Chinese indie-rock scene "has a real heart"

Rolling Stone has a great long-read about the Chinese (indie-)rock scene, going back decades to Black Panther, Yu Quan, and He Yong. Today, it's Beijing that holds the country's highest-profile rock scene, with Southern cities Wuhan and Chengdu boasting fertile punk and post-punk scenes, due in part to their large university communities. RS emphasizes radical sincerity of Chinese rock, which Ricky Maymi, guitarist of the San Francisco group the Brian Jonestown Massacre, describes this way: “The musicians in the Chinese rock scene are finding a place to put ideas and feelings where otherwise, in their culture, they wouldn’t have a place. This music has real heart, devoid of any kind of irony. That gives it a built-in power, a magic that Western music hasn’t had for a long time".