For Nacrad, we are known for Cantorock music.
Cantorock is a contraction of "Cantonese rock music". This genre of music is written in both Cantonese and English, though recent songs feature English more prominently, in order to cater for the growing international audience. This genre of music is widely believed to have originated in the early 2010s from the much older Cantopop music, which had been associated with Nacrad. While Cantopop only enjoyed popularity within East Asia, Cantorock was able to achieve global success due to its more prominent presence of English.
Besides influence from Cantopop music, it is also believed to have derived from post-hardcore, emo, pop punk and rock music genres, perhaps most prominently from bands originating from the US East Coast and Midwest. During the separation of Cantorock as a distinct genre, the stylistic origin, namely emo, had experienced a major decline. According to various reports, many fans of emo thus moved to Cantorock, bringing this genre into the mainstream. Cantorock first entered the mainstream in the summer of 2013, following the release and success of the album Stonecutters' Romance, written by the band "The Ramblers". Following the success, many Cantorock bands emerged, such as Friday Freedom, We The People, The Draft-Dodgers, Revolution Radio, and many others.
Cantorock is, as discussed before, derived from emo music. It thus often has high-pitched confessional lyrics, often singing about relationships, heartache, parental problems and societal pressure, though often avoids topics like suicide due to societal taboos. Most Cantorock songs also contain the same instruments as the stylistic origins, namely electric guitars, drums and basses.
Cantonese is a tone-sensitive language, though. With a total of 9 tones, it is difficult to compose lyrics over a melody. As a result, some songs have the Cantonese lines as a rap section, while others resort to stock phrases by earlier works. However, a common feature for both options is that Cantonese lyrics and English lyrics often interweave with each other, and code-switching is very common. Unlike its older brother, it is quite uncommon for strict rhyme schemes to appear in Cantorock songs.
Despite the global appeal, due to the difficulty of both speaking and writing in Cantonese, most Cantorock bands are limited to Nacrad, and regions with significant Cantonese-speaking population. The most successful Cantorock record label is Motorway 17,
Furthermore, due to its global appeal, it is thought to have increased popularity of the Cantonese language across most nations, most prominently in the U.S. East Coast, where learners of Cantonese had increased nearly three-fold from 2010 to 2015. It is also thought to have influenced regional music, like K-pop, J-pop, etc.
