本文嘗試從「物」出發，在音樂的本體論論爭之外，以一種懸置「音樂」的視角考察九十年代中國城市的音樂亞文化，求取打口唱片的物質性與「打口一代」的亞文化想像之間的微妙關聯。文章首先簡要介紹了打口在歐美唱片工業中的歷史源頭以及中國「打口一代」的亞文化想像；第二部分聚焦於作為「料」的打口在潮陽和平鎮的廢料回收產業中的物質屬性與相應的價值標準，並展示了打口的「物性」與中國本地樂迷的亞文化想像之間的戲劇性衝突；第三部分從打口的「品相」分類學與中國樂迷「修打口」的消費儀式入手，討論作為音樂儲存介質的打口的物理殘缺性及其被重新建構的用途與意義；第四部分在西方人文學科的「基礎設施」轉向的啟發下，考察三種不同類型的打口零售業態：地攤、公共賣場中的租賃商戶與獨立鋪面的唱片店，並分析了打口零售市場中的「低端」與「野生」的「詩學」及其在後天安門的歷史情境中展現的微妙政治張力。本文試圖展示：打口唱片的物質性與音樂性彼此依存，相生相成，並且在對時代情境的反應中殊途同歸。
This article explores the possibility of music studies without a focus on ‘music itself ’, using a ‘thing-centred’ approach to investigate the music subculture of the ‘cut-out generation’ in 1990s mainland China. Seeking to demonstrate the relationship between the materiality of the cut-outs and the subcultural imaginary of the ‘cut-out generation’, it approaches the cut-out subculture with three main foci: the ‘thingness’ of the cut-outs as scrap materials, the defective materiality of the cut-outs as music records, and the infrastructure of cut-out retail business. After a brief introduction to the history of the cut-outs and the “cut-out generation”, the first section studies the scrap business at the top of Chinese cutout industry and the rules by which the cut-outs were evaluated in this regime of value. The second section investigates the cut-outs’ trajectory from a “thing” to an “object” with unique (sub)cultural use and meanings, focusing on the “typology of physical conditions” on the cut-out market and the ritual of “cut-out repairing” practiced by local consumers. The third section examines three types of cut-out retail outlets: ground stalls, rented counters in public marketplaces, and record stores, arriving at a peculiar “poetics” of the cut-out retail infrastructure marked by its “shabbiness” and “primitiveness” and the subtle political tensions embedded in the Post-Tiananmen context. The article concludes by arguing that the materiality and “musicness” of the cut-outs were mutually dependent on and conditioned by each other, and they joined together in articulating an affective response by the “cut-out generation” to the time they lived in.
