.com.


And, as always, I'm totally curious what you think. ...