Indiepop lovers of my acquaintance are nearly all Asian. That makes it tricky talking about sonics; I don't favour the sonic markers of indiepop because they sound indie, and I suspect that holds as a generalization.
This was my favorite Cpop song in, say, '98?
And this in... '05 iirc (Stefanie Sun is Singaporean):
Both of these were huge mainstream hits. Not everything these artists have done is like this; it's a sound that's generally adopted for the first album or two of a female singer-songwriter, when both she and her putative audience are young and, dare I say it, "cute".
This is Hong Kong indiepop (as in, a well known indie band on an indie label), which sounds just like Western indiepop - my point is that the vocal style (in particular) and lyrics (although I haven't discussed them) are not nearly as far off the Chinese radio pop mainstream as they would be off the Western radio pop mainstream:
Artists like Feist or Carla Bruni sell very well in China.
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This was my favorite Cpop song in, say, '98?
And this in... '05 iirc (Stefanie Sun is Singaporean):
Both of these were huge mainstream hits. Not everything these artists have done is like this; it's a sound that's generally adopted for the first album or two of a female singer-songwriter, when both she and her putative audience are young and, dare I say it, "cute".
This is Hong Kong indiepop (as in, a well known indie band on an indie label), which sounds just like Western indiepop - my point is that the vocal style (in particular) and lyrics (although I haven't discussed them) are not nearly as far off the Chinese radio pop mainstream as they would be off the Western radio pop mainstream:
Artists like Feist or Carla Bruni sell very well in China.