Columbia Records Releases Taiwan’s First Pop Hit

Source: Hearing the Marks of Time — Columbia Records Taiwan
From: Global Art Critics
Date: February 13, 2014   Author: Peixin

Columbia Records (古倫美亞, Gǔlún Měiyà) was a popular music company that manufactured and distributed shellac records in Taiwan, and was the pioneer of Taiwanese popular music during the Japanese colonial era. Founded by Japanese entrepreneur Kashiwa Shojiro primarily to distribute gramophones produced by American Columbia Records, the company merged with Nichi-Chiku Records in 1929. The Taiwan branch, formerly the Flying Eagle label (飛鷹唱片), was subsequently renamed the Improved Eagle label (改良鷹標), with the English brand name changed from “NIPPONOPHONE” to “EAGLE.” Taiwan’s first popular song, “March of the Black Cat” (“The Black Cat March”), was published by the Improved Eagle label in 1929. That same year, singer Qiu Chan covered the Chinese pop song “Pitiful Qiu Xiang” (“Poor Qiu Xiang”) — the first time a Chinese mainland pop song was covered on a Taiwanese record.

However, scholar Zhuang Yongming argues in his essay “A Brief History of Taiwanese Folk Songs — with Notes on Popular Songs of the Japanese Era” that “March of the Black Cat,” with its vulgar lyrics, was widely criticized by the literati of the time and never truly “caught on.” Rather, it was the song “Peach Blossom Weeps Tears of Blood” (“The Peach Girl”), released three years later and enormously popular, that deserves to be called Taiwan’s first genuine pop song.

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External Links

• Taiwanese Pop Songs — Many Compete for “First” (Hoklo People — Children of the Ocean)
• Sounding Taiwanese: A Preliminary Study on the Production Strategy of Taiwanese Records by the Nippon Phonograph Company (Wang Ying-fen)
• The Development and Evolution of Taiwanese-Language Pop Songs (Parts 1–7) (Liúxíng Yīnyuè Yán Jiùyuàn)
• A Brief History of Taiwanese Folk Songs — with Notes on Popular Songs of the Japanese Era
• Columbia Records Taiwan (Taiwan Popular Music Wiki)