The New Asia Based Contest - Discussion

[escYOUnited]

It was about time to make it happen on our forum, so let's go

 

[Ana Raquel]

And btw about the changes:
- I really like the current name, but it's up to you guys. We can't do this contest without you anyway.
- I personally don't mind at all to remove the European countries.
- I'm pro Oceania taking part by the way. However, Australia and New Zealand would be out + I'd like to keep the dependent territories out as well (which would mean, for example: Samoa in, American Samoa out).

 

[hawadharma]

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I wasn't in the best, let's say, mood and I think it wouldn't be the best time to actually say anything.

Let's give you a bit of context on how this idea started and a bit of my experience in several contests from many forums, communities and Facebook groups.

In these contests, I usually choose entries from the Asian continent because I've grown up with some of these songs - being an anime fan since I was 5, having played many rhythm games from Japan and South Korea in my childhood and teenage years, searching for Middle Eastern songs because I wanted to learn Arabic. Even if I live literally on the other side of the world, I've had a huge connection with the music scene for so long now.

The thing is: in every single contest (no exceptions) I've been in, Asian entries did better the more "westernized" they sounded like. And I'm not the only one who realized that. When commenting that with some people who also plays with Asian countries (and even some who don't) agreed on that statement. I have complained about this many times on our plug nights (Uto and Kai can confirm this). I can even share some examples:
- I'm part of a contest called Eurasia Song Contest (I'm in charge of Japan since edition 1). 10 editions in and not a single Asian country has won. And we've sent plenty of good songs. I've got two top 10s this far (including a 2nd place). However, both entries were, by far, the one that could have been sung by any mainstream western artist (one of them was a girl group whose song could be totally sung by Little Mix; while the other one even had Ariana Grande comparisons). I mean, I still love both, but when you see the other entries getting bottoms or being stuck in the semi when they are far from being bad is always. :/
- There is another contest where Japan, China and South Korea only and only qualified when they "sounded western". If they didn't, it was always a bottom in the semi. It happened with pop songs, rock songs, folk songs... I've got a good result with Japan once... with the same group that has songs that could have been sent by Little Mix.
- Even within Asian competitions, I can see a pattern of the ones of bigger music industry doing better and some countries from the same region doing better than others (eg. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan get better results than Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan; India does better than Pakistan and Bangladesh; Thailand and Vietnam are more successful than Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, etc). We hope that the rotation rule for these countries with a bigger industry can make this kind of situation be avoided.
- There are some comments made towards these countries' entries in other contests that made me feel pretty much ????. Let's take two examples. Someone got India and sent something that doesn't fit the stereotype people have from the music scene of India (tl;dr: not Bollywood music). People start "complimenting" saying that "OH MY GOD I WOULD NEVER HAVE EXPECTED THIS FROM INDIA" when... India has over a billion people with different tastes and sometimes just one of their cities has more people than an entire country. Why do expect all of their songs to be "bollywood-esque"? If smaller European countries, let's say, can have a versatile music scene, why can't India also have it?; the other example is something that is more common to be seen towards Africa than Asia, but I'll say it anyway. There is a contest we take part where we make our own countries (just like NSC) and every edition has a specific theme we have to follow. The current theme is "songs from African artists". Not only over half of the entries are from South Africa (which eerr), I've seen questions like "do the songs have to sound African?". However, what does that mean? Botswana's and Libya's songs don't sound the same and they are both from the same continent. Does that mean one of them is "more African" than the other? No. Not at all. The thing is some people still can only see Africa as a continent and not several countries because this is how Africa is portrayed to us in the West (at least here it is). We don't say the same about European music sounding the same or songs sounding European because we, as Eurovision fans, know it's not the truth. We can see the difference between the entries of several countries, whatever the genre is, because we are used to listening to them in the contest. Another example of this: I live in Brazil, which is one of the biggest countries in the world. You can't expect the music scene of the entire song to sound the same. What is popular in my state is different of what is popular in Rio, for example. We also hope that, with this contest, everyone can see how diverse the music scene of Asia is.

tl;dr: Most of us have grown with this prejudiced vision of music we are not used to listen to. With this contest, I hope we can change that and expand our horizons. Thank you for the support this far.

HAIL to the legendary comment
Thank you for speaking out on the position of Asian music in the song contests, something which is always on my mind but never materialised in my words

I joined this forum in 2010-ish, around that time representation of Asian countries in this forum is really low.
I won WV only once with Yuna and my best achievement in FSC is with Che'Nelle (both songs sounds very American)
Only recently that I won the Asiavision 2.0 spinoff with a Malaysian ballad song - which is true to our identity. And this is after 10+ years of participation.

I really liked the initiative to make an Asian song contest, but I am afraid that it will turn out to gravitate towards Americanised/Europeanised music as well.
Until we have our own song contest like ESC (in real world), we will always have to follow the mould that the current forum song contests have created.

Anyway I still keep some hope.

P/S: I kinda lost track of the discussion, and why African/Ocenian countries seems to also come in the picture. LOL

 

[Uto]

Sorry for taking so long to respond. I wasn't in the best, let's say, mood and I think it wouldn't be the best time to actually say anything.

Let's give you a bit of context on how this idea started and a bit of my experience in several contests from many forums, communities and Facebook groups.

In these contests, I usually choose entries from the Asian continent because I've grown up with some of these songs - being an anime fan since I was 5, having played many rhythm games from Japan and South Korea in my childhood and teenage years, searching for Middle Eastern songs because I wanted to learn Arabic. Even if I live literally on the other side of the world, I've had a huge connection with the music scene for so long now.

The thing is: in every single contest (no exceptions) I've been in, Asian entries did better the more "westernized" they sounded like. And I'm not the only one who realized that. When commenting that with some people who also plays with Asian countries (and even some who don't) agreed on that statement. I have complained about this many times on our plug nights (Uto and Kai can confirm this). I can even share some examples:
- I'm part of a contest called Eurasia Song Contest (I'm in charge of Japan since edition 1). 10 editions in and not a single Asian country has won. And we've sent plenty of good songs. I've got two top 10s this far (including a 2nd place). However, both entries were, by far, the one that could have been sung by any mainstream western artist (one of them was a girl group whose song could be totally sung by Little Mix; while the other one even had Ariana Grande comparisons). I mean, I still love both, but when you see the other entries getting bottoms or being stuck in the semi when they are far from being bad is always. :/
- There is another contest where Japan, China and South Korea only and only qualified when they "sounded western". If they didn't, it was always a bottom in the semi. It happened with pop songs, rock songs, folk songs... I've got a good result with Japan once... with the same group that has songs that could have been sent by Little Mix.
- Even within Asian competitions, I can see a pattern of the ones of bigger music industry doing better and some countries from the same region doing better than others (eg. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan get better results than Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan; India does better than Pakistan and Bangladesh; Thailand and Vietnam are more successful than Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, etc). We hope that the rotation rule for these countries with a bigger industry can make this kind of situation be avoided.
- There are some comments made towards these countries' entries in other contests that made me feel pretty much ????. Let's take two examples. Someone got India and sent something that doesn't fit the stereotype people have from the music scene of India (tl;dr: not Bollywood music). People start "complimenting" saying that "OH MY GOD I WOULD NEVER HAVE EXPECTED THIS FROM INDIA" when... India has over a billion people with different tastes and sometimes just one of their cities has more people than an entire country. Why do expect all of their songs to be "bollywood-esque"? If smaller European countries, let's say, can have a versatile music scene, why can't India also have it?; the other example is something that is more common to be seen towards Africa than Asia, but I'll say it anyway. There is a contest we take part where we make our own countries (just like NSC) and every edition has a specific theme we have to follow. The current theme is "songs from African artists". Not only over half of the entries are from South Africa (which eerr), I've seen questions like "do the songs have to sound African?". However, what does that mean? Botswana's and Libya's songs don't sound the same and they are both from the same continent. Does that mean one of them is "more African" than the other? No. Not at all. The thing is some people still can only see Africa as a continent and not several countries because this is how Africa is portrayed to us in the West (at least here it is). We don't say the same about European music sounding the same or songs sounding European because we, as Eurovision fans, know it's not the truth. We can see the difference between the entries of several countries, whatever the genre is, because we are used to listening to them in the contest. Another example of this: I live in Brazil, which is one of the biggest countries in the world. You can't expect the music scene of the entire song to sound the same. What is popular in my state is different of what is popular in Rio, for example. We also hope that, with this contest, everyone can see how diverse the music scene of Asia is.

tl;dr: Most of us have grown with this prejudiced vision of music we are not used to listen to. With this contest, I hope we can change that and expand our horizons. Thank you for the support this far.

I disagree though. You say that in India “sometimes just one of their cities has more people than an entire country”. This is greatly underestimating India, which has multiple cities that have more people than en entire country and have done so since prehistoric times. Your Western Imperialism is shining through once more. You see the non-Western parts of the world as incapable of achieving greatness and are only acting like you are helping because you fetishize these countries.

 

[Ana Raquel]

I disagree though. You say that in India “sometimes just one of their cities has more people than an entire country”. This is greatly underestimating India, which has multiple cities that have more people than en entire country and have done so since prehistoric times. Your Western Imperialism is shining through once more. You see the non-Western parts of the world as incapable of achieving greatness and are only acting like you are helping because you fetishize these countries.

damn i've been #canceled

 

[dogmeat]

I'll say an unpopular opinion here. I don't think there's strong enough reason to add one more contest in this forum.

@anaraqueen I think I understand why you're pushing it, but I disagree about the core philosophy behind it. Most of your post is about Asian songs being underrated in forum games. I don't think that's a problem. At all. It's a simple fact of life that people have different tastes and we all gravitate towards certain styles. Most of us are European and we naturally tend to enjoy products European music tradition. There's no underlying racism here. That's fundamentally the same as, for example, pop songs doing better than hiphop songs. That's not a reason to start a Hiphopvision campaign in order to "expand our horizons" and get people more into the genre. First, because it doesn't work. Second, because there's nothing wrong with people not liking things. When you take a small more or less random sample of people, some kinds of music will always be more or less popular among them and it will reflect in the results. I could analyze my own results and identify a dozen different niches being less successful than others, and the next day suggest a Balladvision, Instrumentalvision, Videogamemusicvision and a dozen other new -visions. The right approach to me is accept to accept that forum music contests aren't about results and aren't about equal chances. Music taste is subjective, some songs will always be disadvantaged and none of us should take it personally when our favorite songs aren't universally liked.

Inb4 "If you don't like it, just don't participate":
I think at one point oversaturation of similar contests hurts the quality of those. When people divide their attention between too many games, they pay less attention to each of those and become less active. I see almost everyone expressing interest in the new contest already take part in at least one contest here, many already take part in two.

 

[Uto]

I'll say an unpopular opinion here. I don't think there's strong enough reason to add one more contest in this forum.

@anaraqueen I think I understand why you're pushing it, but I disagree about the core philosophy behind it. Most of your post is about Asian songs being underrated in forum games. I don't think that's a problem. At all. It's a simple fact of life that people have different tastes and we all gravitate towards certain styles. Most of us are European and we naturally tend to enjoy products European music tradition. There's no underlying racism here. That's fundamentally the same as, for example, pop songs doing better than hiphop songs. That's not a reason to start a Hiphopvision campaign in order to "expand our horizons" and get people more into the genre. First, because it doesn't work. Second, because there's nothing wrong with people not liking things. When you take a small more or less random sample of people, some kinds of music will always be more or less popular among them and it will reflect in the results. I could analyze my own results and identify a dozen different niches being less successful than others, and the next day suggest a Balladvision, Instrumentalvision, Videogamemusicvision and a dozen other new -visions. The right approach to me is accept to accept that forum music contests aren't about results and aren't about equal chances. Music taste is subjective, some songs will always be disadvantaged and none of us should take it personally when our favorite songs aren't universally liked.

Inb4 "If you don't like it, just don't participate":
I think at one point oversaturation of similar contests hurts the quality of those. When people divide their attention between too many games, they pay less attention to each of those and become less active. I see almost everyone expressing interest in the new contest already take part in at least one contest here, many already take part in two.

I don't think this is necessarily an unpopular opinion. I actually think anaraqueen kind of missed the mark as well, but the thing is she's talking about the lack of appeal for non-Western stuff and that is demonstrable. The rebuttal can not be to just suck it up, that would also miss the mark. This lack of appeal has an effect on scores, but there is another effect.

I think a single argument is missing in all of this that pretty much explains all. When I last checked like 90% of WorldVision was actually Europe & USA. That there is the issue at hand. If WorldVision can't be turned into actual WorldVision because people have such and such taste well fine, but it creates demand for another contest where competition does not have to be against the West and its bloated appeal. So here we are, and here I am. I loathe the whole 'region' system that's in place for WorldVision. I don't want to hear 10 songs from the UK and the USA. I mean it's not all bad, at least there's some diversity in there, but still, it's not actually WorldVision then, is it? If they were to fix that perhaps this AsiaVision type of contest would not be necessary, but right now it seems like a good idea to me.

 

[Ausesken]

Look, I actually understand the reason why this contest is created. It must feel frustrating to see that in other contests the winners or those that do well most times belong to the western music industry, so if you want a bit of success you either have to take one of those countries or you have to send a 'westernised' song, which might feel a bit fake for those who love other music industries. I find it interesting that you have the chance to show the diversity of music in Asia and Africa, instead of sticking to the stereotypes for the sake of sucess in the contest. I agree on this point.

Now, let me say something: I agree with dogmeat that maybe you haven't thought that you are in a forum where the majority is from a Western country, that many of us are not familiar with other traditions and therefore, once you have grown up it's not likely you're gonna change your music taste. It can happen, but usually you stick to the music you have been listening to for 30 years or more. You can get a bit more used to other music and end up even liking it to some extent, but you will never enjoy it like you do with the other songs, and therefore instead of a 12 you will give it just a 3. And sorry but it drive me mad that someone calls it 'racism'. Then everyone who doesn't like flamenco, or doesn't like Latin music is racist? Then many Asian people are racist because they don't like western music? Immigrants are racist against their own neighbours because they prefer to stick to their music tradition? No way. I honestly think these kind of statements don't help at all, it makes you feel even more distant from the music you defend, apart from being a lack of respect. I hope the base of this contest won't be the reproach to other people's taste, it's not a good base. A good base is just having a place to fully enjoy the non-western music industries, make more interesting discoveries, take more interesting and risky choices than you would take in another contest, etc. This is fair and understandable.

It's also true that the more contests people take part in, the less attention they pay to each one, but then it will be their decision to stay or leave in each contest.

 

[DenizESC]

The contest has had huge support so far, one beyond our expectation actually, so a lot of people disagree here which is as valid as your opinion. The argument on having fewer contests is one that limits creativity, it’s not like we create a new one every other week, it has been many years and too many people asked for it.

Personally I definitely disagree with what you said, people change so much over time, my taste has changed so much despite also being raised definitely amongst mostly Western music.

Not everyone likes Asian or African music, not to forget the fact Asian or African music can be of so many genres, so I never understand when people would just say ''I don't like Asian music'' as if that is just one genre? Here we could also slowly get to know some other sides as people will be less afraid to take ‘risks’.
It's a fact we're also not nearly as much exposed to this side of the world, it was never a fair battle to begin with, so even the people that would end up liking it will likely never even hear most of it, I think many of us here can say they feel the same way and would love to have a platform where we can appreciate and get to know more of these kinds of artists as well, without being scared of the fact of them 'flopping' elsewhere. I agree very much with Uto btw, I don't want to call names of other contests but I agree this will be a safe-zone for lots of us who are enjoying music from the other side of the world.

Some of you may never like Asian music no matter what, it is just not for you and you may not see why this type of contest is needed. That does not invalidate that a large portion of us do.

Coming to racism, why is this even mentioned? I didn’t see anyone seriously mentioning not liking Asian music as racism. It is not an argument anyone made, so I don’t know why people are defending themselves for it.

 

[Uto]

And sorry but it drive me mad that someone calls it 'racism'.

This is not what happened. Ana made clear she thinks a lot of people are simply ignorant when it comes to music from non-Western sources. Would say that's a fair point to make, no? Goal of the contest then is not to shit on other people's taste, but to give a platform to showcase music from countries that don't have as much exposure in hope of ameliorating said ignorance.

 

[Ausesken]

Come on, you know it's been called racism twice, not here and not by Ana btw. Many people are surely ignorant of music from Asia, but if from the start what I have heard from a continent I only really like 1 every 10 songs, it gives me an idea of to what extent their music industries are of my interest. And not only Asia, there are genres that I think my own country's artists can't compare with others, for example I like Latin music but to me Spain has lost almost all its talent, I don't like what our artists release lately, while I do like international Latin music. It would be just stupid to say I have a problem with my country, right? I just wanted to make it clear.

 

[Uto]

Come on, you know it's been called racism twice, not here and not by Ana btw. Many people are surely ignorant of music from Asia, but if from the start what I have heard from a continent I only really like 1 every 10 songs, it gives me an idea of to what extent their music industries are of my interest. And not only Asia, there are genres that I think my own country's artists can't compare with others, for example I like Latin music but to me Spain has lost almost all its talent, I don't like what our artists release lately, while I do like international Latin music. It would be just stupid to say I have a problem with my country, right? I just wanted to make it clear.

Took a few reads to really understand what point you were trying to make here, but you're just simply trying to argue that playing the racism card is unjust. That is true, yes. It's just that 'the systematic lack of quantitative representation and the qualitative underrating of African and Asian musical arts' is quite a mouthful when 'racism' kind of gets to the gist of it.

 

[SaladBreak]

For me the point is to encourage the participants to "get out of their comfort zone" and explore the music scenes of countries which they normally wouldn't. This is why it is proposed that participants will be allowed to switch every edition and there are limits proposed for how long they can spend in countries with bigger industries. In most countries one can find all kinds of genres, if they dig deep down. The world is so interconnected that there is hardly a place which hasn't been influenced by western music in one way or another, so it's not like i.e. heavy metal music will be banned or looked down upon because it originates in the West, the point is that you will be able to hear different renditions of it, in different langauges etc.

 

[Ausesken]

Took a few reads to really understand what point you were trying to make here, but you're just simply trying to argue that playing the racism card is unjust. That is true, yes. It's just that 'the systematic lack of quantitative representation and the qualitative underrating of African and Asian musical arts' is quite a mouthful when 'racism' kind of gets to the gist of it.

That's why I said this contest makes sense, because if I'm not familiar with the music from these countries and instead I want to represent my country or I want to send music I am already enjoying, I won't participate with an Asian or African country. I play safe? Well, my idea is sending exclusively music I love and share it with others. I'm not gonna participate with an Asian country only to send songs I find listeneable and danceable enough to me. Now, if other people think like me, you have that result. So yeah, I was just pointing out that Asia is not a victim of a conspiracy, it's a victim of our lack of familiarity with it. Now, with this contest you will have either people who knows better their music industry or people who doesn't know it but wants to, so it's good.

I said I would take a look at this contest to see what music you send, but I don't take part because I think I don't want to vote if I don't really care about most songs. The same reason why I left WLSC btw.

That said, I repeat I wish good luck to this and I think it will be a successful new contest.

 

[JSSArcos]

This is very interesting, music industries that are most unknown to most of us I think (at least for me) , there are some exceptions of course. I am very interested in the contest. I'm not sure if I will be available (in a few months i will go to university), but I will try to give an opportunity to contest. I will have to read the contest rules clearly, to make a decision. But thanks for doing that

voted on both polls

 

[Ana Raquel]

whoa i'm just aware of this conversation right now. congrats forum on bugging mentions i suppose

That's fundamentally the same as, for example, pop songs doing better than hiphop songs.

i don't get this comparison? disliking a music genre is not the same thing as disliking the music scene of an entire continent? since continents have several countries and regions with distinct music scenes?

and whoa whoa whoa calm down that my intention is not calling everyone racist. i have two points on this:

- a lot of times, music that doesn't fit the european/north american construction, production, etc. have to be 200% superior than the other songs which fits the mold to be considered an option.

- i am aware that many of you are used to listen more to songs from your continent due to geographic reasons (i mean, i grew up with american music anyway), but you can't expect to become used to anything that you hadn't normally listened if you are not exposed to it. i was not used to folk music from most of european countries before i joined contests, around 2 1/2 years ago. if i could do it, then you can do it as well. i'm sure of that.

sorry if it wasn't made clear.

i'm mostly talking about my experience with contests and different people. you know it's frustrating to be south american and having to deal with people commenting that "they don't like anything from there" when we have almost 500 million people, distinct countries and cultures and diverse regions with different styles of music. You know, just... get you lazy ass, stop complaining and go do some search? don't go just hearing the top 3 charting ones and say you dislike the music scene of an entire continent?

 

[Uto]

This is all fine and dandy, but all this feminist theory is not helping me sign up. When can we expect sign up to start, any idea?

 

[dogmeat]

@DenizESC So... is the point of this to create a safespace where you'd run away from poor results? That's not convincing at all. If, however, the goal is to expose people to Asian/African/whatever music, then NSC/WV is the perfect place for it. That's what we all do - send songs we want others to hear, they might otherwise never do. Without a whole separate forum to cater to us. That might easily turn into some sort of a filter bubble.

@anaraqueen What I don't like here is that you seem to victimize Asian music specifically. To me that victimization is not any more valid than any other you could conclude by thorough analysis of contest results here. Specific genre like hiphop may be a more narrow category than a continent, but there's also plenty of categories just as broad or broader. Vocalist's gender, for example. Or age. Or slow vs fast. Or major vs minor key. Or the track's length. "Hiphopvision" might not be a popular idea but "Oldiesvision" for songs made before 2000 would definitely have no less merit than Asiavision/OM. I'm not suggesting to create Oldiesvision, however, because I believe there's place for such songs in already existing contests, without the need for a safespace.

- a lot of times, music that doesn't fit the european/north american construction, production, etc. have to be 200% superior than the other songs which fits the mold to be considered an option.

And it's 200% superior according to whom? Who are you to unarguably declare something superior? Trust me, there's been countless times when I send something I consider the pinnacle of composing skill and artistic creativity and it gets rewarded with 20th place. Meanwhile some people seem to get top 6 every other edition by staying deep in their comfort zone. And every time it makes me bitter for a while. But putting emotions aside, I accept that people have different tastes and some other songs were special to some people. What matters is that there's a minority who truly enjoyed the song I wanted to show them and that matters infinitely more than numerical values on the scoreboard.

- i am aware that many of you are used to listen more to songs from your continent due to geographic reasons (i mean, i grew up with american music anyway), but you can't expect to become used to anything that you hadn't normally listened if you are not exposed to it. i was not used to folk music from most of european countries before i joined contests, around 2 1/2 years ago. if i could do it, then you can do it as well. i'm sure of that.

Maybe. Maybe not. That's a bold assumption to take. But assuming it's possible, my point stands. That's a mission to mold our tastes to YOUR liking.

 

[DenizESC]

You know I shouldn't respond when someone just acknowledges 1 sentence of my long post but oh well

I can't compare a continent with a specific genre of music, lots of winners in the past had been old songs, if there is enough people wanting to come together in the future for a new concept and the mods think there is enough reason for it to exist as in OM's then it might happen. The mods are not easy in making a new contest, but throughout the years many people left the contests and asked for this specific type of contest each time and I think we should all just acknowledge that the current format according to the many Asian music fans has not been as fair, if so many of them would not leave to never return.

If anything if some members here are like yea I don't like Asian/African music from what I hear, it is not my fault and it will likely never make it above Western music outta 10 songs bcs I don't like their style, I don't like the languages etc. I think it's actually more valid reason to have this contest here for those of us who do enjoy this side of the world and are intrigued by it without being ignored or made fun of elsewhere. You know since it's 2 enormous continents we're referring to here right now, 5.6 Billion people we're speaking of and their music and culture.

I believe in the current day indeed we did change a lot and Asian songs are doing better at least, this was not always the case. I believe it's ppl like @anaraqueen or the rest who kept supporting and exposing this part of the world that made people warm up to it, I believe a contest like OM will even help more in that. But the fans of the music in this side of the world can finally stop compromising while picking their song as well now.

 

[DenizESC]

@Uto

should be soon when after we handled some official stuff with the mods, this week for sure.

 

[Grinch]

I don't want to be negative but Orient Matsuri is a horrible name. It sounds like a fake shoe brand.