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Cantonese classical music especially were usually much livelier in pace and happier than those of other China provinces which is typical and the very essence of the Cantonese's character. In Guangdong, there are numerous traditional genres of music such as Teochew music and Hakka music (Hakka Hanyue and sixian ).
Canto-pop, also called HK-pop, is a genre of Cantonese music made primarily in Hong Kong. It is a pop subgenre, with influences from jazz, rock and roll, R&B, electronic music, dance music, and others. It is almost invariably sung in Cantonese, boasting an international fanbase across Guangzhou, Guangxi, Southeast Asia, and (to a lesser extent ...
During the late 1960s and 1970s, Mandarin pop songs were getting more and more popular and became the mainstream of Hong Kong pop. [6] In the 1970s, Hong Kong audiences wanted popular music in their own dialect, Cantonese. Also, a Cantonese song Tai siu yan yun (啼笑姻緣) became the first theme song of a TV drama.
The tradition then moved to Hong Kong and reached its height from the 1950s to the late 1960s, when it was replaced by Taiwanese pop (sung in Mandarin) and later Cantopop (Cantonese popular music). While it is considered a prototype, music enthusiasts may see it as an early version of Mandopop (Mandarin popular music). [citation needed]
Western-influenced music first came to China in the 1920s, specifically through Shanghai. [7] Artists like Zhou Xuan (周璇) acted in films and recorded popular songs.. When the People's Republic of China was established by the Chinese Communist Party in 1949, one of the first actions taken by the government was to denounce pop music (specifically Western pop) as decadent music. [7]
Scholars say it is closer to ancient Chinese than Mandarin is — a Tang Dynasty poem would sound more like the original if read in Cantonese. The two languages share a common writing system.
In English, the term "Cantonese" can be ambiguous. "Cantonese" as used to refer to the language native to the city of Canton, which is the traditional English name of Guangzhou, was popularized by An English and Cantonese Pocket Dictionary (1859), a bestseller by the missionary John Chalmers. [6]
Because of its tradition of usage in music, cinema, literature and newspapers, this form of Cantonese is a cultural mark of identity that distinguishes Cantonese people from speakers of other varieties of Chinese, whose languages are prohibited to have strong influences under China's Standard Mandarin policy.