10,000 Capacity Music Festivals Still Happen / NFT Craze / Record-Breaking Crowdfunding Campaign for an Indie Album

Throughout the past few years, we’ve been constantly sending out newsletters to everyone who is keen to know more about the music of Taiwan. We compiled the most interesting stories published on our website, the most anticipated new releases and upcoming events, and some of the playlists that we recommended you to follow. However, we have felt that those past issues are lack of personality and interaction, making them much more like marketing tools rather than real conversations with those who have passions for and interest in the music of Taiwan. That’s why now we move to Revue and relaunch the newsletter, hoping to create a more friendly and pleasing reading experience. From now on, we’ll bring you the most important topics (written in an original form!) happening in Taiwan’s music scene and industry. If you have any question or specific topic that you want to know about, please let us know.

On March 27th 28th, at a pier of Kaohsiung, a southern city in Taiwan, Megaport festival strikes back after one year hiatus. 

With over 120 bands, 10 stages and more than 10,000 participants this year, Megaport, with its nearly 15 years of history, is without a doubt one of the biggest live music events in Taiwan. This year, livestreaming of the two main stages were also available on LINE TODAY, giving chances for oversea viewers a quick glance of the Taiwanese music scene.

With agile and effective response to the pandemic, Taiwan has largely held concerts and events as normal. Nonetheless, the exciting crowds at Megaport, which was its full capacity, were all masked up. Fans from all over Taiwan filled out the health management form and took body temperature while entering indoor venues.

As the bracing spring breeze came, more and more music fests were about to follow the footstep of Megaport. In April came 16 music fests in this island nation. From fests that were held within city’s usual venues, outdoor fests at sightseeing spots near beachside in order to promote local tourism, to campus events held by college students, no matter what purpose or what scale it might be, music fans in Taiwan are sure pleased to still being able to go to live gigs and music fests.

On March 23rd, Mandopop artist Eric Chou announced on his Instagram that he will be launching his first NFT project soon. While this may or may not be the first NFT case in Taiwanese music market, Chou, who just held a concert with 10,000 fans last August and made himself up on TIME Magazine, did shake things up a little with his diving into the NFT market.

While Eric Chou chose to put his work on OpenSea, one of the biggest NFT platform, several Taiwanese NFT services have also started to work their way through the marketplace. FANSI, Jcard and OURSONG all recently announced their joining in NFT and their collaborations with artists in order to put out the first wave merchandise. OURSONG, founded in 2019 under KKBOX Group, is a digital music platform using and promoting blockchain technology in Taiwanese music industry. With new function added, it gradually developed into an invite-only social media. This April they started to provide NFT service, which claimed to be “the world’s first music lover’s marketplace where musicians can create and trade non-fungible tokens (NFTs)“ called Vibes. Up until now, there are R&B singer Julia Wu’s newest single, cover artwork of metal band Flesh Juicer’s 1st album GIGO, and another singer Kimberley Chen’s remix album Kow Tow: Princess Tendency Remix, all sold on OURSONG in NFT form. However, whether NFT will be a niche or a game-changer in the industry is still worth some further observation.

The crowdfunding campaign of alternative rock trio Sorry Youth’s newest album Bad Times, Good Times reached 3 million NTD (approx. 107,492 USD), setting a new record in Taiwanese music-related crowdfunding history.

The campaign started on March 23rd with an initial goal of 500,000 NTD which was achieved with 4 minutes, and then the amount peaked and reached one million within two hours. The campaign ended on April 26th with 3.1 million and broke the record in Taiwanese music-related crowdfunding history. The record was last held by folk rock group Sheng Xiang & Band’s 2.6 million in 2016.

Sorry Youth is a Taiwanese indie three-piece band formed in 2005. The name came from a tribute gig towards Sonic Youth. Their music blends 90’s alternative with noise-pop, punk, and shoegaze. They recently just played at the main stage of Megaport, one of the biggest music fests in Taiwan.

Aside from CD, they have also planned to release vinyl, too. This time they work with New York sound engineer Greg Calbi on the master tape. Greg is an iconic engineer who has mastered Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Bruce Springsteen’s Born to Run, and David Bowie’s Young Americans.