Each week for city scenes we take a look at the music scene of a different city around the world. We listen to some of the most famous artists from that city as well as checking some of the most exciting upcoming bands that are currently playing in the city. We’re moving through the alphabet each week, this week for the letter H we’re in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong is a city in the south east of China. Home to 7.5 million people, it is one of the most densely populated areas in the world. It’s also a global financial and transport hub making it one of the most dynamic and developed cities in the world.
When it comes to music the most popular genre amongst locals is something called Canto-pop or cantonese pop. This is a very modern form of pop music sung in cantonese with hugely popular boy bands and girl bands like Mirror and Collar, occupying a similar cultural presence in Kong Kong as the big stars of K-pop in korea. Mirror are one of the biggest Canto-pop groups in the world, not just in popularity, there’s are 12 members in the band.
In this episode we listen to some of the music being made in Hong Kong’s indie, rock and Bedroom Pop scenes.
Lucid Express are a 5-piece from hong kong that make indie shoegaze and dream pop music. They’ve managed to gather a large following both in hong kong and around the world and have already toured in the US and the UK.
Shoegaze and Dream Pop are popular genres in Hong Kong's underground music scene. Other bands that subscribe to the same sound identity include Bad Math, Science Noodles and Bedroom Party.
Science Noodles formed as a band when the lead singer matched with the guitarist on tinder whilst they were visiting Taiwan from Hong Kong. They’re now both based in Hong Kong and with the helo of a full band they’re gathering a considerable local following.
If you were in Hong Kong for a night and wanted to watch some live music, you’d have plenty of options. The City has a host of small to medium live music venues that have local bands playing most nights of the week. Some of the notable ones are called the Aftermath, Terrible Baby and the Wanch. Otherwise. If you wanted to catch a bunch of great bands at once, you could try and time your visit to coincide with the annual Clockenflap open air festival which showcases the best of the city’s upandcoming pop and indie bands and artists next to international headliners.
As you can probably imagine from such a huge and international metropolitan city, hong kong has a great nightlife and electronic music scene. Bedroom Party make music that still has a bit of the dreamy shoe gaze sound that seems to be a bit of a thing in hong kong but with a bit of of electronic dance energy to it too.
For next week’s city scene we’ll be on the letter I and we’re looking at Istanbul