James Wong, a famous lyricist in Hong Kong, stated in his Ph.D. thesis that there are several reasons of the decline of Cantopop. After the decline of The Four Heavenly Kings, Hong Kong music industry evolved to cater to the young audiences since the purchasing power of this group of people is higher. Twins, established at 2001, is a Hong Kong Cantopop group made up of two girls: Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung. Being recognized for the song "明愛暗戀補習社”, Twins became famous among teenagers and a significant figure in the Hong Kong music industry from 2001 to 2008. Their success drive other companies to follow the trend and produce songs with more youth elements.

 

On the other hands, the widespread of love songs continued in Hong Kong music industry which suppress the diversity of Cantopop. The market was flooded with love songs and even with auto sadism elements, for example, “誰來愛我”, “習慣失戀”,  “心淡” by Joey Yung,  “愛與誠”, “任天堂流淚” by Leo Ku, "垃圾" by Candy Lo, “爛泥” by Andy Hui, “七友” by Edmond Leung, “打回原形”, “防不勝防”, “十面埋伏” by Eason Chan. Because of the succeed of love songs in 1990s, music company mainly focus on creating love songs to raise the sales in the market. New talent singers also need to follow the trend to start the career and lyricists have no choice but to write love songs for the market.

 

Indeed, the SARS outbreak in 2003 and 1 July Protest spark the songwriters to produce Cantopop to build up Hong Kong identity during this hard time, for example, “信望愛(03四季歌)” by Edmond Leung, "繼續微笑" by Sam Hui, "香港地" by Edison Chan. However, it still not powerful enough to connect people as 1970s and 1980s.

 

The change of target audiences and the monotonous love songs detach the older generations from the market. Some of them decide to stop listening new songs and chose to listen those classics Cantopop from 1970s to 1990s to consolidate their identity and rekindle the collective memory. Even there are songs with themes other than love or teenagers’ affairs in the market, people failed to recognise it and continue to percept that “Cantopop is declining” and “there are only entertainment industry but not music industry in Hong Kong.” Consequently, Cantopop turned to a culture of disappearance and people just refuse to see that it is still vibrant in the city.   

 

Cantopop is one of the popular culture that closely related to our lives, unlike cinema, TV drama and comics, Cantopop can be enjoyed  by people at anytime and anywhere in different platforms, which enable it to spread out widely in the society. Cantopop regarded as the collective memory of different generations, which represents their identity and the social phenomenon of that era. The evolution of Cantopop in 2000s was considered as the decline of the music development in Hong Kong. However, it is not the end of Cantopop but the start of the new generation of Hong Kong music industry.     

明愛暗戀補習社 (2001) - Twins

Lyricist: 黃偉文

Composer: 伍樂城

Arrangement: 伍樂城

Producer: 伍樂城