If only the Hong Kong music scene could take a leaf from the city’s food and beverage business- but, then again, perhaps they’re singing off the same boring page.
Hong Kong’s Cantonese music comes in two forms- turgid ballads and bouncy Hello Kitty-type Pop with the singers trying oh-so-hard to be cute and every one of them striking the same pose- even the guys: The cheesy victory salute and smile with the head half-cocked.
Compare this with Hong Kong food and beverage business where there is almost TOO MUCH variety.
I was skimming through 48 Hrs, the free entertainment guide that comes with the South China Morning Post, and had to put it down.
There were just too many reviews of restaurants and bars and just too many articles by Susan Jung- a very good writer but she must be writing for 48 hours straight.
After a while, it all becomes as jumbled and tedious as the thought of listening to a two-hour Michael Chugani Special with that high-pitched sing-song voice screeching over his guests.
Anyway, after that commercial break, what we have are just two servings as Canto-Pop smear and with even a smidgen of difference hailed as “radical” whereas consumers are spoilt for choice with at least a dozen similar restaurants serving the same type of food. Only the prices are changed for “originality”.
How many different Minced Pork Plad from a stream of similar Thai restaurants can a tiny city like Hong Kong take?
Not many and which is why I keep recommending Tangerine in Peel Street.
It has a different take on serving Thai food- and does it extremely well.
In the end, like Cantonese “contemporary” music, all the samey same restaurants and bars are just too much of the same thing and, as a business, with way too many going to waste. It’s as stupidly wasteful as Facebook updates.
Who cares what the fuck is new with you and what you might like?
Like a restaurant, one or two artists might make it- for a while ‘cos of hype- while the others will plod along like lost puppies.
Why? No creativity, too much copying and simply giving the consumer more and more of the same when they simply can’t stomach any more of it. It’s like force feeding a fat kid.
It’s also like listening to Jacky Cheung warble another of his ponderous ballads which has become the Hong Kong Tourist Association’s new theme song for their bizarre @Happy Hong Kong campaign.
New? Jacky Cheung probably sings songs like this while sitting on his loo.
It’s another example of the lack of creativity in Mainstream Hong Kong and with way too much of the same damn things- like those stream of unconsciousness restaurant reviews in 48 Hrs and way too much Susan Jungism.
Rein it in, Hong Kong. Don’t just blindly go where everyone else is going without an end game plan in place.
Hong Kong is too damn expensive to wing it and see what happens. It’s a bad punt.
Again, as with many other businesses in Hong Kong, it comes down to the same old names creating the same old things which are copies by newbies thinking this is how it should be and consumers being able to pick, choose, ignore and leave Hong Kong to really get away from the same old crap.
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