Western popular music consumption by highly involved Chinese music fans

This paper looks at the development of Western popular music consumption in China, with particular focus on highly involved Chinese consumers. An exploratory research design was used, namely semi-structured online interviews. The consumption of Western popular music in China cannot be separated from the changing political and social environment. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, an underground culture of ‘dakou’, cut tapes and CDs, developed in China. For many of our respondents this became a formative and significant influence in their lives. In subsequent decades, 'dakou' was replaced and supplemented by counterfeit tapes/CDs, and later still, by Internet downloads. All of these increased access to Western music. At the time of writing, both recorded and live music are still censored in China, and there was agreement amongst our respondents that the political restrictions on music have prevented China from developing a 'normal' music market, and created a market dominated by illegal downloading. Many of our respondents decided at some point to leave China to be able to express their lifestyle choices in a less restrictive envionment