| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立成功大學 === 藝術研究所 === 95 === In the 1950s-60s, covering songs became a main stream of the Taiwanese record market. To reduce costs, record companies started to release cover songs, most of which were translated from Japanese songs. This strategy proved to be a significant commercial success. The covers not only inspired the depressed music business of Taiwan after World War II, but also internalized as part of people's collective memory. Owing to the prosperity of private radio stations and Taiwanese films, these songs spread like wildfire, and were extremely popular with the mass audience. The Attraction of large profit made the number of record companies increase in surprising speed. Mass production and consumption of music merchandise showed that the music industry in Taiwan had grown greatly in those twenty years.
In order to cross language barriers, record companies remade well-known foreign tunes to be more palatable for the mass audience. The original versions could be Japanese songs, English songs, Chinese songs, or even folk songs. During that period, almost every singer had cover songs in their albums. Remaking hit tunes has been an underlying trend until today, even though the Taiwanese record market went downward after the 1970s. However, there are still few academic theses on Taiwanese cover songs, and researchers tend to diminish the value of Taiwanese cover songs since they are pirated ones. My task here is to see covering from the other side. Meanwhile, I want to emphasize the significance of cover songs held in our society. For generations these songs have circulated among the people, most of which mirror the social reality at various historical junctures. Based on this concern, the objective of my task aims to analyze how these songs merged into people's daily life at that time.
This thesis focuses on the development of Taiwanese Cover Songs between 1950s and 60s as well as the social background in which covering was at its height. I discussed the process from production to consumption of music merchandise. Furthermore, the contents of Taiwanese lyrics and arrangement are two primary aspects involved in this research. By analyzing the essence of the song itself, I wish people will start to notice the fascination of Taiwanese cover songs or at least try to look at them without bias.
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