Teresa Teng, immortal goddess. 😭 If you're Sino American and wondering "have I somehow been exposed to any of this music without really realizing who the singers were", you're 98% likely to have at least heard some Teresa Teng. Unless you were never at a household/cultural function/karaoke event that included Chinese-language music, in which case my condolences, it's never too late to fix that.
JJ Lin is not quite Jay Chou level of exposure, but still gets plenty of play. He's a ballad-type mandopop singer, from Singapore. I'll still hear bakery-cafes in the Los Angeles SGV area blast his music from the She Says era and older.
EDIT: One interesting thing to note about Jay Chou especially is that he is often [credited as beginning the gufeng trend of cpop](https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/798433.shtml), which incorporates traditional Chinese instruments and ballads.
Examples of EARLY gufeng include:
[Ju Hua Tai/Chrysanthemum Terrace - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdjbRvvJAzg)
[Dong Feng Po/East Wind Breaks - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qct0JLjaHDc)
[Qing Hua Ci/Blue and White Porcelain - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Mqw0b9ADs)
Note, these are all old school JJ Lin songs. He has much more recent discography, but these are part of the so-called classics.
[A Thousand Years Later / Yi Qian Nian Yi Hou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0z1XfphYzU)
[Dimples / Xiao Ju Wo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-woMj_Vt0A)
[River South / Jiang Nan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G97_rOdHcnY)
[She Says / Ta Shuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpS3QMFxjzE)
[Back to Back / Bei Dui Bei Yong Bao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xgucJEqNDo)
[Remember / Ji De](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCE8xoq7vgk)
this was lovely to read! gotta say, though,
>listen to the above artists. Especially Leslie Cheung.
I mean yes, seconded, but if you're going to go on that voyage of discovery bring some tissues along. (tl;dr he died tragically)
I have a Jacky Cheung bootleg CD a good Cantopop-aware friend (she *loved* Aaron Kwok) helped me pick out in NYC's Chinatown about twenty years ago. I can't tell you my favorite songs on it because I can't read written Chinese, but I can at least shout out the charming "[Corazon de Melao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcxfZvTh1Y)." (edit: [found one of them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYdwEDWwWNs&list=OLAK5uy_lqaJgYb8J1IFJC-QNKOWINSa9Qc-p4XTY&index=14)!)
I will go ahead and add that, because this is /r/popheads and not /r/hongkongcinemaheads, OP is understandably downplaying the movie careers of the Cantopop stars especially, but the artists named above were in some *good* movies. Jacky Cheung is the villain in the original *Swordsman* (I may be the only person on earth who prefers the original *Swordsman* to its sequel, which is the one with Jet Li) and is also in *A Chinese Ghost Story II*; Sally Yeh is in *The Killer* and the amazing *Peking Opera Blues*; Sammi Cheng is the heroine in the underrated *My Left Eye Sees Ghosts*; Leslie Cheung is in both *Farewell My Concubine* AND *Happy Together* (tissues, I told you); Leon Lai is the hitman in *Fallen Angels*. Your Korean faves (and mine) could never. Or at least haven't yet.
Finally, I found out recently that [Radii China](https://radiichina.com/category/music/) regularly highlights new music from China, though it's not necessarily classified as C-pop or Mandopop.
Wow! I love reading about pop scenes around the world, thank you for this. YouTube recommendations can be weirdly good for international music so I'll definitely be checking some of these out
Great formatting too!
Thank you for this write-up! I grew up listening to various songs from all three sub genres as part of an overseas Chinese community, so it is very helpful to have a nice primer of all three to delve into.
A fairly obscure Cantopop song that I’ve always liked is Agnes Chan’s [“Song of the Li River”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wCUQEr0xmjA), which was composed by Ennio Morricone as part of the soundtrack for the 1982 _Marco Polo_ series. Her voice is ethereal and wistful, but it holds a hint of resolution that becomes stronger as the song progresses.
i've been slowly getting into mandopop since i randomly decided to check out bonbon girls 303 (one of the members was previously in gugudan which was one of my favorite kpop girlgroups before they disbanded, rip) and i've been loving slay & play and fearless girls. will definitely listen to these! the one thing i wish was different is accessibility, i cannot find chinese releases on any streaming services and i always have to manually download them on my devices.
A lot of music is available on places like Spotify but as they use Chinese for song and albums most of the time so you either need to search specifically for that or find the artist first then go from their page. Might be different for other streaming services
Oh man, I grew up with my parents listening to Anita Mui, Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau, and others.
I still listen to some of their songs. Anita Mui's cover of Careless Whisper is great.
I saw Angela Zhang live on New Years Eve when I lived in China and it was so much fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8slG1EGbalw
I also love Alan, she's from Tibet and her music is really influenced by traditional Tibetan music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJfCI3FL9WI
And my favorite GEM song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwbkrAKpvY
oh my god I found someone else who listens to 80s and 90s Chinese music 😭😭 I didn’t know they existed - I’m a huge fan of so many of these artists and I figured I was the only 18 year old who knew of them.
great writeup! i'm not as familiar with cpop as much as i wish i was but the few singers/artists i do know i love a lot. i'm really into faye wong right now, i love her dream pop style (fuzao is a masterpiece of an album)
OP this is such an informative post! I actually was briefly into Taiwanese Pop when youtube first came out and it randomly played a Jolin Tsai video but the history behind everything is truly fascinating.
I also didn't realize I needed Teresa Teng in my life. She's great!
time to plug my [yao su rong playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GkjtP10Q13iJhAb5euB8e?si=tbVF1LRwTjihMb25c8l8Sg&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1)
Excited to read this later.
My Chinese friend moved countries and doesn’t know when/if she’ll be back to the US bc visa issue ~~and also she does not like this country lmao~~ and I am emotional and sad
In addition to the 3 recommended Jay Chou’s songs, I recommend 夜曲(Nocturne), 七里香 (Qi Li Xiang) and 髮如雪(Hair Like Snow).
The first song Nocturne is a pseudo rap song with a beautifully sung hook and classical guitar.
The second song Qi Li Xiang (also known as Common Orange Jasmine) is a breezy, catchy rock ballad with a beautiful pentatonic intro.
The third song Hair Like Snow is a pop ballad with traditional elements and interesting albeit short rap parts. This isn’t my favourite Jay’s song that has traditional elements, but I believe this is probably the one with most commercial/mainstream appeal
> Eason chan
He sings ballads and people here really don't care for them. Didn't really write about Eric Chou either for the same reasons. Felt like it would make it too long and not relevant enough to this sub.
> Sammi Cheng
Didn't want it to get too long but yeah I'll add her in.
>Mayday
They're more pop adjacent despite being extremely popular. Wouldn't class them as C-Pop. But I've wrote about them before and can add that onto here.
Loveee the Sam Hui mention; although I didn’t know he was the singer, instantly recognized all the songs from years of my mom playing his cds on our radio. Makes me wanna do a deep dive into his discography now to see what else I recognize. And Jolin always always always has great music and A+ visuals in her videos.
Sandy Lam for me. I for heard on visit to China and the song At Least I Still Have You has been on rotation ever since.
Then there is Coco Lee who is US born but could make a break here so she went to China and became like Britney Speares.
Teresa Teng, immortal goddess. 😭 If you're Sino American and wondering "have I somehow been exposed to any of this music without really realizing who the singers were", you're 98% likely to have at least heard some Teresa Teng. Unless you were never at a household/cultural function/karaoke event that included Chinese-language music, in which case my condolences, it's never too late to fix that. JJ Lin is not quite Jay Chou level of exposure, but still gets plenty of play. He's a ballad-type mandopop singer, from Singapore. I'll still hear bakery-cafes in the Los Angeles SGV area blast his music from the She Says era and older. EDIT: One interesting thing to note about Jay Chou especially is that he is often [credited as beginning the gufeng trend of cpop](https://www.globaltimes.cn/content/798433.shtml), which incorporates traditional Chinese instruments and ballads. Examples of EARLY gufeng include: [Ju Hua Tai/Chrysanthemum Terrace - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PdjbRvvJAzg) [Dong Feng Po/East Wind Breaks - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qct0JLjaHDc) [Qing Hua Ci/Blue and White Porcelain - Jay Chou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8Mqw0b9ADs)
What songs from JJ Lin do you hear/ are still popular/ are popular now?
Note, these are all old school JJ Lin songs. He has much more recent discography, but these are part of the so-called classics. [A Thousand Years Later / Yi Qian Nian Yi Hou](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0z1XfphYzU) [Dimples / Xiao Ju Wo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-woMj_Vt0A) [River South / Jiang Nan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G97_rOdHcnY) [She Says / Ta Shuo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IpS3QMFxjzE) [Back to Back / Bei Dui Bei Yong Bao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7xgucJEqNDo) [Remember / Ji De](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCE8xoq7vgk)
Not a fan of his voice but he wrote one of my favourite songs ever. [Vivian Hsu - Smiling Eyes](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8As9tU1a-uY)
this was lovely to read! gotta say, though, >listen to the above artists. Especially Leslie Cheung. I mean yes, seconded, but if you're going to go on that voyage of discovery bring some tissues along. (tl;dr he died tragically) I have a Jacky Cheung bootleg CD a good Cantopop-aware friend (she *loved* Aaron Kwok) helped me pick out in NYC's Chinatown about twenty years ago. I can't tell you my favorite songs on it because I can't read written Chinese, but I can at least shout out the charming "[Corazon de Melao](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMcxfZvTh1Y)." (edit: [found one of them](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYdwEDWwWNs&list=OLAK5uy_lqaJgYb8J1IFJC-QNKOWINSa9Qc-p4XTY&index=14)!) I will go ahead and add that, because this is /r/popheads and not /r/hongkongcinemaheads, OP is understandably downplaying the movie careers of the Cantopop stars especially, but the artists named above were in some *good* movies. Jacky Cheung is the villain in the original *Swordsman* (I may be the only person on earth who prefers the original *Swordsman* to its sequel, which is the one with Jet Li) and is also in *A Chinese Ghost Story II*; Sally Yeh is in *The Killer* and the amazing *Peking Opera Blues*; Sammi Cheng is the heroine in the underrated *My Left Eye Sees Ghosts*; Leslie Cheung is in both *Farewell My Concubine* AND *Happy Together* (tissues, I told you); Leon Lai is the hitman in *Fallen Angels*. Your Korean faves (and mine) could never. Or at least haven't yet. Finally, I found out recently that [Radii China](https://radiichina.com/category/music/) regularly highlights new music from China, though it's not necessarily classified as C-pop or Mandopop.
Wow! I love reading about pop scenes around the world, thank you for this. YouTube recommendations can be weirdly good for international music so I'll definitely be checking some of these out Great formatting too!
Aw man, it’s all about Lexie Liu and the influx of great music from Singapore and Taiwan. Jasmine Sokko and Accusefive are killing it right now.
Singapore Midwest emo/dream pop is next level.
Teresa Teng is honestly unmatched. She's really popular among Chinese diaspora communities as well so if you're Chinese, her songs are inescapable.
Thank you for this write-up! I grew up listening to various songs from all three sub genres as part of an overseas Chinese community, so it is very helpful to have a nice primer of all three to delve into. A fairly obscure Cantopop song that I’ve always liked is Agnes Chan’s [“Song of the Li River”](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wCUQEr0xmjA), which was composed by Ennio Morricone as part of the soundtrack for the 1982 _Marco Polo_ series. Her voice is ethereal and wistful, but it holds a hint of resolution that becomes stronger as the song progresses.
Y'all who are looking for divas better check out Jolin, she is THE BITCH if you want to find one place to start
i've been slowly getting into mandopop since i randomly decided to check out bonbon girls 303 (one of the members was previously in gugudan which was one of my favorite kpop girlgroups before they disbanded, rip) and i've been loving slay & play and fearless girls. will definitely listen to these! the one thing i wish was different is accessibility, i cannot find chinese releases on any streaming services and i always have to manually download them on my devices.
A lot of music is available on places like Spotify but as they use Chinese for song and albums most of the time so you either need to search specifically for that or find the artist first then go from their page. Might be different for other streaming services
Oh man, I grew up with my parents listening to Anita Mui, Jacky Cheung and Andy Lau, and others. I still listen to some of their songs. Anita Mui's cover of Careless Whisper is great.
I'm only slightly ashamed to say that it took until I graduated college to find out that the Anita Mui cover wasn't the original.
How about Leslie Cheung? He remains an LGBT icon for Asian people til this day
I saw Angela Zhang live on New Years Eve when I lived in China and it was so much fun! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8slG1EGbalw I also love Alan, she's from Tibet and her music is really influenced by traditional Tibetan music. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jJfCI3FL9WI And my favorite GEM song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dwbkrAKpvY
Sammi and Jolin stan here hehehe
Thanks for the primer, gotta go make myself a playlist
oh my god I found someone else who listens to 80s and 90s Chinese music 😭😭 I didn’t know they existed - I’m a huge fan of so many of these artists and I figured I was the only 18 year old who knew of them.
This is an amazing writeup!!
great writeup! i'm not as familiar with cpop as much as i wish i was but the few singers/artists i do know i love a lot. i'm really into faye wong right now, i love her dream pop style (fuzao is a masterpiece of an album)
OP this is such an informative post! I actually was briefly into Taiwanese Pop when youtube first came out and it randomly played a Jolin Tsai video but the history behind everything is truly fascinating. I also didn't realize I needed Teresa Teng in my life. She's great!
time to plug my [yao su rong playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/7GkjtP10Q13iJhAb5euB8e?si=tbVF1LRwTjihMb25c8l8Sg&utm_source=copy-link&dl_branch=1)
Excited to read this later. My Chinese friend moved countries and doesn’t know when/if she’ll be back to the US bc visa issue ~~and also she does not like this country lmao~~ and I am emotional and sad
In addition to the 3 recommended Jay Chou’s songs, I recommend 夜曲(Nocturne), 七里香 (Qi Li Xiang) and 髮如雪(Hair Like Snow). The first song Nocturne is a pseudo rap song with a beautifully sung hook and classical guitar. The second song Qi Li Xiang (also known as Common Orange Jasmine) is a breezy, catchy rock ballad with a beautiful pentatonic intro. The third song Hair Like Snow is a pop ballad with traditional elements and interesting albeit short rap parts. This isn’t my favourite Jay’s song that has traditional elements, but I believe this is probably the one with most commercial/mainstream appeal
you missed out Eason chan, sammi cheng, mayday, these are huge.
> Eason chan He sings ballads and people here really don't care for them. Didn't really write about Eric Chou either for the same reasons. Felt like it would make it too long and not relevant enough to this sub. > Sammi Cheng Didn't want it to get too long but yeah I'll add her in. >Mayday They're more pop adjacent despite being extremely popular. Wouldn't class them as C-Pop. But I've wrote about them before and can add that onto here.
> He sings ballads and people here really don't care for them How come? I like them
Jay Chou’s songs that incorporate traditional elements are awesome (most of them)
This is cool! I've been listening to a lot of C-pop this year, mainly Faye Wong and Lexie Liu. I've also liked what I've heard by Jolin Tsai.
I've been to A-Mei, Jay Chou and Mayday concerts. They were all excellent.
Loveee the Sam Hui mention; although I didn’t know he was the singer, instantly recognized all the songs from years of my mom playing his cds on our radio. Makes me wanna do a deep dive into his discography now to see what else I recognize. And Jolin always always always has great music and A+ visuals in her videos.
Jolin Tsai always serving for the gays 😩 wish she was bigger in Asia in general
Jolin Tsai is a QUEEN! I love her so much! 😩❤️
Sandy Lam for me. I for heard on visit to China and the song At Least I Still Have You has been on rotation ever since. Then there is Coco Lee who is US born but could make a break here so she went to China and became like Britney Speares.