Search - Cui Jian :: The Power of the Powerless

Cui Jian breaking new ground

Veli-Matti Palomäki | 08/07/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Cui Jian, "the Godfather of Chinese rock", has made four albums this far and every one of them is very different in style. Cui Jian's fourth album, The power of the powerless, combines jazz, rap, funk, rock and elements of classical chinese music into a new kind of musical representation. This is not my favorite of Cui Jian's albums, but nevertheless very good, with talented musicanship and diversity in style. Worth buying."

Cui jian - world class rock/now on tour baby!

niubi | Taipei | 03/12/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"i think i like his album 'balls under the red flag' slightly more. no doubt though, this is a great effort by cui jian (and even better live) backed up by a world class band combining rock, rap, traditional Chinese instrumentation, and jazz into a unique sound to carry his powerful lyrics which speak of love and relationships, political and social angst, and of individual space in and against an emergent, fragmented and eclectic post-modernism - sometimes in biting satirical allegories and sometimes just plainly. i should add that this pressing of 'power of the powerless' includes english translations of the songs and is considerably higher quality than the cd released in china. ..."

Pleasure and pulse

William L. Smith | Calcutta India | 05/03/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"having lived in Beijing from 97-2000 and having had the pleasure of not only owning a CD and VCD of the live performance(at the time of course the band was still not allowed to play together before a large audience)I would go through the Freindship store (government owned stores) and one day someone had put the live vcd on and attracted about 5 people and for the following three days it grew to 20 when one of the employees turned it off and chewed out the other people for putting in on. So of course I bought it. We had the band play at the 4th of July cellebration and you could hear at least one of them weekly on a drop in at a great place called the CD cafe. Have not been able to get this CD but will keep trying. One of the greatest bands and Cui has fronted for the likes of Peter Gabriel and the like. Not as heave as Tang Dynasty but a great band. The Bob Dylan of China"