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"In front of this young man, Hong Kong's pop music creators ought to feel ashamed!"
The lengthy title carried a strong tone of criticism. As soon as this long blog post appeared on Hong Kong Island Blog, it immediately attracted attention from many people outside the entertainment circle, who began reposting and commenting on it one after another.
This was because the blogger who posted it was a very famous music critic on Hong Kong Island Blog, South China Sea Madman.
No one knew the South China Sea Madman's real identity, making him quite mysterious. But one thing was certain: he had to be an insider in Hong Kong's pop music scene, familiar with the industry's inner workings and rules, and his critiques of local singers were famously sharp.
What had made him famous was precisely his venomous tongue.
His attacks on Hong Kong's pop music scene and on popular singers were merciless, never holding back in the slightest. There had even once been a singer who was reportedly scolded by him so badly that they nearly committed suicide.
A figure like that naturally had countless enemies, so within Hong Kong's unique social environment, keeping his identity secret was both natural and necessary.
However, South China Sea Madman's harsh criticism wasn't the kind of insulting personal attack aimed at humiliating people. His focus was always on musical issues, criticizing unhealthy trends in the music industry and singers' lack of professional skill and standards. His attacks were always directed at actual problems.
Precisely because of this, South China Sea Madman had amassed over 500,000 followers on Hong Kong Island Blog.
Many fans would first check his reviews before buying a singer's album. If his evaluation was too poor, they simply wouldn't buy it.
On the other hand, if a new album earned a "thumbs-up" from South China Sea Madman on his blog, it would often drive a significant boost in sales, attracting followers who trusted his judgment.
His rating system was unique:
One thumbs-up meant approval and praise.
Two thumbs-up meant highly recommended and absolutely not to be missed.
And above all was the highest honor: the Star of Admiration.
In over a decade of blogging, he had given out no more than ten albums with two thumbs-up, while the Star of Admiration had appeared only twice before. Both corresponding albums had sold over a million copies and became massive hits in Hong Kong.
As a result, many Hong Kong singers both loved, hated, and feared this eccentric critic.
Everyone wanted to see South China Sea Madman give their work a thumbs-up.
But what they feared most was receiving a thumbs-down instead, that represented ruthless contempt and mockery.
Yet in this blog post, South China Sea Madman did something unprecedented: he awarded a third Star of Admiration to a single person and a single song, and used that as a launching point to fiercely criticize Hong Kong's pop music creators!
That person and song were none other than Lu Chen and his performance of "Favorite in Life" at La Dolce Vita 97.
The blog reposted the most popular clip from the [Pop Music] section of Hong Kong Island Forum, a video of Lu Chen's live guitar-and-vocal performance.
South China Sea Madman then gave a detailed analysis of what made "Favorite in Life" so outstanding, arguing that it was one of the finest Cantonese works of the past decade, a masterpiece fully capable of becoming a classic.
What filled him with pain and indignation was that this excellent Cantonese song had actually come from the hands of a Mainland musician who had only just arrived in Hong Kong.
And not just that, this was a young man with only a little over a year since debut, and with no formal music education background.
In the face of such a gifted young talent, Hong Kong's pop music creators ought to feel ashamed.
Because after the older generation of songwriters gradually retired or passed away, these newer creators had failed to inherit their predecessors' technical mastery, artistic integrity, or personal style. Instead, they had become obsessed with quick success, vanity, impatience, and superficiality.
Without a heart that truly loves music, it is impossible to create good works.
Many of Hong Kong's music creators had grown accustomed to a "borrow-and-copy" mentality. Plagiarism, imitation, and trend-chasing of European, American, Japanese, and Korean music were rampant. Some would even directly take foreign hit songs, rewrite the lyrics, and release cover versions, severely crushing the efforts and dreams of those who were genuinely dedicated to original creation.
What was laughable was that quite a few people within the entertainment industry were fully aware that if things continued like this, Hong Kong pop music would sooner or later collapse, or degenerate into a haven of knockoff music.
And yet, no one was willing to truly work to change any of it.
Instead, people muddled through day by day, going with the flow, causing the status of songwriters in the pop music scene to sink lower and lower, creating a vicious cycle.
Many of the so-called new idol singers couldn't sing properly once they stepped out of the recording studio. Even their concerts required lip-syncing, while all sorts of so-called trendy new musical styles ran rampant, creating a chaotic mess in Hong Kong's music scene.
Yet even under such terrible circumstances, many industry insiders were still immersed in the glory of the past, nostalgically clinging to the golden era of the 1980s and 1990s, completely forgetting that more than a decade had already passed in the new century.
If you fail to keep up with the times, you are bound to be abandoned by them!
And through this original Cantonese masterpiece, "Favorite in Life," Lu Chen had shown everyone the talent, capability, and attitude toward pop music possessed by Mainland China's new generation of musicians.
This song was like a slap across the faces of those entertainment insiders who mocked and looked down on Mainland pop music, making them realize that today's Hong Kong pop music scene no longer had anything left worth being proud of.
They ought to feel ashamed.
They ought to wake up!
South China Sea Madman's blog post was extremely long, spanning several thousand words. In addition to praising and extolling "Favorite in Life," it fiercely criticized the chaos and disorder in Hong Kong's music scene, directly aiming its fire at the creators themselves.
Hong Kong's entertainment industry was highly developed. Decades of prosperity and flourishing had produced a large number of professionals. Although it had now declined, there were still many pop music creators and singers around.
And Hong Kong Island Blog was undoubtedly the most important battleground of public opinion among Hong Kong's online new media.
Most people in the entertainment industry had their own blogs and fanbases, and updating or browsing blogs had become part of their daily routine.
With South China Sea Madman openly slapping people in the face like this, very few of those who had been hit in a sore spot were willing to swallow their anger in silence.
Naturally, they launched sharp counterattacks on their own blogs, directly refuting his remarks.
South China Sea Madman might have had a mysterious identity, but he was far from isolated on Hong Kong Island Blog. He had a large group of supportive followers, and in the face of the surging backlash, they refused to back down and fiercely fought back.
Blog posts and comment threads from both sides refreshed nonstop, with the intensity of attacks growing stronger and stronger.
And Lu Chen, whom South China Sea Madman had turned into a powerful rhetorical weapon, along with "Favorite in Life," unsurprisingly became the target of concentrated fire.
All kinds of doubts, belittlement, and mockery poured in continuously.
Quite a few people, carrying their prejudices against the Mainland, insisted that "Favorite in Life" could not possibly be Lu Chen's original work. They believed he must have plagiarized or adapted it from somewhere else.
It was just that no one had found any evidence yet.
This conflict quickly spread from blogs to forums, drawing in large numbers of ordinary netizens into the debate.
And so, while Lu Chen himself remained completely unaware, he suddenly became famous.
Famous across Hong Kong's internet.
At the same time, South China Sea Madman had also dragged a mountain of hostility onto himself.
You could say he got hit by stray bullets while just lying there!
(End of Chapter)