From 2004 to 2024, Twenty Years of Music and Us

No press conference. Just a few days ago, on the 20th anniversary of Kugou Music: a brand video, a limited anniversary new version, and a new slogan - "Listen to Music on Kugou in China" - came into the public's view.

2024 marks the 30th anniversary of the birth of the Internet in China and the 20th anniversary of Kugou Music. When you open Kugou, the familiar "Hello Kugou" is the first sound you hear, and it always accurately hits you at the moment it rings. Just as the first email in the world was "LO", which also means "Hello", the history of the Internet and Kugou Music seem to be connected by an invisible line.

Those who have been with Kugou Music for 20 years can always see their past selves in the music. I believe the first-generation users will remember the golden age of the Chinese music scene from 2000 to 2010, when there were many excellent musicians competing. Whether in websites and PC clients, or from the charts and popular songs, you could find a song you like. After the rise of the mobile Internet, the music produced and accumulated by different roles such as online hit songs, independent musicians, idol talent shows, and professional record companies cannot be said to be declining, but rather it is like a hundred flowers blooming, making the anchor point for matching music and users no longer unified in aesthetic.

But looking back at the history of the Internet, even in the era of fierce platform competition, music matching and recommendation based on algorithms is not its strong point. Strictly speaking, the reason why it is not so "accurate" is not only a technical problem, but also the limitation of the national user volume. After all, it is difficult to find another music product that covers user groups of different ages, regions, and cultural backgrounds, has a music library of more than 200 million songs, and still ranks among the top in the industry after 20 years: According to QuestMobile data, as of June 2024, Kugou Music ranked first in the online music APP industry with a monthly active user scale of 230 million.

Over the past 20 years, it has seen rampant piracy in the market, witnessed the "best era" of Chinese music, experienced the process of competing for genuine copyrights of music platforms, and now Kugou Music has truly not been "overtaken by the younger generation" through its "long slope and thick snow". It has also become one of the excellent samples of the Chinese Internet.

20 Years Old, Like a Youthful Lad

The song "The First Snow of 2002" was actually released in 2004. That year, Dao Lang's singing echoed in the streets and alleys; Jay Chou told everyone about "the taste of saury" with his guitar; the third-place winner of a Hunan TV show sang "Sour and Sweet Is Me", and no one knew that both the show and the song would become popular all over the country next year.

Today in 2024, when you open the new limited 20th-anniversary version of Kugou Music, you will find that it is not completely the same as in your memory: simple, smooth, and beautiful, like a "graceful youth", and you can even customize your own homepage. If you use it for a period of time, you will find that through active song selection and passive calibration, Kugou Music's recommendations become more in line with your preferences.

Having a large music library is just the foundation. In the current era of open copyrights, how to find music that users will like and be attracted to from the vast music library is the embodiment of the competitiveness of music products. "We have been strengthening the accuracy of algorithmic matching and constantly trying to return to the value of 'people'," LingLing, the head of Kugou Music's music library operation, told 36Kr. The so-called value of people is that Kugou Music will launch more special projects produced by music editors, professionally recommend around different themes such as regions, music styles, eras, and singers, and use the warmth of people to continuously discover classic and potentially overlooked good music in the music library. For example, recently, based on the popularity of the national music listening data, a special Cantonese season project - the Hong Kong Film Golden Song Special - was launched. Each of these classic songs is not only the memory of a generation, but also a bridge connecting the traditional and the modern.

"We want to bring some human warmth back to music," LingLing said. Therefore, the investment of music editors is still increasing. Along with the 20th-anniversary brand video, a series of special music projects have also been launched. The National Annual Memory Single, the 20-Year National Memory Song List, and One Song for Each Person to Relive the Golden Hits... When the prelude of "Common Jasmin Orange" plays, it seems that everyone returns to that hot and noisy summer.

Music is always the best bargaining chip to convince users. "Also, UGC playlists will be recommended and distributed according to preferences, and users can also filter out their favorite playlists from the playlist entrance according to different labels such as scenes, themes, styles, and moods." Yes, the UGC content of users of different ages and regions accumulated over 20 years has formed another content source of Kugou in addition to algorithms and editors.

On December 4, after the news of Qiong Yao's death spread, many users spontaneously created playlists on Kugou Music, which were selected by the editors to the homepage of the music library, and the corresponding special topic was launched simultaneously, summarizing the TV soundtracks, background music, and audio books of the past few decades. The eight words "The story ends here, but the romance is eternal" on the page seem to explain everything.

Maybe many people will ask, after a music platform has undergone 20 years of iteration, update, and business expansion, in the new environment, what kind of appearance should it present to users from the inside out to be the best?

In fact, many people may have heard of the Ship of Theseus Paradox. This ancient thought experiment raises a question: If a wooden ship is gradually replaced with new wood until none of the original wood remains, is the ship still the original ship? Aristotle's conclusion is that as long as the purpose remains the same, the ship remains the same.

And Kugou's original intention is to enable users to enjoy listening to music.

Technology is Explosive and Requires Accumulation

"Kung Fu is developed through time and practice. This punch is the result of 20 years of practice. Can you stop it?" This is a line from the movie "Fearless".

In 2006, the movie "Fearless" was released, and the theme song sung by Jay Chou already had the shadow of Chinese style. One year later, his "Blue and White Porcelain" officially made Chinese style music become mainstream. In the same year, when the first-generation iPhone was released, Steve Jobs left a mystery at the scene. At that time, no one could have imagined that the combination of a mobile phone and an iPod could open a new era. But the real starting point of domestic music consumption on the mobile end was in the following two years, when Nokia launched the XM music phone series and the 5230, a legendary phone.

In the final glow of feature phones, people began to accept listening to music on mobile phones, and this is when Kugou Music realized that perhaps things were really different. It was also in 2008 that Kugou Music took the lead in launching its first mobile application on the Symbian system, precisely seizing the explosion of mobile music technology, which led to a very rapid increase in the number of Kugou users.

Kugou Music, born in the website era, still retains some genes of classical Internet music products. At that time, a standard configuration of a music player was EQ (Equalizer), and users could adjust the EQ to improve the tone and sound effect to meet the listening needs. But not everyone has professional music theory knowledge and tuning skills, and not everyone can afford to buy professional headphones and audio equipment.

"Can we provide users with a one-click tuning function?" The product team of Kugou Music began to study this proposition. In the trial version of Viper Sound Effect 1.0, the "One-Click Beautiful Sound" that can improve the tone and sound quality with one click was highly praised. Subsequently, a team dedicated to sound effects and acoustics was established within Kugou - the Viper Acoustics Laboratory.

In the ten years since its establishment, the Viper Acoustics Laboratory has successively launched more than ten official sound effects such as 3D Beautiful Sound, Pure Vocal, and Black Diamond Viper Sound Effect, and Kugou has accumulated technology on the sound quality that users most need.

Each generation of users has its own needs. Compared with before, users now pursue a higher-quality and personalized listening experience. Some technologies launched by the Viper Acoustics Laboratory are even somewhat "mysterious". For example, the multi-track function can separate the vocal, various instrument sounds and other tracks of different tones in a song to achieve separate control and playback of each track. The newly launched 3D Surround Sound Effect in the 20th-anniversary version also allows users to freely DIY their own spatial surround listening experience and find the one that suits them best.

"Our only criterion is whether it provides users with a better listening experience," QiYuan, the head of the Viper Acoustics Laboratory, said. This is not an empty talk. Before this, in addition to bringing users a personalized tuning experience, the black technology "Viper Panoramic Sound" has also brought the top surround sound that only high-end audio equipment can have into the users' headphones, and intelligently adapts to different headphones. With a simple device of a mobile phone and a pair of headphones, users can also experience the note jumping of 5.1 panoramic sound.

"Viper Panoramic Sound" also has version 2.0. With the support of AI technology, the immersive listening experience of multi-channel surround sound is further upgraded, and it can support up to 7.1.4-channel panoramic music experience. The most crucial thing is that it also performs well in the external speaker scenario.

If you carefully review the upgrade content of this Kugou Music, you will also find that it has launched the industry's first horizontal screen player on the platform, supporting mobile phone-related devices to play songs in a horizontal and vertical screen switchable mode at any time. "On the one hand, we found that many users have the need to play in a horizontal position. On the other hand, the Acoustics Laboratory considered that the speakers of most mobile phones are in the upper and lower positions, which is not suitable for external playback from an acoustic perspective, and thus put forward product function requirements to us," LiuCheng, the head of Kugou Music's Ecological Innovation Product, revealed. Supporting device adaptation for "one-shake" horizontal screen playback solves the listening problem in the external playback scenario. With the joint support of vision and acoustics, users can enjoy a fully immersive experience of high-quality music.

Ten years later, Viper Sound Effect may have become the one that truly understands users. The accumulation of acoustic technology has even become an industry standard in the industry. When different hardware products such as headphones, mobile phones, and even cars have Viper Acoustics certification, users already have a basic understanding of the listening experience.

At least in Kugou Music, the two elements of technology and music have truly been unified in the matter of "listening to music".

Listen to Users and Let Users Listen

"Consumers don't know what they need until we present our products, and then they find that this is what they want." In the era of the booming development of the Chinese Internet, this sentence by Steve Jobs has been regarded as a guiding principle by countless product managers. However, when your product has gone through 20 years and the users on it are "experienced and knowledgeable", and sometimes they know more about music than the product managers, what should you do?

The current standards of demand and test are never fancy functions, but making the best use of the listening experience.

The new 20th-anniversary version is a top-priority project for Kugou Music in the past few months. When the project was initiated, the technical team made a military order to the senior management. The goal of the military order is very simple - there are only three standards: simpler, faster, and more beautiful.

ShenYuan, the head of Kugou Music's Data Research and Efficiency, said: "The common collaborative model in the industry is that the product team puts forward requirements, and the technical team assesses and delivers. But for this 20th-anniversary version, there is no need to worry that the requirements are too unrealistic." The requirements and test standards he received are never fancy functions, but making the best use of the listening experience.

In his words, the culture of doing things in Kugou Music can be summarized as pragmatic.

For example, being simpler does not mean that Kugou is making an absolute subtraction. In the past, the listening, watching, singing, and playing system formed by Kugou in response to users' music needs still exists. But listening to music has returned to the absolute core position. The arrangement and display of the product page are also becoming streamlined, and even more customization and options are open to users. The recently discussed custom player function is also a function that Kugou Music has been providing to users since 2023. "From a technical perspective, the difficulty is not high. The key is to understand how to meet the individual needs of users beyond the listening experience," LiuCheng, the head of Kugou Music's Ecological Innovation Product, said. At the same time, Kugou has also launched a simplified version switching function for its 20th anniversary, allowing users who only want to listen to music to find the most comfortable experience.

Being more beautiful may be more intuitive. Changing the classic Kugou Blue is a risky attempt. "But aesthetics are always changing," Jinli, the design head of Kugou Music, said. The new Kugou Blue is inspired by the natural blue lapis lazuli, which was the earliest blue pigment used in China. The gradient color is derived from the color gradation formed during the grinding of the ore. The updated Kugou visual is refreshing, and the overall style becomes less crowded with more blank space. Combined with a homepage layout that is more focused on music content, it makes listening to music simpler. At the same time, the blue color derived from Chinese colors also subtly highlights the slogan "Listen to Music on Kugou in China".

This is the part that users can see, and there are many parts that they cannot see. For example, the smoothness that many people take for granted. Keeping Kugou Music smooth and fluid when in use is one of the core tasks of the Kugou technical team. The specific indicators are cold professional terms, and what users can feel is only the smoother switching, interaction, and playback when opening the App.

However, a reality is that not all users have high-end terminal devices, and not all users are in areas with high-speed and stable network environments. But Kugou Music always seems to be able to perfectly adapt to the user's environment.

No matter in Wi-Fi, 5G, 4G, or other scenarios, Kugou Music can play songs as soon as it is opened, and pictures can be opened as soon as they are clicked... Behind these experiences that users are accustomed to, it is the hard work of the core of the technical team. The client development team makes full use of the capabilities of mobile phone and other device hardware through technical means.

"A three-minute song may have a file size difference of several megabytes to several tens of megabytes for different sound qualities, and the complexity of achieving smooth online playback for different network requirements is exponential," the Kugou Music technical team told 36Kr. Currently, Kugou Music can achieve high-definition bitrate playback even when the network is switched. This is based on more than 2,800 technical patents.

"In the 20th-anniversary new version, it can be clearly felt that there is no frame dropping or stuttering, and it is very smooth." Even this experience can cover most mobile phone products, not just mid-to-high-end phones.

From "National Trend" to Global: Hearing the Voice of China

Listening to music is always the most basic spiritual and cultural need of human beings. The touch gained in the melody, the memories stored in the singing... Make music content consumption always have endless imagination in business. And users' needs are becoming more and more refined: more and better sound effects, more beautiful and personalized players, more music adapted to different scenarios, and so on.

In the post-copyright era when music content consumption has officially emerged, how to meet the needs of different music listeners, how to enrich the categories of vertical music content, how to establish a content ecosystem that can generate its own blood, and how to use technology to restrainedly and harmoniously improve the listening experience may be the key to testing the ability of music platforms.

And Kugou Music has found its own position in the new round of competition. Internally, among the people who listen to music on Kugou Music today, one-third of them listen