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The Flowers

Alice Walker

About 4 pages (1,242 words)

The Flowers Summary

The Flowers
Image:The Flowers.jpg From left: Wang Wenbo, Da Zhangwei, Shi Xingning, Guo Yang
Background information
Also known as	花儿乐队
Origin	Beijing, China
Genre(s)	Mandopop
Years active	1998–present
Label(s)	EMI Music China
Members
Da Zhangwei Shi Xingning Guo Yang Wang Wenbo

The Flowers, also known as Hua Er Yue Dui (Simplified Chinese: 花儿乐队, Traditional Chinese: 花兒樂隊), is a popular boy band based in Mainland China. The band consists of four members: lead vocalist/former lead guitarist Da Zhangwei (大张伟), guitarist Shi Xingning (石醒宁), bassist Guo Yang (郭阳), and drummer Wang Wenbo (王文博). The group debuted in 1998 and have released five albums, the most recent one released September 29, 2007.

1 History
- 1.1 The Plagiarism Scandal
- 1.2 The Fighting Incident
2 Background
3 Discography
- 3.1 Albums
4 References
5 External links

History

China's first famous adolescent band, Flowers, had barely blossomed into youth when they first appeared on the Chinese music scene in 1998. Originally, there were three members in the band but later changed when guitarist Shi Xingning joined. The three members, Da Zhangwei, Wang Wenbo and Guo Yang, met while still in high school and were all in their teens. During their early career, the Flowers were a pop punk band playing in bars and clubs and at the same time, other bands were starting to break out in Beijing's underground music scene. The Flowers, unable as they were to hide their hunger for commercial success, were somewhat aloof from this scene, and often derided in some quarters for their attitudes. No matter, as the accessible nature of songs like "Stillness", "Disillusion" and "School's Out" made the band perfect for the music market they wished to conquer. The Flowers were somewhat credited for helping to give disaffected Chinese youth a resonant voice, as many teenagers were deeply affected by their songs and felt that the Flowers' lyrics reflected their own life experiences. As a result, punk music in general became more widely known, no doubt much to the consternation of the Yunnan contingent. In light of the band's commercial impact, some overenthusiastic commentators even declared that The Flowers were the true bringers of punk to Chinese. They pointed out that fans had previously found even the acoustic grunge of Nirvana's "Unplugged in New York" difficult to comprehend. Although their music wasn't very hard edged, Flowers were at least punk enough to get involved in a two year long lawsuit with their first company, New Bees Music. The dispute almost brought the band to a premature end, but was eventually settled out of court. Flowers marked the end of their purgatory by signing to EMI and bringing in a fourth member, a guitar player by the name of Shi Xingning. Fortunately this change wasn't just a superficial face-lift, as the band had by this point become tired of the simple but effective music which had made them so popular. Like many other musicians, they were looking to diversify. This diversification can be heard on their album, "I Am Your Romeo", which features musical styles such as hip-hop and techno. The band now seems to be a long way from their old punk roots, but they are as straightforward as ever in their ideals ...or lack of them. Vocalist Da Zhangwei says "We have to earn our living through music... Pleasing our fans is our reason for making music and we don't care about other things." The songs are still fairly upbeat and the lyrics pretty direct, although Da Zhangwei has softened the tone a bit for some of the love related songs. The band managed to score a hit with the song, "Xi Shua Shua" which was a hit on the mainland. The song was included on the band's third album, Hua Ji Wang Chao, released in July of 2005. The album sold some 200,000 copies in the 40 days after its initial release and was considered a great success in the country's pop music scene. The Flowers also made an appearance at the China Central Television's Lantern Festival gala show. The group was also nominated by organizers of the Pepsi Music Chart Awards in China for prizes in categories such as Best Arrangement, Best Lyrics, Best Composer and Best Rock 'n' Roll Band but were later cancelled by the board of judges when plagiarism accusations involving the band came to light.

The Plagiarism Scandal

The group suddenly found themselves accused of plagiarism when it was discovered that they had copied at least 12 of their songs including their hit song "Xi Shua Shua" from foreign and overseas artists. Although frontman Da Zhangwei did not admit the songs were plagiarized, he admitted there were some flaws that existed in the songs. Contrary to his belief, Da Zhangwei claims he listens to hundreds of songs every week and when he writes the songs, some melodies come naturally, without having to manifest their origins. Da Zhangwei admitted to the press that he and his band mates have so many tunes - from having to listen up to 100 songs per day - stored in their heads that they "have no time to identify, revise and remove" ones which aren't theirs. ^[1]

The Fighting Incident

In 2007, Following the plagiarism scandal nearly a year before, the band was seen eating at a restaurant in Beijing near Chaoyang Park. They were talking and started arguing. Soon, it escalated into a fight. What began as loud talking lead into a fight when frontman Da Zhangwei beat a band member and another man who was trying to stop the fight, the report said. This whole scene was captured by the cell phone of a nearby man who was in the restaurant with his girlfriend. EMI, the band's label admitted there was a dispute, claiming that it was all because they had different views on the new album. According to a senior official from the record company, Zhang Yi, the quarrel began when Da Zhangwei and another fellow band member expressed differences on the new album's sound. Zhang even added that the band felt very pressured during the recording after being involved in a plagiarizing scandal. Some have even questioned whether the fight was a publicity stunt for promoting the upcoming album but Zhang Yi says the band is too busy to do so.^[2]

Background

Da Zhangwei was born August 31, 1983 in Beijing. His inspirations are Green Day, Ramones, and Nirvana. He likes art and dislikes basketball. Most recently, Zhang Wei appeared in Beijing to support Taiwanese girl group S.H.E's 10th album release, Play.^[3]
Shi Xingning was the last to join the band, in 2001.
Guo Yang was born June 1, 1978 in Beijing, and like Da Zhangwei, also likes Green Day and Nirvana. He dislikes chatting and being waken by a phone.
Wang Wenbo was born October 22, 1982 in Beijing. His inspirations are Green Day, The Cure, and Nirvana. He likes sleeping and listening to music and dislikes being messy and making mistakes during performances.