Musical Imperialism

Last week, I watched the 1997 film Joy Luck Club again for the first time in years. This time I sat through the music credits and noticed that two of the most famous Chinese songs in the picture came from the EMI Music Publishing catalog.

An enterprising music publisher at MIDEM once told me that EMI made the sound decision a few years ago to purchase numerous Chinese music copyrights. The songs, which ranged from classic pop songs to traditional songs that people might otherwise assume to be public domain, continue to turn up in films, television shows and advertisements around the world. After all, a nation’s music is an integral component of its culture, and selling off those copyrights does not render those songs irrelevant or put the songs out of use. And after purchasing the catalogs, EMI collected revenues every time those songs were used.

(Sidenote: Evergreen Music Publishing also bought up many Chinese copyrights, including the CRC catalog, but many of the well-known classics are controlled by EMI.)

I have to admit that it’s discomfiting for me to scan the music credits of this (and many other Chinese and Chinese-American films), and realize that a Western company owns the songs most essential to China’s musical history. It somehow reminds me of when I lived abroad and found that the local programming was often drowned out by canned or expired sitcoms piped over from the United States.

“Ye Lai Xiang”
(Scent of the Night)
Written by Lee Lai Kwang and James Wong
Performed by Teresa Teng
Used by permission of EMI Music Publishing Ltd. (S.E. Asia)

“He Ri Jun Zai Lai”
(When Will You Come Again?)
Written by Yao Ming
Performed by Teresa Teng
Used by permission of EMI Music Publishing Ltd. (S.E. Asia)