Oh My God, They Killed Kenny!

Will we see the day that LeBron James grabs his crotch and moonwalks across the court? Or maybe he’ll get plastic surgery and marry his nurse. Maybe. He has declared in the past that he wants to become a Global Icon. In the past couple weeks it has become clear that the world has lost such an icon. Even across the world this icon’s death was noted and his passing is mourned. Naturally, it seems that his death and the events surrounding it are just as bizarre as those surrounding his life. However, I submit that there is one consequence that nobody could have foreseen: the rise of Kenny G.

You see, China has been stuck in the 80s ever since I got here. I could hear MJ songs from my students’ cell phones and of course there were the horrible Chinese remixes that you would hear in supermarkets and in cabs. The music of Michael Jackson was everywhere. I went to the gym once and got treated to The Best Videos of Michael Jackson DVD as I was running on the treadmill. Let me tell you, there’s nothing more heart-thumping and adrenaline-pumping than seeing faces morph from type to type using what was the latest technology of the time, even if it did eventually become a cruel parody of real life. In the digital artists’ defense, they couldn’t have known that someone would actually try to recreate this effect with their own face.

However, a few months ago the background noise of China began to shift, almost imperceptibly at first, but becoming more and more noticeable. Where before the clothes shops and electronics stores blasted rock music from oversized speakers placed in front of the doors, now the music had a much different feel. I knew I’d heard it before, but I couldn’t quite place it. Then it came to me and it was a little funny at first. It was Kenny G. I laughed it off and figured that China was just discovering more Western music that should have been collected, put in a time capsule, and then blown up long ago. You know, like the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, and Celine Dion (who merits another round of scorn later in this entry).

But this was no passing fad. Soon every supermarket, restaurant, and street peddler was playing saxophone versions of what used to be good songs. At last I came to the horrifying conclusion that China’s music had moved from the 80s and instead of settling on the grunge scene or any other genre of music from the time period, the People’s High Music Council (or whatever distinguished body of elders decides these things) chose the early-to-mid 90s soft rock scene. I was personally rooting for early-90s hip-hop, but alas, it seems that the day I see a Chinese pedestrian strolling along the boulevard to the dulcet tones of Run-DMC or Ice Cube will never come. Such a shame.

I suppose I can understand why the PHMC would pick Kenny G. If you look up “opiate of the masses” in the dictionary, you won’t see religion, but rather a picture of Mr. G and his flowing locks. Even his hair is hypnotic. I don’t know how to combat an evil so innocuous and so… non-threatening. I fear that the only way to precipitate another shift in China’s music landscape is to once again remove its one defining personality. Now I’m not necessarily advocating the use of deadly force or anything so drastic as that. But if Mr.G, if that is in fact his real name, were to be chloroformed on the way to his next appointment with five gallons of perm sauce or whatever they use in hair salons and were to wake up on an island inhabited solely by giant, man-eating chinchillas, I certainly wouldn’t complain. Who could orchestrate such a dastardly scheme you may ask (and probably would, if you’re somehow still reading this entry)? There are always certain three-letter agencies who have been out of favor with certain governments lately. I mean, I can’t think of a better possible way to sabotage peace here.

Paradoxically, it would almost certainly bring me peace. I would be slightly less tempted to look for the nearest pronged object to jam into my eye as I hear “My Heart Will Go On” for approximately the 8,593,376th time. Does it mean that I would probably have to suffer the soul-rending agony of Celine Dion singing it again? Probably yes, but I’ve learned something today: sometimes in life we have to make sacrifices for the greater good.