KAREN CARPENTER'S POSTHUMOUS CONQUEST OF CHINA

           SR has devoted many posts to documenting the undervalued legacy of the Carpenters, the sibling musical duo (Karen and Richard) who were the leading American pop recording artists of the 1970's -- and, during the period of 1973-75, probably the most successful pop/rock recording artists in the world.  Apart from the fact that the Carpenters' story is simply a significant piece of 20th Century cultural history, the derogatory treatment of their music and legacy by elements of America's cultural cognoscenti (e.g., the group's perverse exclusion from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame) has motivated SR to refute the false assumptions and biases behind that mistreatment.

            An ironic aspect of this story is the glaring contrast between the disparaging treatment of the Carpenters by critics and hipsters in the U.S., even while the duo and their music have enjoyed sustained popularity and great stature on the global level. 

            The Carpenters ' legacy remains especially strong in Japan and the United Kingdom (the second and third largest music markets in the world), where their albums have enjoyed strong sales well into the 21^st century and where a remarkably large number of television documentaries (on both BBC and NHK) have been devoted to Richard and Karen's musical history, especially the latter.  As previously documented here, the Carpenters' enduring popularity is also particularly strong in the countries of East Asia, most notably the Philippines, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Thailand, Singapore, and, as we elaborate below, the People's Republic of China (PRC).

            Further evidence of the Carpenters' sustained global impact is found in albums devoted to their music by contemporary artists from all points of the globe.  Dami Im, the Korean-born Australian sensation of the 2016 Eurovision song contest, recorded an album aptly entitled "Classic Carpenters," which reached No. 3 on the Aussie charts and sold strongly in South Korea as well.  In Brazil, popular songstress Isabella Taviani released a tribute album called "Carpenters Avenue" in 2016.  And in 2009, a cohort of top Japanese pop/rock artists recorded yet another Carpenters' tribute album called "Yesterday Once More – Tribute to the Carpenters."

            Yet the most extraordinary and significant example of the Carpenters' international impact is found in, of all places, the People's Republic of China.

                                             

       

     Deng opened the airwaves and Karen's voice came floating into China

          SR has previously explored this subject.  It initially drew our attention as something of a piquant cultural anomaly.  Who would imagine, after all, that the pop tunes produced by a pair of unsophisticated Southern California suburban siblings in the 1970's would come to captivate the masses in a country and a culture literally world's away from Downey, California?  Yet that is exactly what occurred, in the midst of China's emergence from the cultural dark ages of the Maoist Era and its soul-crushing Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.

            Unfortunately, the paucity of hard data on internal developments in China during the immediate post-Maoist era -- let alone data on an esoteric topic like the introduction of Western popular music -- has made it difficult to document the impact of the Carpenters music in China with much specificity.  Because SR believes that impact has genuine historical and cultural significance – after all, reliable Chinese sources have gone so far as to assert that "Karen Carpenter was the beginning of the [cultural] opening of China" – this post attempts to document Karen and the Carpenters' musical conquest of the world's largest nation with the best available information (mostly culled from Internet postings). 

            This extensive information establishes that the Carpenters, and especially their global hit song, "Yesterday Once More," were the most popular and influential sources of Western music in China for a period of at least 25 years – i.e., roughly 1985 to 2010.  Outlined below is a chronological documentation of the background and progression of this remarkable cross-cultural phenomenon, and its surprising effect on the world's largest nation.

      Karen Carpenter sings "Yesterday Once More" at Tokyo's Budokan, 1974

1973 – Hits in Hong Kong

            By 1973, the Carpenters were firmly established as pop superstars, and their popularity had extended internationally to such countries as the UK, Japan, and Australia.  In that same year, the Carpenters achieved an enormous breakthrough in several East Asian markets, notably Malaysia, Singapore, and especially Hong Kong.  As documented in Billboard magazine's periodic listing of international pop charts, no less than three Carpenters' singles reached No. 1 on the Hong Kong hit parade in 1973:  I Won't Last a Day Without You (No. 1 for 6 weeks!); Sing; and Yesterday Once More.  At that time, Hong Kong was still a British Crown Colony and thus not part of Chinese sovereignty.  Nonetheless, its population was overwhelmingly Chinese.  It is fair to say that the Carpenters' early success in Hong Kong presaged their subsequent popularity in Mainland China years later.

1976 – End of the Cultural Revolution and Death of Mao

            Starting around 1966, China had been immersed in the political, social, and cultural madness of Mao Zedong's Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution (GPCR).  While hordes of fanatical Red Guards ran rampant brandishing Mao's Little Red Book, much of the nation was forcibly preoccupied with abject subservience to the demands of the Maoists as a matter of mere survival.  The only forms of music or other entertainment allowed were those which extolled Maoism and the GPCR, such as the militant anthem, "The East is Red," or the "Communist Internationale."  Under the iron hand of Mao's wife and PRC cultural dictator, Jiang Qing, China was purged of all Western cultural influences, including even classical music.

            By 1976, the GPCR had run its course, and Jiang Qing and her leading GPCR cohorts (notoriously known as "The Gang of Four") were themselves purged.  The ban on Western classical music was lifted, although it would be years (see below) before China's gates were opened wider to accept various forms of contemporary and popular Western music.

            1976 also saw the death of Chairman Mao himself, which would clear the way for a more pragmatic and permissive group of leaders to assume power in China.

1978-1982:  The Reforms of Deng Xiaoping.

            Around 1978, the historical Chinese pragmatist, Deng Xiaoping, began to assume de facto leadership of the PRC (he never assumed the highest titular leadership posts, but preferred to lead from the background).  Under Deng's pragmatic reform programs, the totalitarian control of all aspects of life imposed by Mao was substantially reduced.  In particular, communist economic doctrine was jettisoned in favor of a system that not only permitted, but encouraged, a considerable amount of capitalism, free enterprise, and profit-seeking.  Although Deng's reforms did not extend to the purely political realm (i.e., China remained a strictly one-party state), they did abandon the Maoist's harsh restrictions on the entry of Western culture, including popular music.  It is evident, however, that most Western music probably entered China through unofficial, irregular back-channels, rather than through orthodox commercial transactions.

1983:  The Untimely Death of Karen Carpenter.

            After a lengthy struggle with the then little-known eating disorder, anorexia nervosa, Karen Carpenter died on February 4, 1983.  Among the many tragic aspects of Karen's early death was that she never lived to realize the enormous global impact of the beautiful music that she and her brother, Richard, had given the world.

               

1984:  Success of YOM Album in Hong Kong and first infiltration into Mainland China; UK/PRC Agreement for Reversion of Hong Kong

                In October, 1984, A&M Records released a commemorative 2-disc Carpenters album entitled "Yesterday Once More," after the hit single of that name that was also the lead-off song on the album.  The album was an international success.  As shown on Wikipedia's entry on the album, it was certified Platinum in the U.S., Japan, the UK, and, curiously, "China."  The source listed for the Platinum certification in China was BPI, the British Phonographic Industry.  It is highly doubtful, however, that BPI would be in any position to certify sales of the YOM album in China itself;  in 1984, it is highly doubtful that there were regular commercial sales of Western recordings in China at all, let alone any systematic tracking or ranking of such sales.  It is pretty clear, therefore, that BPI's reference to the Platinum certification of YOM for "China" really referred to Hong Kong, which was then still a British Colony.

            Nonetheless, it is quite probable that the popularity of the YOM album in Hong Kong led to its infiltration into Mainland China, which was then lowering the barriers to such foreign cultural imports.  This proposition is reinforced by the appearance of reports (see below) that the Carpenters' music, and YOM in particular, had achieved great popularity in Mainland China by the mid-1980's, i.e., around 1985.

            A related major event of 1984 was the Sino-UK Joint Declaration, whereby the UK committed to the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty by 1997.  The inescapable reality of Hong Kong's forthcoming reversion to China undoubtedly opened the door to increased interchange of commerce, products, and culture (including musical recordings) between Hong Kong and the PRC.

1985/Mid-1980's:  Carpenters and YOM lead Western songs gaining popularity in China.

            An article published in the Shanghai Star in 2002, discussing the mid-1980's period when Western music was just gaining increased entry into China, reported as follows:

                        "The first foreign voice that captivated the Chinese audience was Karen Carpenter.  College students recorded her songs from one tape to another, spreading her voice further and further.  A widely-used English language teaching textbook even took one of her songs as a listening text."  Pop Rhythm Rolls On, Shanghai Star (Jan 3, 2002) [emphasis added].

            In 1988, an article posted on the LAT web archive stated:    "[In China], John Denver and Karen Carpenter are bigger stars than the Rolling Stones."  P. Goldstein, China's Age of Innocence in Rock (Nov. 13, 1988).

            An article published in 2004 in the Chinese Business Newspaper Weekend Standard contained an especially authoritative testimonial to the origins of the Carpenters' (especially Karen's) popularity in China.  The article opened with the following:

                        "If I were a Carpenter I'd be bigger than the Beatles in China.   Way bigger. . . .  When I'm on the mainland not a day goes by that I don't hear some version of Yesterday Once More, or as most Chinese seem to call it, 'Sha-la-la,' in reference to the chorus."

            The article's author was an American cynic who was completely puzzled by the Carpenters' popularity, so he consulted a knowledgeable Chinese-American musician and reporter named Kaiser Kuo, an expert on (and participant in) the growth of modern Western music in China.  Mr. Kuo completely demolished the author's anti-Carpenter assumptions, explaining as follows:

                        "[The Carpenters] dwarf the Beatles in popularity.  Part of it is simply that The Carpenters Greatest Hits was about all there was back then. . . . That and some old John Denver that they could legally distribute.

                        "Yesterday Once More is the first tune on that compilation, and while Carpenters connoisseurs might prefer Rainy Days and Mondays or Superstar, that was the tune that really stuck with people.

                        "That aside, people in China uniformly love Karen's deep, sultry voice.  It stood out then and stands out now as something totally unlike the vocal stylings of any Chinese singer.  The very simple melodies are also appealing.  My very cool, very hip friends who listen to metal, to hardcore hip-hop, to whatever, still profess a love for the Carpenters and can't imagine that they're sort of a joke to most Westerners."  Every sha-la-la-la Still Grinds, Weekend Standard (Nov. 6-7, 2004) [emphasis added].

            A 2008 article by a UC Irvine professor named Jeffrey Wesserstrom outlined his Top Five List of what he considered the "Weirdest Rock Music Moments with Chinese Characteristics."  No. 2 on this list was, "The Carpenters hit it big in China in the mid-1980's," as to which he noted, "[T]heir music seems to have had even greater staying power than [John] Denver's."  (Author's Note:  John Denver is generally recognized, along with the Carpenters, as the most popular Western recording artists in China during the introductory post-Maoist years.)

1998:  Newsweek's Shanghai article; remarkable testimony of Yu Lei.

            In 1998, Newsweek magazine published an article entitle The Rebirth of Shanghai as part of its report on "The New China."  The article featured the remarks of one Yu Lei, who was then a 29-year-old reporter for the Shanghai Star.  Mr. Yu's recollections are worth recording at some length:

                        "When he [Mr. Yu] was a kid, he recalls, Western arts and media were still banned in China, so one of his teachers recorded an American song off the shortwave radio.  Huddling the students behind closed doors, and warning them not to tell anyone, the teacher wrote the lyrics on the blackboard and taught the class to sing along.  It was dangerously exciting, the lure of forbidden fruit.  But what struck Yu most was the sweetness of the melody, the purity of the singer's voice.  The singer was Karen Carpenter, who shortly became one of the first Western performers sanctioned in China.  Years later, as the Filipino band at the Gap shinga-linga-lings into the Carpenters' Yesterday Once More, Yu can still hear the sweet strains of revolution.  Karen Carpenter, he declares, "was the beginning of the opening of China."

            Jan. 14, 1998:  A Chinese internet posting of this date lists YOM as the No. 1 all-time Western song in China.  Numerous other unofficial internet postings by Chinese bloggers similarly list YOM as the No. 1 English language song favored by the Chinese.  E.g., Pa Mak Recommended: the most classic of Ten English Language Songs (March 23, 2014); Top 10 English Songs favored by Chinese (July 7, 2009).

2003:  Karen Carpenter "is insanely popular" in China.

            An Internet blog posted in September 2003, "The Road to China, Ch. 4, Moon Festival," included the following commentary on the state of then contemporary music trends in China:

                        "[T]he airwaves here are filled with a mix of classical and modern Chinese music, all of which, as a whole, is the most beautiful music one can hear on any continent.  About the only American artists that I encounter consistently are the Back Street Boys, N Sync, and Karen Carpenter (who is insanely popular even now).  [emphasis added].

2004:  Chinese music-lovers "revere the Carpenters."

            Novelist Donald Gallinger noted as follows in an October, 2004, journal entry, included in his article, Memoirs of China:  The Chinese and Karen Carpenter (Apr. 4, 2009):

                        "The Chinese people all know Western pop music.  But they particularly revere the Carpenters and it is not unusual to hear 'Yesterday Once More' booming out of the shopping mall sound systems.  I cannot tell you the number of times I've heard that song swirling around restaurants and bars. . . . [I]t is also not unusual for Chinese youth to begin singing along with the Carpenters."

2005:  YOM is Embedded in Everyday Chinese Cultural References

            A report on the women's badminton competition in China's 10^th National Games in the Oct. 8, 2005, edition of Xinhuanet (Kunshan, East China), illustrates how YOM is so well known in China that reporters assume that casual references to the song will be immediately understood by Chinese readers.  The report included the following such references:  "If Hunan wins over Guangdong, it could only remind people of Karen Carpenter's famous song 'Yesterday Once More.' . . . The biggest hurdle preventing Hunan singing 'Yesterday Once More' happily would be the question of injuries on 'old' top players."

2007:  The China Drive Survey; a Critical Cynic's Astonishment

            In 2007, the popular Chinese radio station China Drive conducted a survey asking listeners to name the first foreign song they recall hearing in China.  Well over 50% of the listeners responded that the Carpenters' Yesterday Once More was that song.  China has a population of about 1.4 billion people.  If the China Drive survey was in any way representative of the nation, the number of Chinese people who have heard and recalled YOM is indeed enormous.

            That same year, an anti-Carpenter cynic who taught college classes in China ruefully acknowledged the Carpenters' enormous popularity there, even while deploring it.  The Country That Taste Forgot (Internet blog, March 30, 2007).  The author reported that YOM, John Denver's Country Roads, and the Eagles' Hotel California were the most popular songs in China; that his students loved YOM; and that the Carpenters' music was ubiquitous in the town where he taught.

2009:  The Carpenters are revered in Mainland China.

            An American blogger in Beijing, A. E. Perkins, confirmed the Carpenters' continued popularity and stature in China some 25 years after their music's initial entry.  A. E. Perkins, China and the Carpenters, Beijing Review (Oct. 15, 2009).  As Perkins wrote:

                        "If there is something about mainland China which I never expected before, and absolutely amazes me now, it is the connection its citizens have with the music of the Carpenters. . . .  I encounter evidence almost every day that mainland Chinese have a special place in their minds and hearts for Richard and Karen Carpenter."

            Noting that the Carpenters originally became the top-selling musical act in the U.S. back in the 1970s, Perkins added:  "That makes it all the more remarkable that they are so revered in mainland China."

2010:  Carpenters Tribute Band is Hottest Ticket in Beijing and Shanghai.

                                                                             

   Laurie Briggs of the Karpenters tribute band that drew huge crowds in China                                     
            So-called tribute bands, who give concerts attempting to duplicate or approximate the sound and look of legendary rock bands of the past, have enjoyed considerable success in the U.S., the UK, Canada, and various countries in East Asia.  There have been quite a few Carpenters tribute bands in recent years, probably the most prominent of which is a UK-based group styling themselves The Karpenters.  One internet blog reported as follows on the enormous success of this group's Carpenters tribute shows in Beijing, Hong Kong, and Shanghai, where they reportedly outdrew Whitney Houston.  Tribute Act are Big Stars in China (March 1, 2010):

                        "[I]t has taken just one gig to make the Karpenters hot property with the Chinese public.  Such is the clamor in the Far East for tickets to see Laurie Briggs perform as her alter-ego Karen Carpenter, the Pudsey-born singer is now out-selling Whitney Houston.

                        "Laurie, along with Jason Scott, aka Richard Carpenter, and six other members of the act will sell out massive venues in the country's major cities.  They fly out in April for a ten-date televised tour which takes them to Beijing and Shanghai.

                        "Their big break comes after they played at the Hong Kong Convention Center in November to a capacity 5,500 audience – a feat U.S. diva Whitney Houston could not get near.  Laurie told the YEP:  'We were told that Whitney struggled to sell half as many tickets when she performed at the same venue. . . .  It just goes to show how much the people over there love the Carpenters that a tribute act can attract so much attention.

                        "The Carpenters have long been revered by people of all ages in China and the Far East."

            Another contemporaneous internet report confirmed the enormous success of this same Carpenters tribute band and the Carpenters continuing popularity in China (Gig of the Year, Froog's Blog (May 12, 2010; emphasis in original):

                        "Long ago, I remarked upon this country's strange obsession with Karen Carpenter.  She was one of only a handful of Western music stars to get any exposure in China in the 1970s, and is probably the one most fondly revered to this day (it's a tossup between her and John Denver).  Hence, the May Day visit to Beijing of English cover band The Karpenters was the most anticipated gig of the year (decade, millennium) for many local music fans, and the tickets were therefore stratospherically expensive."

2013:  YOM Still on Top.

            An Internet posting of Feb. 19, 2013, by one Yansong Sun, discussed the remarkable continued popularity in China of John Denver's "Country Roads" and the Eagles' "Hotel California."  He then clarified, however, that YOM (along with "Say You, Say Me") was even more popular and remained one of the two "most popular English songs in China."

2015:  Carpenters and the Terracotta Warriors in Xi'An.

            Author Charles Cottle provides a fitting conclusion for this history with an article recording his 2015  visit to Xi'An in Central China to see the famous Terracotta Warriors statues (some 8,000 of them!).  C. Cottle, Karen Carpenter and the Terracotta Warriors, Century Life (Internet blog, Aug. 8, 2015).  He records his experience having breakfast at his Xi'An hotel when the staff thoughtfully turned on some background music they thought he would enjoy – none other than the Carpenters' YOM.  Cottle recalled:

                        "On hearing Karen Carpenter sing these lyrics, I sat transfixed.

                        "Several years have passed since I sat atop that hotel listening to Karen Carpenter sing while I gazed over the city of Xi'An.  Yet the passage of time has not erased the connection between her and the terracotta warriors.  If I think of her, I think of them.  In my mind they are forever linked.  And whenever I see images of the cold-faced, yet life-like, terracotta warriors, I am immediately reminded of the sweet, sweet voice of Karen Carpenter."

                                                ***

          There are many more similar reports and stories documenting the story of the Carpenters musical "conquest" of China, but the reader has probably seen enough.  Although much of the evidence is informal and unofficial, the diversity and broad time-range of these testimonials confirm the fact:  the Carpenters' music, particularly YOM, was the most popular and influential pop music in the world's largest nation during a period of roughly 25 years (1985-2010) -- i.e., the period when Western music gained a foothold in China in the wake of the repressive Maoist era.

          Some may consider all this merely esoteric cultural trivia, of no great significance.  Others, however, may agree with SR that the impact of the Carpenters' music in China was indeed quite significant for many reasons, including the following:

          1.  It brought an infusion of refreshing musical sunshine to millions of people who had lived under the stifling cloud of Maoist repression for some 50 years.

          2.  It made a notable contribution to the overall liberalizing influence of Western culture that helped nudge China in the direction of a more open and permissive society (outside the strictly political realm).

          3.  It supports the proposition that music which is tuneful, melodious, and harmonic, especially when sung by an especially beautiful voice, has greater universal appeal across national, linguistic, and cultural barriers than fad or esoteric "message" music (like rap, grunge, or acid rock), the appeal of which is often "lost in translation."

          4.  It reinforces the Carpenters' status as one of the most popular and influential musical groups of the 20th Century on the global or international level.