Mandopop

Mandopop or mandapop refers to popular music sung in Standard Mandarin, primarily songs from Mainland China and Taiwan. The genre originated from the jazz-influenced popular music of 1930s Shanghai known as Shidaiqu ("period music"); later influences included Japanese enka, Hong Kong's Cantopop, Taiwanese Hokkien pop, and particularly the campus folk song movement of the 1970s. Although pop music in Mandarin predates cantopop, the English term "mandopop" was coined around 1980 after "cantopop" became a popular term for describing popular songs in Cantonese. "Mandopop" was used to describe Mandarin-language popular songs of that time, some of which were versions of cantopop songs sung by the same singers with different lyrics to suit the different rhyme and tonal patterns of Mandarin. Mandopop is categorized as a subgenre of commercial Chinese language music within C-pop. Popular music sung in Mandarin was the first variety of popular music in Chinese to establish itself as a viable industry. It originated in Shanghai; later, Hong Kong, Taipei and Beijing also emerged as important centers of the mandopop music industry. Among the regions and countries where mandopop is most popular are mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore.