A reading on Ultimate Song Chart Awards show hosted by Commercial Radio : how pop music is being represented in the shows and how it is made

摘要

For almost every December during my years working at Hong Kong Commercial Radio (CR), I got very busy with answering calls from people listed on my phonebook, people who never made it to my phonebook and people I don’t even know about their existence. They all share one purpose. They’d call me for the tickets to Ultimate Music Awards Show on the New Year’s Day hosted by CR. “The show is so much fun and full of surprises”, “I got to see my favorite singers all in one show”, “I don’t have enough rewards points to redeem the show tickets” These are one of the few reasons I had been told for asking my help getting the tickets. I understand their anxiety of wanting to go to the show because, simply, I have been one of them. I could identify myself in them as an audience. I could identify myself with the show as an on-show staff. I could identify myself as a canto-pop music fan. Pop music is, as a form of pop culture under the mediation process, more than just a piece of pop song in recent music history. Pop music has included elements of the physical and musical presentation of the performer, the amount of press coverage on the performer and the song, the record selling figures, the amount of awards being received for the song or for the performer, and how many times the song has been sung at the karaoke bars. On the other hand, if pop music is regarded as a form of commodities, who is there to determine which style of music will be the big hit of the year or what kind of singing style would absolute help the performer to be awarded as the singer of the year. It is all about under the process of mediation in which various parties in the music industry and the media are the key players. In this paper, I will examine how pop music is being represented in this particular music award shows and how music and sincerity is being mediated in it.