Rocker Magazine Founded

Source: Sounding Taiwan: An Exploration of Postwar Taiwan’s Sound Culture, “Crystal Records,” p. 112. Date: May 2015. Authors: Wang Ch’un-mei, Lo Yueh-ch’üan

Rocker (Yao Gun K’e), expanded from Crystal Records’ *Wax Club* newsletter, was founded in 1987 (and ceased publication in 1991). It was the most important periodical promoting “Taiwan New Music” in the late 1980s, and served as an awakening text for many music fans of the era; early issues even came bundled with a cassette tape.

Rocker‘s main contributors included Jen Chiang-ta, Ho Ying-yi, Ch’en Kang-hui, and Fang Wu-hsing. Beyond introducing cutting-edge music from Britain and America, the magazine also critiqued the music industry and championed “underground music” and “Taiwan New Music,” using Rocker as a platform to bring popular-music discussion back to a critique of real life — using music to address class, race, gender, socialism, and resistance to multinational corporations. In other words, they treated “new music” as an intellectual current rather than a mere genre. Alongside “new music,” Rocker also emphasised the concept of “underground music”: opposition to popular-music industries built on mass markets and big capital, in favour of a low-cost, niche mode of music production that could more authentically reflect the creator’s vision.

After Rocker ceased publication in 1991, it circulated for a time as photocopies. It was revived in 2000 for six issues before folding again in 2001.

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External Links

• Travel Guide through a Sea of Music — Chinese-Language Music Periodicals (Lo Yueh-ch’üan)
• Book: Crystal Records — Rocker Revived (Music Frenzy Blog)
• The Origins of Taiwan’s Independent Music (Ma Shih-fang and Chang T’ieh-chih in conversation)
• The Tearful Revolutionary History of Music Magazines (Chang T’ieh-chih)
• Rock Books: From Niche to Mass Market (Ting Wen-ling)