When was the last time a new piece of music struck a chord with you? It’s OK — take your time. Surveys suggest that people stop discovering new music around the age of 30. Demanding careers, child-rearing, and simple neuroscientific facts about how our brains work stop many of us from enjoying new music like we used to, as our “open-earedness” declines with age.

Moving from the level of the individual to a collective, this seems to be exactly what has happened with Chinese rock music. In December, China will celebrate the 30th anniversary of a 3.5-hour concert in Hong Kong’s Hung Hom Coliseum featuring the country’s leading rock acts at that time: Dou Wei, Zhang Chu, He Yong, and the band Tang Dynasty.

Often simply referred to as “The Hung Hom Concert,” it has legendary status in contemporary Chinese music lore, celebrated by many as a peak in Chinese rock music that has yet to be surpassed.

According to this narrative, no Chinese rock musician in the years since has managed to produce music of comparable significance or quality to the records released in the run-up to the 1994 concert, such as Zhang Chu’s “Shameful Being Left Alone” and Dou Wei’s “Black Dream” — the album purchased by U.S. Secretary of State and well-known rock and roll fan Anthony Blinken at a Beijing record store in April.

Indeed, despite the success of the 1994 concert, Chinese rock ultimately lost out to Chinese pop music in the battle for dominance of mainstream airwaves, pioneered by major acts from Hong Kong and Taiwan such as Faye Wong and the Little Tigers. As music professor Timothy McKenry puts it, citing the lyrics of American rocker Bob Seger: “Today’s music ain’t got the same soul/I like that old time rock ‘n’ roll.”

But how valid is the mythology surrounding this concert really? Has Chinese rock music actually not made any progress in the last three decades? As a longtime Chinese rock fan, I cannot help but find this popular narrative problematic. No, Chinese rock is not “dead,” as some like to say. Instead, it has become more diverse and decentralized in almost every aspect, from the genre’s fanbase to the musical styles and production methods involved.

The first thing to remember is just how small and elite the rock circle was back in 1994. It was no coincidence that all the musicians at the Hung Hom Concert were born or formed their bands in Beijing, China’s political and cultural capital.

Some, like Ding Wu, Tang Dynasty’s lead singer, were well-connected in Beijing’s elite cultural circles. In fact, Cui Jian, the “Father of Chinese Rock” and the biggest Chinese rock act at the time, had also grown up in Beijing with parents who were both successful artists. (He did not perform at the Hung Hom Concert, however.) This pioneering cohort of rockers quickly ascended to fame among the capital city’s rock fans, at a time when there was scant supply to meet the growing demand for new music as China’s cultural market was opening up.

Much has changed in the three decades since. Despite its continued cultural importance, Beijing is no longer the sole epicenter of China’s rock music scene. Omnipotent Youth Society, the legendary alternative rock band whose two albums released 10 years apart are widely regarded as masterpieces, is from the northern industrial city of Shijiazhuang, which has marketed itself as the “hometown of rock and roll” in the past year.

The same moniker has been claimed in recent years by Xinxiang, a city in the central Henan province and the host of the “Chinese New Music Concert” in 1999, which featured Tang Dynasty and Cui Jian. There are also thriving rock scenes in cities such as Chengdu, with its more avant-garde tastes, and Wuhan, known as the “city of punk.”

Meanwhile, bands like Kidney, which hailed from an obscure town in the southwestern Yunnan province, are emblematic of China’s distinctive southern rock scene, which has emerged as an alternative to the historically dominant northern rock.

The geographical diffusion is reflected in the accents heard. While the early pioneers strictly sang in standard Mandarin — usually with Beijing characteristics — many popular bands since have made their local dialects a centerpiece of their music. These include Shanghainese group Top Floor Circus, which enjoyed a cult following in Shanghai for much of the 2000s and early 2010s, and Guangdong-based band Wu Tiao Ren, which introduced a variation of the Min dialect to a national audience following their appearance on hit rock music reality show “The Big Band.”

Even in Beijing, younger generations of musicians have striven to break away from the constraints of past glories. In 2005, four local bands kickstarted the “No Beijing” tour with music that expressed both the pleasures and pains of living in a globalized metropolis. One of these bands, Carsick Cars, has written songs in English and still tours internationally — one of many Chinese rock bands that have tried to reach international audiences rather than target domestic fans exclusively, as the early rock pioneers did.

Crucially, the decentralization of Chinese rock has been a boon for musical expression. When punk rocker He Yong stepped on to the stage in Hung Hom, he lamented modernization’s impact on Beijing’s traditional way of life, crystalized in the song “Drum Tower.” Since then, a wider range of musicians from migrants to farmers have applied this sociocritical lens to speak to the specific challenges and experiences of their respective hometowns and lives through their music.

These bands have democratized Chinese rock music, not only in the geographical sense, but also in bringing attention to issues beyond only those most familiar to Beijing elites. For example, Wu Tiao Ren’s music speaks to globalization’s impact on China’s county-level cities, while much of Omnipotent Youth Society’s catalog addresses problems of industrialization and its environmental impact.

Second, it would be insulting to Chinese rock musicians to say that no progress has been made in the last 30 years despite all the new musical styles and production methods that have been made available to them as China has opened up to the world both economically and culturally.

The explosion of streaming services and online music platforms has vastly improved the standards and listening habits of Chinese musicians, a far cry from the cut-out cassette tapes and pirated discs that were the only ways for them to hear cutting-edge music around the world in the 1980s and 1990s. And it has not just been a simple story of “Westernization” either — Chinese bands have found inspiration in music from all over the world, a good example being much of the reggae rock coming out of Yunnan today, with its heavy Caribbean influences.

Though rock music has been enjoying a mini-renaissance in recent years, as the number of livehouses and music festivals across the country have soared, it certainly has not regained the cultural significance it had in the early 1990s. What’s more, questions remain about whether something has been lost from the “golden era” of the past — authenticity, mainly — as Chinese rock is increasingly associated with reality shows and short-video apps.

However, I believe the essence of rock music is constant evolution. Perhaps no one knows this better than Dou Wei. While he remains best known for his early works and performance at Hung Hom, his more recent offerings have ventured further afield in musical styles and ambition, such as his 2016 concept album “Jian Ting Jian,” a spy thriller told through a mix of spy film dialogue, classic rock, and ambient music.

One is perfectly entitled to think that the best Chinese rock was produced decades ago. After all, music is subjective and often tied to how one felt at the time — and those were certainly exciting times. But the progress that Chinese rock has made should also not be dismissed: from four groups of Beijing musicians at the Hung Hom Concert to the many dozens of acts that perform at music festivals around the country every weekend. By retaining our “open-earedness,” we can enjoy all the new features and sounds that China’s rock musicians are constantly throwing our way, and perhaps also keep our ears to the ground of Chinese society and popular sentiment at the same time. Let’s stay curious.

Editor: Vincent Chow.

(Header image: He Yong on stage during the “The Hung Hom Concert,” 1994. From Douban)