Keith Li

English 133

Dr. Jason Peters

19 February 2018

More Than an App, More Than Music

Do you use Apple music or Spotify? People ask me this question as if there is no other

options. However, I use Netease Music, just like the other 299 million users. As a music app,

Netease music seems just like another music streaming service, but this music community is

growing at a fast pace thanks to the user-friendly that the developer created for the community.

Much like the idea of a “free-to-play” game on Steam, “Freemium” is a business model

employed by Netease Music where users have access to the app and all the content available

without any charge, and Netease Music gained 300 million users in only four years of operation.

Beside a variety of music presented to the users, there are also podcasts and my favorite section

called the “Netease Exclusive”, which an online publishing platform for music related essays and

blogs. Different from the news section of the app, “Netease Exclusive” is curated by both the

company and the users. These articles Netease Music intrigues me the most because of the

approach of introducing new music with writings truly engages those who are not familiar with

that specific genre of music.

In the “exclusive” section of the App Netease music, an article written by “Universal

Music Group International (China)” (UMGI) caught my eye. UMGI is a recognized user who
publish essay weekly and are mainly focusing on analyzing current trend for a wide range of

audience. The title is: “A Must | Globally Renowned Project, Kendrick Lamar Forges ‘Black

Panther’ Album”. The article starts off by introducing the much anticipated Marvel movie “Black

Panther”, where it is rated 8.4/10 and 99% on the tomatometer by Rotten Tomato, a popular

rating website.

Interestingly, this article was published this year on February 12th, four days before the s

creening of the movie.

Why? The answer is that Kendrick Lamar, the Grammy-Winning Hip-hop artist released

a album of the same name, and according to this article, it has already became a focus point of

attention before the screening of the movie. With an album cover

representing the suit worn by the comic character, songs like “All

the Stars” and “Pray for Me” have four million listens daily on Spotify and

ranked No.2 and No.3 on the Spotify Global Ranking. The

Cover of the album, “Black
editor also puts the songs in the article so the readers can listen Panther”

to the album while reading this passage. To invite the audience into the world of Hip-

hop production a little more, the author of UMGI explores the creating process of the album.

According to UMGI, the album is inspired by the marvel movie, and the director, Ryan Coogler,

specifically asked for a collaboration with Kendrick for his appreciation toward the Compton

rapper. Furthermore, being a member of Top Dawg Entertainment, K.Dot is able to gather artists

like Schoolboy Q, Future, Travis Scott, and rising artists like SZA and Khalid. As said by UNGI,

the collaborations in the album are created in a way that sets an example of Kendrick’s
experimental approach, and as the numbers have shown, Kendrick’s way of Hip-hop is a success.

Furthermore, the author of UMGI discusses hoe K.Dot has redefined his album and the genre of

the movie in order to tie back into the topic of “Black Panther”. The author believes that the

collaboration between Marvel and Kendrick marks a significant era of fusion between art and

culture where the album is not only a hit on the music chart, but also a cultural statement in

Kendrick’s heart, and the movie is not only classified as a superhero movie, but also tagged as a

“Hip-hop” movie.

With a short but rich article, UMGI provided an intriguing introduction of Hip-hop to

those who are not familiar with and an insightful, cross-disciplinary analysis to those who are, all

through the phenomenon of “Black Panther”. UMGI hits two birds with one stone, all thanks to

the creative approach embodied in every “Netease Exclusive” articles.

In order to better introduce the discourse community of Netease music, I interviewed my

roommate Harry Yan. He used Netease music since the early developmental years of the app. He

listens to music everyday and enjoys discovering new music.

Among all the available music apps, Harry chose to use Netease music not just for the

clean user interface, but also the way Netease music presents its variety of music. In the

interview, Harry explains the user-friendliness of the app and how those features attracted him to

choose Netease music among other music apps. He said, “They have very clear headers, several

headers, like music, video, fm, the ‘Netease exclusive’.” He thinks these headers help him

navigate through the app even without the tutorial that popped out when he first downloaded the
app. With a clear interface, Harry is able to search the music he wants to listen to at the moment,

and he can easily comment on that piece of music just by tapping the speech bubble icon. “I

don’t comment that much, it’s kind of awkward for me, but the comments are pretty funny.”

Harry said once he was listening to Denzel Currys Ultimate, there are several users who wrote in

the comments section referencing a Vine video that went viral on the Internet, he said, “I laughed

so hard when I saw those comments, and actually reopened my Twitter account because it

reminded me of how fun Twitter was.” It is interesting to see how music is able to connect

different communities and how music is penetrating our lives in an electronic society. While

users are commenting on the song, they can even reward the user who uploaded the music and

the lyrics to show appreciation, thus encouraging more involvement in the Netease community. I

think the idea of comment and reward are brilliant ways to initiate conversation in the

community since it is purely driven by the community members and without any direct

involvement from the company. However, those who comment with offensive language can be

reported by other users from the Netease music community, so there are certain rules that the

users needs to abide to in order to maintain a healthy music community.

“Everybody is using it, because it [is] a musics app, teenager will listen to hip hop and all

the crazy stuff, but the elder community will listen to music that are slow and relaxed, bring

peace to their life.” Harry believes that there is a great range of demographics who uses Netease

music, and I asked him if his grandma uses it, he says with a big smile, “Yes my grandparents

listen to music, my grandma uses this app on her iPad, but she mainly listen to Peking opera and

Sichuan opera. So the app has all kinds of music and its diversified.” The
 With the development of modern society, it is rare to live without music. We need music

when we party; we need music go to church; and we need music when we drive. This musical

phenomenon is ubiquitous because of the emotional impact that they have on our lives.

Intuitively, music can be enjoyed personally or with a group, and Netease Music provides a

platform that engages interaction among those who are empowered by music. The motto, “Music

is Power” shows up every time you open the app, and yes, music is powerful; the various degrees

of influence provided by any genre of music can be found in every corner of our lives, but I think

this app has formed a community that is greater than itself by incorporating ideas from all

aspects of life, and truly explains why “Music is Power”: it is powerful because it comes from

our daily lives. Next time you are looking for something fresh or trying to retrieve that feeling

you had when you were riding that bus, make sure to take your time at Netease Music, because it

is more than an app, and it is more than just music.

Work Cited

环球菌 . “必听|全球口碑力作, Kendrick Lamar 打造《黑豹》新专.” 网易

云音乐, 环球音乐国际部, 12 Feb. 2018, 00:13,
music.163.com/#/topic?id=18807054.
Transcript

Everyday, because music make me relieved and feels less stressed, and I like
to listen to music before bed to go to bed?
What music do you listen before you go to bed?
I guess, piano
Interesting
who’s you favorite pianist, Chopin
how do you encounter net ease
All my friends are using it, so I got pulled into the pool, the app is easy to
use,
What part of the app that makes it user-friendly
Because you can search for music and there are different topic that you
If you want to do aerobics, there are…
When you are outside doing picnic, you can pick picnic music, and a lot of
country will come up.
They have very clear headers, several headers, music, video, fm, the
“netease exclusive”.
So now Im looking at what is the sound of winter, so click on that, it take you
on another page, and It has a description of what the winter is like, which will
fit the descriptions, and as you are are reading the description, the music is
playing, and there is not only one song in each essay, so it will continue
playing after a song is over.
Yes there are comments below the article, and it shows you who wrote this at
the end of the essay, and you can subscribe the author, the person, and
people can reply. There are comment about the music and the article, for
example, whats the winter like, they are talking about what the winter is like
in specific location, like in southern china, northern china, and even the
states, so it connects people from all over the world, for example, I have
never been to northern china, so after reading the article, I have a clear
image of what winter in northern china is like.
Everybody is using it, because it a musics app, teenager will listen to hip hop
and all the crazy shit, but the elder community will listen to music that are
slow and relaxed, bring peace to their life.
Yes my grandparents listen to music, my grandma uses this app on her iPad,
but she mainly listen to peking opera and sichuan opera. So the app has all
kinds of music and its diversified.
I barely comment, because it is hard to, because I just use it to listen to the
music.
Ive been using this for seven years, I started using it as a middelschooler,
when I had my first smartphone, I used this app to listen to music. But now I
use Spotify, because a lot of songs are blocked in the us, it is sad, so it is
more beneficial to use this app in china than in the states.