Sac city unified

Union Home Minister Amit Shah chaired a meeting on Thursday to devise a unified strategy for Delhi and its neighbouring cities that comprise the National Capital Region (NCR) to tackle the pandemic. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal was also present in the meeting held at North Block. The meeting was also attended by Chief Secretaries of Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh and other senior officers from Delhi-NCR.

“In view of the structure of Delhi-NCR region, all concerned bodies need to unite and work on a common strategy against the [novel] coronavirus pandemic. In this context, I met with Delhi Chief Minister and senior officials of Centre and Delhi-NCR today to discuss how to evolve a strategy as soon as possible,” Mr. Shah tweeted.

Authorities of Haryana, U.P. and Delhi have imposed restrictions at different times during the COVID-19 lockdown over movement of people between the States, causing to inconvenience to many.

According to a statement issued by the Home Ministry, Mr. Shah said that if the price for COVID-19 tests are higher in the States of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana compared to the Rs. 2,400 fixed for Delhi by an expert committee under the chairmanship of NITI Aayog member V.K. Paul, then the State governments could decide to lower the prices after internal consultations. Mr. Shah said the committee had also decided on rates for COVID-19 beds and treatment, and these rates could also be applied to hospitals in the NCR region after consultations.

Mr. Shah directed officials from U.P. and Haryana to submit information about COVID-19 beds, ventilators, oxygen cylinders, ICU and ambulances available with them and their plan to augment these resources by July 15 to devise a common strategy for NCR.

The Centre has imported around 50,000 rapid antigen detection test kits from South Korea as it aims to conduct 6 lakh tests in Delhi to detect and stop the spread of COVID-19.

Ministers visit centres

Ministers of State for Home G. Kishan Reddy and Nityanand Rai inspected some of the 169 testing centres set up in Delhi that will give results in 30 minutes and help in detecting and isolating the patients breaking the chain of transmission.

“As many as 50,000 kits from Korea have reached here and will be used in 169 centres. Delhi has 431 ventilators and an additional stock of 500 ventilators is being procured. An additional fleet of 650 ambulances, up from the current 350, is also being arranged by the Centre,” Mr. Reddy said after visiting one of the centres in Basant Gaon, south Delhi.

NEW YORK — New York City’s mayor prepared Sunday to order his city behind closed doors in an attempt to slow a pandemic that has swept across the globe and threatened to make the city of 8.5 million one of the world’s biggest coronavirus hot spots. Officials worldwide warned of a critical shortage of medical supplies.

Mayor Bill de Blasio also called for getting everything from masks to gowns, as well as doctors and other medical workers to New York City, and asked President Donald Trump to have the U.S. military take over the logistics of making and distributing medical supplies.

“I can’t be blunt enough. If the president doesn’t act, people will die who could have lived otherwise,” de Blasio told NBC’s “Meet The Press.”

The top infectious disease expert in the U.S. promised New York City and the other hardest-hit places that critical supplies will not run out.

The medical supplies are about to start pouring in and will be “clearly directed to those hot spots that need it most,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said on CBS’ “Face The Nation.”

But Fauci and other emergency officials did not give hard figures on the number of masks or anything else on their way. New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo urged federal officials to step in quickly as hard-hit states outbid each other for ever scarcer supplies, sometimes doubling or tripling prices.

In Washington, negotiators from Congress and the White House resumed top-level talks on a $1.4 trillion economic rescue package, urged by President Donald Trump to strike a deal to steady a nation upended by the coronavirus pandemic. Trump appeared confident about the nation’s ability to defeat the pandemic soon even as health leaders acknowledged that the U.S. was nowhere near the peak of the outbreak.

Worldwide, more than 316,000 people have been infected and nearly 13,600 have died, according to Johns Hopkins University. About 150 countries now have confirmed cases, and deaths have been reported in more than 30 American states.

There were more than 27,000 cases across the U.S. and 375 deaths. New York state accounted for 114 deaths, mostly in New York City, where there were more than 4,400 infections, but officials warned the concentration may be more because of increased testing.

On Sunday, New York passed Washington state, the initial epicenter of the U.S. outbreak, in the number of fatal cases. Only China, Italy and Spain have reported more COVID-19 cases than the U.S.

Cuomo spent Saturday scouting places to build makeshift hospitals and told existing hospitals to figure out ways to increase their current beds by at least 50% because predictions from health officials are COVID-19 cases needing advanced medical care will top 100,000 in New York state in the next month or so, which is more than double the current number.

Meanwhile, de Blasio urged New York City to shut down at 5 p.m. Sunday except for essential services and workers.

But with the danger an invisible virus instead of billowing smoke or blowing snow, New Yorkers were still gathering in large groups in parks, playing basketball or having block parties. Similar scenes played out around the country.

Cuomo said he was stunned and offended as he toured the city Saturday and gave local officials a day to figure out a plan whether it be closing parks, closing playgrounds or opening streets, typically teeming with traffic but now quiet, only to pedestrians.

“It’s insensitive. It’s arrogant. It’s self-destructive. It’s disrespectful to other people,” Cuomo said. “It has to stop and it has to stop now.”

Along with the staggering numbers, there were individual reminders Sunday of the reach of the virus. Republican Rand Paul of Kentucky became the first U.S. senator to announce he was infected.

Opera superstar Plácido Domingo announced he has COVID-19 and German Chancellor Angela Merkel put herself into quarantine after a doctor who gave her a vaccine tested positive.

Elsewhere in the world, the coronavirus raged on. Italy and Iran reported soaring new death tolls.

Italian Premier Giuseppe Conte went on live TV to announce that he was tightening the country’s lockdown. Italy now has more than 59,000 cases and 5,476 deaths.

’’We are facing the most serious crisis that the country has experienced since World War II,’’ Conte told Italians during a broadcast at midnight.

Iran’s supreme leader refused U.S. assistance Sunday to fight the virus, citing an unfounded conspiracy theory that it could be made by America. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s comments came as Iran faces crushing U.S. sanctions over its nuclear actions. Iran says it has 1,685 deaths and 21,638 confirmed cases of the virus — a toll that experts from the World Health Organization say is almost certainly under-reported.

For most people, the new coronavirus causes only mild or moderate symptoms, such as fever or coughing. For some, especially older adults and people with existing health problems, it can cause more severe illness, including pneumonia. Some 93,800 people have recovered, mostly in China.

In Croatia, a strong earthquake measuring 5.3 near Zagreb caused the evacuation of hospitals and widespread damage. Health Minister Vili Beros warned people fleeing their homes to avoid congregating in public places.

“Earthquakes are dangerous, but coronavirus is even more so,” Beros said. Seventeen injuries but no deaths were reported.

In the rest of the United States, parts of the country found themselves moving toward the kind of problems seen in New York.

There was a unified message to stay away from large gatherings. Officials called them different things — social distancing, sheltering in place, or in the case of Nashville, Tennessee, a “safer at home” order.

“We’re all in quarantine now. Think about it,” Cuomo said.

Enforcement of any of these orders is still up in the air. Most locations simply broke up large gatherings and sent people home because one of the last things health officials wanted was putting people in confined spaces like jails. Many governments were releasing non-violent inmates.

Nearly 40 inmates had been diagnosed as of Saturday with COVID-19 in the New York prison system including the notorious Rikers Island complex and officials warned a huge jump in cases was likely coming.

The world kept shutting down too. The long-haul airline Emirates — a major East-West carrier — said it will suspend all passenger flights beginning Wednesday over the outbreak. Singapore said it will fully shut its borders beginning Tuesday.

Sunday was Mother’s Day in Britain and the government had a stark message for millions: Visiting your mother could kill her. Instead of parties, lunch or tea, Prime Minister Boris Johnson implored Britons to call Mom on a video chat.

Doctors in Britain made urgent pleas for more protective equipment as the number of coronavirus patients in U.K. hospitals soared to more than 5,000. Almost 4,000 medical workers signed a letter to the Sunday Times saying front-line staff felt like “cannon fodder.” They warned that medics would die if they did not receive better equipment.

In Spain, Europe’s hardest-hit country after Italy, intensive care units in some areas were close to their limits even before Sunday’s new tally of more than 28,500 infections and 1,750 deaths.

A field hospital with 5,500 beds was going up in a convention center in Madrid and health officials warned more than 10% of the country’s health workers were now infected with the coronavirus.

“We can’t just repeat the slogans that we will get through this together,” said Dr. German Peces-Barba, a lung specialist at Fundación Jiménez Díaz hospital in Madrid.

But there were some signs of hope. The Chinese city of Wuhan — where the global pandemic was first detected and the first city to be locked down — went a fourth consecutive day on Sunday without reporting any new or suspected cases.

Parks and other public gathering places were reopening in China as people return to work and businesses resumed. However, the country has placed increasing restrictions on those coming from overseas.

Pope Francis again held his weekly Sunday blessing in his private library. He has streamed the last several services since the virus started sweeping through Italy.

“To the virus pandemic, we want to respond with the universality of prayer, of compassion, of tenderness,’’ the pope said, also asking all Christianity across denominations to join in reciting the “Our Father’’ prayer on Wednesday at noon.

Pope Francis also plans to lead a global blessing to an empty St. Peter’s Square on Friday. The “Urbi et Orbi,’’ blessing is normally reserved for Christmas Day and Easter.

/atm

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What happened to Jason Todd?

From the very beginnings of the Batman White Knight saga, created by Sean Murphy, that’s been the question on readers’ minds. Little hints have been given along the way but, so far, those hints only showed up as they pertained to other characters such as the Joker or Harley Quinn. But very soon, we’re going to get straight answers in a story centered on Jason Todd himself.

White Knight Presents: Red Hood is written by Clay McCormack and Sean Murphy, drawn by Simone de Meo, and colored by Dave Stewart. Ahead of the first issue’s launch on July 26, Newsarama got to chat with the writers about answering the big question, crafting a new Red Hood, and giving him his own sidekick.

Grant DeArmitt for Newsarama: Sean, there are a lot of reasons to be excited about this book, and one of the most popular is that you’re introducing a new Robin. That’s a character by the name of Gan, who we know is a Mongolian immigrant and Gotham City teen. But what don’t we know, yet, about this new Robin?

Clay McCormack: Well, she’s a Batman and Robin superfan. She’s very smart, and her attention to detail helps her figure out that there might be some connection between Jason and Batman. She sees that as something to explore.

Also, she’s doing this all on her own. She’s very homemade, you know, she’s got a black and yellow towel wrapped around her neck as a cape. She’s riding around on a ten-speed bike. When she discovers that there’s a Robin she has direct access to, it gets her very excited about possibly getting more tools to help defend her little corner of the city.

Sean Murphy : I’m excited for Gan cosplay to pop up sometime in our future.

McCormack : Absolutely.

Nrama: I’m sure there will be.

Sean, you did an interview with DC’s website (opens in new tab) in which you said you wanted to “reinvent Jason […] while also honoring what made him so compelling for readers…” What is it that makes Red Hood so compelling? And how do you walk that line between making your own version and respecting the original?

Murphy : It’s funny; I didn’t really know much about him when I first put him in the book. In Volume One, I put his name on a gravestone. Then, I had some throwaway dialogue that, though it didn’t really register to me, makes him Robin number one. And when Clay got the script and read over it, he goes, ‘Oh, you’re switching Robin orders. That’s interesting.’ And then he tells me, ‘Well, Dick talks about another Robin that was there before him, so obviously that means he’s the second Robin. And that’s a big deal.’

I could either change it or go with it, and like an idiot, I decided, ‘Who cares about changing it? I’m just going to keep going. We’ll fix this some other time.’ So here we are, five years later, trying to fix it.

But the response I get is mostly positive. I think a lot of people were confused, too, which is totally fine as well. I was stunned by all the people that just wanted to know what happened to Jason in this universe. So as I finished Volume One, I threw some more Jason scenes in there. It turns out he wasn’t dead; he was alive and he never told Bruce the truth because he wanted to hurt him.

I never really thought about how it would work from there, but as I moved forward the last four years, and Clay has been helping me, I’ve noticed how Jason keeps popping up in my universe. So we really wanted to address it in a real way, address the lost chapter of Jason. Clay drove in and did a lot of the research, he figured out Jason’s beginning as Robin and how to make our version a little bit different. He’s still the angry Robin, but we asked, ‘What if he’s a little bit older now? What if he got some distance from Bruce? And what if the way he got some distance was by training his own Robin?

He’s emphasizing with Bruce too because you can’t hold onto a grudge forever. The interesting thing about the way Clay wrote him is that he’s matured beyond the Red Hood people know.

Nrama: Understood. Since we’re on the subject of familiar characters, I wanted to talk about introducing a Batman Beyond villain to the White Knight universe. That is Shriek, AKA Walter Shreeve. Is he pretty much the same character as he was in the show?

McCormack : Yes and no. We don’t really get much into his background. Honestly, I would say no, because he doesn’t have a direct connection to Derek Powers at this point. At least, not that we know of in this book. He’s an already established villain who is working in Gotham City. We don’t really get into his backstory at all, actually.

In our book, the interaction that happens between him and Gan and Jason is that Shreeve is just trying to live his life. The section of town that he lives in happens to be the same section that Gan lives in, and he’s just trying to fly below the radar; he doesn’t do any villainous stuff there. But being the superfan that she is, Gan recognizes this guy and blows his cover. We get to see how he reacts to that, and see him go from trying to decide which ketchup to buy at the grocery store when we meet him to getting confronted at the end in full Shriek-armor glory.

Nrama: So he’s one of the Batman villains that’s more like a hired thug than a mastermind? Just a guy trying to live his life through crime.

McCormack : Yeah, he’s a blue-collar Batman villain.

Murphy : It’s funny that you’re saying he was at the grocery store buying ketchup. It made me think about how we almost used Condiment King as the villain for this book.

Nrama: Wait, what?

Murphy : Yeah, I can’t remember why we ruled that out.

Nrama: I need to know more.

McCormack : The villain we were looking for for this book needed to be someone dangerous, but not so big that they would take all the oxygen out of the room. We didn’t want to use Deathstroke or somebody like that. So we were looking at the mid-range villains, and Sean and I both love Condiment King, but he was not quite dangerous enough to be believable. We needed someone who was not quite the Joker but was a little more intense.

I don’t know if it made it into the final book, but we actually did have a scene where Gan punches out the Condiment King. That might have wound up on the cutting room floor though.

Nrama: That is wild.

Murphy: But now that scene in the grocery store, I want to see that with Condiment King.

McCormack: Yeah, we really missed our opportunity there.

Nrama: I’m telling you, there’s a Condiment King Revolution coming. He’s the bartender in Leomacs’s and Josh Williamson’s Rogues. He shows up in the first issue.

McCormack : No kidding? Yeah, he’s going to get the Kite Man treatment pretty soon, I think.

Nrama: They’re still looking for a villain for the next Matt Reeves movie.

McCormack : [laughs] I don’t know if he matches that style?

Nrama: You never know!

McCormack : Actually, I would love to see Condiment King with a BDSM mask duct-taped around his face. That would be great …

Murphy : … with a bunch of incels who love ketchup and mustard as much as him? Like a bunch of disenfranchised food salesmen or whatever.

McCormack : Literally disenfranchised, because they lost all their fast food franchises… Our book is better than this, I swear!

Nrama: Oh, we know. Not that there’s anything wrong with Condiment King. So Sean, I wanted to ask: this is a book you’re not drawing. Is there a difference in your creative process when you’re not drawing a book?

Murphy : I try to let artists do their own thing. I’m not the type of creative who lords over my own universe and needs to put my fingerprints on everything. I’m very much hands-off. I tell people what I’m looking for and then let them run with it. As it’s 90% in the ballpark of what I want, I’m happy.

One of the rules I have when I work with other writers is that I don’t want voiceovers. I don’t want narration boxes. I just want to take an approach where all of the dialogue is just dialogue. You know, the only voice-over you have is when a character is talking. I find it that keeps the story moving a lot faster. It keeps the tension up in a lot of ways rather than having omniscient voices talking about whatever. Other than that, you can do whatever you want. You can kill characters if you want to.

Nrama: What do you two think Simone de Meo brings to this book? Why is his stuff working for it?

Murphy : Emo hair! He is really good at emo hair.

Nrama: Hell yeah.

McCormack : He’s got a really great energetic style. I would say it’s different from anything you’ve seen in the White Knight universe so far, but it doesn’t feel out of place. He has a lot of the same sensibilities, even though he does things a little bit differently stylistically, as far as where he places the camera for shots and character position and stuff like that.

Since we have Shriek as our villain, who has a power set that’s not exactly suited for print media, we figured Simone would have a great take on how to visualize it. He is so good at handling special effects. He works on computers, so he has wiggle room with that stuff that Sean doesn’t or that I don’t. I think it’s going to be very cool. He has some really nice fight scenes in there too, he makes a German suplex look like it really hurts. So that’s a plus.

Nrama: In that same vein, let’s talk about Dave Stewart, who has been the colorist for the White Knight universe since Batman: White Knight Presents Harley Quinn. What does Stuart bring to this book that you’re most excited about?

Murphy: Yeah, Dave took over for Matt Hollingsworth on Curse of the White Knight, so this will be his second title. Dave and I go way back to the days when I used to draw Hellblazer and Joe the Barbarian and stuff like that. He’s part of the team, and he’s one of the greats just like Matt.

One of the other things about the White Knight universe is that we don’t go crazy with colors. We try to keep it to one or two-color palettes. A lot of comics look like explosions at a Skittles factory. There are just so many pops of characters in colors that it’s hard to keep it unified. I try to keep it as a unified palette and Dave gets that. He has more of a European approach to coloring anyway, so that really fits the aesthetic as well.

McCormack: It’s really exciting for me because this is my first published work with DC, and if you look at the credits list on that front cover, it’s a pretty great first outing, as far as [who my fellow creators are]. [I had] a lot of support from some really great names.

Nrama: Oh it’s a knockout team. I’ve only seen the preview pages but already [the comic] stands out so well visually. Real quick before we move along, Sean, what do you mean by ‘European approach?’

Murphy: European colorists usually go with two-color palettes; they’ll use orange or purple and yellow in there. Maybe they’ll use three colors, but they won’t use all the colors. They really will try to limit their scope.

If you watch movies, they seem like they have every color in there, but most movies are generally working with two to three colors. American Comics go crazy with color, but I tend to gravitate more towards limited palettes. I think Clay likes the same.

McCormack: Definitely.

Nrama: Gotcha. Now Clay, since this is your first DC book like you said, I know you’re excited about a lot of things. In that interview I mentioned earlier, you said you were excited to help shape the White Knight universe. In what ways does Red Hood do that?

McCormack: We’re answering one of the most interesting questions that Sean has put on the table, which is, ‘What happened to Jason Todd after he escaped the Joker?’

Jason’s involvement in the universe started off as kind of a small, character-motivation thing for Batman, but as he kept popping up, his story ended up becoming central to a lot of the main characters. What happened to Jason affects Dick, it affects Harley, it affects the Joker and, of course, it affects Batman. But we don’t know how it affects Jason.

Getting to bridge the gap between the Robin with a bloody face we see in Curse of the White Knight to the more confident, adult, prison guard version of him that shows up in Beyond the White Knight is really exciting because there’s a whole bunch of room to play around and define his character in a way that maybe people aren’t used to. It’s a really central part of the universe that has not been explored yet, so it was very exciting to flesh that out.

Nrama: Sean, the last time you and I talked about White Knight , we touched on the Red Hood and you said that part of this story is Jason empathizing with Bruce because he takes on the mentor role. By the end of this comic, how will Jason feel about Bruce?

Murphy: That will be answered in two ways. Clay’s miniseries will have an answer to that, and Jason is going to be set up for the finale in[Beyond the White Knight] as well.

After that, I’m not really sure what to do with him. One of my instincts is, well, Bruce doesn’t want to be Batman anymore, but he decides that the city needs Batman, so maybe Jason should take over? But that seems like it would backtrack Jason. You know, ‘You’re the first Robin in this universe, the mantle is yours if you want.’ But Jason has worked really hard to get away from that, so it seems like Jason might bow out and give it to Dick or something.

I’ll have to talk with Clay about what he thinks works for the character the most. We haven’t really decided what to do with the end of Jason yet.

McCormack: I think by the end of our book, you’ll see how Jason has started working on his hangups with Bruce. But I wouldn’t say that he is out of the woods with that stuff yet by any stretch of the imagination. It’s a work in progress, and all through Beyond the White Knight you see that he’s not really sure.

Murphy: We also have Terry [McGinnis], who has inherited the Batman Beyond suit, so it moves the chess pieces around a lot. The youngest member of the team now has got the most powerful suit; how is that going to work? Is he going to be Batman? Is he going to give it to Dick? So there are a lot of placements that we are all looking at that we’re still looking at and we’re not sure how it’s all going to work out yet.

Nrama: Last question for the both of you. So far, we’ve got the saga of the White Knight and then a couple of spinoffs; Von Freeze, Harley Quinn, and now Red Hood. Who else in this world deserves the spinoff treatment? And you can’t say Condiment King.

McCormack: Who are the two other villains that hang out with Condiment King in that one [Batman: The Animated Series] episode? One is a giant rat.

Murphy: Clay is going to want to do Catwoman. Right, Clay?

McCormack: Catwoman stands out to me because she doesn’t at this point has not really been mentioned in the White Knight universe. So very similar to Jason, that offers a question mark. That is, to this point, unexplored. Being where we are in the timeline, I think there’s a lot of interesting history to get into. Does Selina Kyle exist? If she does, what has she been doing? That kind of thing.

I’ve been pushing for that for a while. I don’t know if we’ll ever get to do it, but it would be fun.

In the universe of the White Knight, Bruce Wayne may be old but he’s still kicking. In the main DC continuity, however, Bruce is dead… sort of. Here’s what that means .

Eclipsed by the rise of K-pop and Mandopop, Canto-pop’s popularity went dark for many years, until it found its voice again.

For decades, it felt as if the historical performance on July 1, 1997, at Hong Kong’s handover, also immortalised the peak of Canto-pop: When superstars the ‘Four Heavenly Kings’ and George Lam Tsz Cheung, Alan Tam Wing Lun, Sally Yeh, and Faye Wong delivered a rare hand-in-hand performance.

That night, fans screamed with excitement at a celebration that was internationally televised. After all, they had been headliners in the entertainment industry, icons of Canto-pop’s golden age who made Hongkongers swell with hometown pride.

Their songs, which centred on saccharine romances and love fantasies, had dominated Hong Kong pop culture for more than two decades, providing the backing track to the city’s prosperity and stability.

Their glamour alone was able to mask the genre’s decline. In fact, by the mid-1990s, record sales for top acts in Canto-pop had begun to fall. Over the next three years, those numbers would plummet by more than half, from HK$1.853 billion (S$327 million) in 1995 to HK$0.916 billion in 1998, according to the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (Hong Kong Group).

It would take more than two decades for that pride to re-emerge, through the voices of a whole new generation of artists.

New generation Canto-pop embodies diverse themes

“With great strength and vigour, we welcome the arrival of a new century,” go the lyric queues in Warrior, a rap pop song by boy band Mirror. “I put an end to the closed-minded world. A new world has created a group of chosen youth.”

The group leads a blooming new stream of talented musicians born in the 1990s, who burst onstage, birthing a whole new generation of fans.

For the Canto-pop industry, they represent hope – the young blood of Canto-pop ready to restore Hongkongers’ love for the genre.

Cultural critic Kenny Leung Man Tao marks the date of Canto-pop’s magical revival as Jan 1st, 2021. That’s when Mirror’s Keung To became the youngest person to win two coveted local prizes – My Favourite Male Singer and My Favourite Song – at Commercial Radio’s Ultimate Song Chart Awards Presentation.

The result created a social media uproar, prompting the public to rekindle their impressions of Canto-pop.

Following the 2019 protests and pandemic challenges, residents who perceived a decline in their city’s status felt an urgency to protect Cantonese culture and identity, giving rise to a rare burst of unity.

Leung’s analysis of Spotify’s data showed that the proportion of Canto-pop songs that had made it to the top 200 most-played songs in Hong Kong’s list had risen from its lowest of about 30 per cent before 2020, to almost 60 per cent in 2021. By the earlier part of 2022, it had climbed to almost 80 per cent, making local music the most overwhelmingly sought-after among Hongkongers.

“After 2019, audiences were no longer satisfied with the former order and demanded a new scene,” Leung said.

The sound of a new generation

Canto-pop has found its way back to the playlists of Hongkongers, but not on the strength of old idols such as Eason Chan Yick Shun, Miriam Yeung Chin Wah, and Joey Yung Cho Yee. Amid the political divide in the city, some fans have abandoned these stars for their perceived affinity to the mainland market.

Instead, such fans passionately support a fresh batch of artists who have jump-started Canto-pop.

“There is a resurgence of enthusiasm … in a way I have never seen before,” said singer-songwriter Chan Wing Him, who has written for almost every Canto-pop star since 2005 including Eason Chan, Joey Yung, Pakho Chau, Fiona Sit and many more. More recently, Chan has written songs for the new generation of idols including Keung.

“The new breed of young stars carries a style of their own, be they a band such as Mirror, or [girl band] Collar,” he notes. “There are multi-talented singer-songwriters with distinct personalities such as Serrini, Terrance Lam, Gareth Tong and more. There are a lot of collaborations and together, they have created a vibrate dynamic that keeps the scene interesting and draws attention.”

He points to the huge difference in how these emerging musicians rose to fame, answering a consumer market that now has a craving for alternative music genres, such as rock, rap, R&B, hip-hop, rather than the singalong tunes of the past.

Today’s Canto-pop addresses new musical forms and themes, inspired by post-protest social sentiments and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Veteran lyricist Siu Hak, 47, is overjoyed at the long-delayed bloom. The wordsmith, known for his unique soul-searching and philosophic style, went through some lowest periods in 2016 and 2017 when he wrote one or two songs. The music scene was at that point lacklustre, dominated mostly by simple, sad love songs and overshadowed by Mandopop and K-pop.

“What used to dominate the market were karaoke songs,” he said. “Although love ballads still have their importance, now it is an entirely different scene. There are many more that show an outlet of public sentiments, explore spiritual issues and so on.”

The latest hit that Siu Hak wrote was anti-war song What The Work Says for Keung, which dropped on his birthday on April 30. Within the first two weeks of the music video’s release, it had racked up more than four million views on YouTube.

He also noted that today’s musicians still expressed themselves “within the grey areas” in response to the political climate, exploring ideas in subtle ways.

Local chart-toppers in the last two years emphasised themes of togetherness, recovery, perseverance, and self-improvement. Many addressed sentiments such as bidding goodbyes, and blessings for new beginnings amid departures of residents who view the Beijing-imposed national security law as an encroachment on freedoms.

Among such numbers is Ciao by local band Rubberband, which goes, “Please have a good time every day, whether it’s stability or adventure … I said I’ll see you later, and I promise to see you later.” Other favourites include four-man group C AllStar’s For Those Who Stayed, For Those Who Left, One Promise’s See You Next Year, as well as MC $oho and KidNey’s Hai Gum Sin La, which can be roughly translated as “see you later”.

Chan has written Shape of Wind for singer Yoyo Sham last year, which discusses exploring a different lifestyle, letting go of the past, and embracing the unknown. It’s a mindset that speaks to both social uncertainties as well as the current Canto-pop resurgence.

“Every generation needs its own music to express itself,” said Chan. “And this is the real-life we are facing right now.” The times have inspired new music, he added, despite the red tape or obstacles musicians continue to face.

Overcoming the odds, Canto-pop continues to stay relevant to Hongkongers’ sentiments, and retain its cultural significance as the city’s unifying voice.

Canto-pop’s decline: a lack of talent, diversity and leadership

A lack of talent and diversity and the obsolete management styles of record companies caused the nosedive of Canto-pop in the late 1990s, following trendsetting periods of the four Kings – soloists Andy Lau Tak Wah, Jacky Cheung Hok Yau, Leon Lai Ming, and Aaron Kwok Fu Shing.

They had dominated Asian showbiz in the early 1990s and swept up awards for Canto-pop and Mandopop. They also made Canto-pop the hottest trend among Chinese communities globally, with hits such as Never-ending Love, Love You More and More Each Day, I’m Sorry I Love You, The Call of Love, and many other catchy chart-toppers in Hong Kong, Taiwan, and mainland China.

But consumers stopped buying CDs as streaming and digital music platforms emerged. Worse, they faced competition that had snazzier producers and sophisticated marketing: With picture-perfect boy and girl groups, Mandopop and Kpop edged out Canto-pop for a larger market share.

Canto-pop quickly became regarded as a dated, hopeless, dying scene.

Canto-pop had typically drawn inspiration from love, Chan said. “It was a time when Hong Kong’s economy was prosperous and society was stable. There was not much suffering … Perhaps the only emotion that could connect people’s hearts was love and losing love.”

Songwriters often created music that was easy to sing to, rather than push for creativity or diversity. “Canto-pop was regarded as the genre that allowed people to get into a karaoke room and sing hard, to express themselves. It was for folks to either release their emotions … or try more difficult songs to show off their singing skills.”

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Renowned music critic Wong Chi Wah still revels in the sweet melodies of the 1980s, during the days of the city’s rapid economic growth, noting that it was mainstream pop that sang the joys and sorrows of Hongkongers. But, he said: “We should no longer use the old form as a standard to judge the recent creations.”

He believes that no youngster would gravitate to melodies or styles of yore, such as Shanghai Tang, late legend James Wong Jim’s masterpiece.

Even the “godfather” of Canto-pop, James Wong, was well aware of the obsolete future of Canto-pop when he wrote his doctoral thesis in 2003. He stated: “Hong Kong music must rebuild its own strong identity before it can hope to regain its previous miraculous influence.”

Through the 1980s, Hong Kong’s complex cultural make up and vast array of new Chinese immigrants gave rise to multiple forms within its local music scene. That diversity represented Hong Kong to its core and shaped its local identity with Cantonese songs.

It became a channel through which generations of locals explored their cultural identity, social expression and personal desire, to supplement the lack of political participation and cultural significance.

But since the 1990s, James Wong argued, Canto-pop shed its unique characteristics, leading him to conclude that “its future looks bleak”.

Professor Stephan Chu Yiu Wai, director of Hong Kong studies at the University of Hong Kong, shared James Wong’s view in his research paper and points to 1997 as the beginning of the Canto-pop’s slide.

Chu said he believed the success of the four kings had allowed the industry to “kick the can down the road”.

But that could not last. Record companies lacked vision in nurturing new talent for the industry, clinging on to its formula made possible by the kings and their predecessors, such as late megastar Gor Gor Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing and Madonna of the East Anita Mui Yim Fong.

Canto-pop seemed boring for a long time

The diminishing influence and popularity of broadcaster TVB’s prime popular music programmes was arguably the straw that broke the camel’s back.

In 2009, TVB fought with Hong Kong Recording Industry Alliance Limited (HKRIA) over copyright fees and banned singers from the four big music labels, including Universal, Warner, Sony, and EMI, from programmes. It ended an era during which the city’s television sectors enabled the broadcast medium to boost the success of local music.

As the page turned into a new millennium, genius lyric masters Albert Leung Wai Man, known as Lam Chik, and Wyman Wong Wai Man, have created many memorable legends for the generations. But these were not enough to revive a shrinking, waning market.

Famous for his signature love songs, Lam Chik’s writings had touched the hearts of countless fans. He managed to churn out some golden hits that touched on life philosophies, which were regarded as less mainstream topics, such as Infinite Beauty of the Setting Sun, and Shall We Talk.

Gary Tang Kin Yat, assistant professor of Hang Seng University, has found eight leading artists dominating almost 30 per cent of the awards from 1997 to 2021, after analysing 25 years of results in four major award competitions held by Commercial Radio, RTHK, Metro, TVB.

They included Andy Lau, Eason Chan, Joey Yung, Miriam Yeung, Hacken Lee Hak Kan, Leo Ku Kui Ke, and so on.

Twins, a two-girl group, had been formed as the shrinking industry tried to appeal to a younger, school-age teen market, but only managed to make a short-lived impact.

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Among them, Eason Chan, 47, and Joey Yung, 41, were widely regarded as “the last megastars” of Canto-pop, after which there was no succession planning.

“Local music fans have stressed that Hong Kong pop music had been very boring and monotonous over the past decade or so,” said Tang, who was conducting a focus group study recently for an upcoming book on local music.

His data showed it had been difficult for new artists to make a significant breakthrough to compete with the big stars backed by resourceful companies with strong commercial muscle, even though they were encouraged by the Newcomer Award.

“In other words, the so-called ‘renaissance’ of Hong Kong pop music is not something that happened out of the blue in the last two years. Some of the new faces that have become so popular had actually been brewing earlier. It is only in the past two years that they have made their mark with their continued commitment and dedication.”

It was not until the mid-2010s that the previous wave of the leading singers receded, and new talents had more room to gain public attention, he said.

New technology, new culture are a breakthrough for Canto-pop

While record sales worldwide plummeted as consumers entered the streaming age, the era has also brought with it many opportunities for emerging talent.

Tang said music platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music have reshaped Hong Kong’s music industry by fostering a new way of consuming music – retaining its original purpose of being listened to – rather than turning it into karaoke products.

“These media platforms also allow alternative or underground music to reach the mainstream, while the audiences can easily discover new creations to their liking. At the same time, they provide valuable reference to music companies to evaluate the public’s taste,” Tang said.

He said indies had always made significant impact on the Canto-pop industry and would have a more vital role in the years to come. In recent years, Chan Wing Him said leading record labels had begun to seek a way out by accepting more independent music that tugged at Hongkongers’ hearts.

One example was Warner Music Hong Kong Ltd signing a new stable of stars including singer-songwriter Panther Chan, whose style carries the indie spirit, and singer Michael Cheung Tin Fu, known as MC Cheung, a winner in ViuTV’s reality talent contest King Maker in 2019 after Mirror’s Keung To won the previous year.

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ViuTV’s music shows, including Chill Club, have offered these groups of artists new platforms to showcase their music more fashionably and endearingly than the traditional TVB shows, which are usually spotlighted only to stars close to the broadcaster.

The new wave of young artists is also eager to have crossover collaboration with each other across occasions and different social media platforms, sometimes just randomly doing live performances on Instagram, introducing new artists and compositions to each others’ fans.

For example, Keung To publicly gives props to Gareth Tong and Tyson Yoshi, among others, getting his fans to pay attention to his two lesser-known musical peers. Soloists Serrini and Terrance Lam are known for their friendship and often interact on social media, with their many fans supporting both.

The new wave of artists worked more as a collective, Chan said, compared with former, more competitive dynamics, when competing music companies forbade artists from working together, and even boycotted each others’ events.

“They are passionate about learning from each other and are eager to improve. Together they have created a larger market and an engaging music scene. Ultimately, everybody will be the winner.”

“Given some time, when the right time comes, Canto-pop will be glorious again.”

This article was first published in South China Morning Post .