Genre Mandopop Writer(s) Wang Taili Language Chinese | Length 03:31 Composer(s) Wang Taili | |
Released May 29, 2014 (2014-05-29) | ||
"Little Apple" (simplified Chinese: 小苹果; traditional Chinese: 小蘋果; pinyin: Xiǎopíngguǒ) is a single by Chopstick Brothers (筷子兄弟), a duo of Wang Taili (王太利) and Xiao Yang (肖央), released as a promotional song for the movie Old Boys: The Way of the Dragon (老男孩之猛龙过江). Since its release, it has quickly attained great popularity in Chinese cyberspace, making it a widespread internet meme and a global hit, with parodies, flash mobs and covers from around the world.
Contents
Music video
The music video of the song on Youku shows scenes of a square dance, interwoven with several short stories about love and romance resultant of a male partner's disapproval of his girlfriend's appearance, resulting in a failed attempt at plastic surgery. It contains elements from 1950s Korea and the legends of Adam and Eve and uses Chinglish in an expressive manner to portray the underlying tension of appearance. The square dance in the music video has also gained popularity in the public. The Korean version of the music video was modified to suit k-pop audiences. Bae Seul-ki also starred in the video.
Reception
The song became famous shortly after its release on 29 May 2014. Since release, its music video has been adapted into various parodies by the public. However, some critics have criticized the song for its low artistic value.
Chart performance
This song has also attained high positions in main online charts in China. It peaked at number one in the CCTV Global Chinese Music Chart (Chinese: 全球中文音乐榜) released every Saturday.
This song, referred to be one commentator as a "brainwashing song", also brings up the psychological factors that contribute to its success—its simple rhythm and lyrics cause the "earworm effect", forcing people to listen to it over and over again, and another reason that lied underneath is the "snowball effect", which means that people tend to follow others in a trend, suggesting that some people may not actually like the song, but just blindly following others.
Army recruitment video
China’s Ministry of National Defense released a video with the song on 27 July 2014, as a part of their recruitment campaign for the Army. The video features footage of soldiers dancing the square dance in the original music video, plus some scenes from the Army's training sessions and some words of encouragement.
T-ara version
South Korean girl band T-ara released a Korean/Chinese cover of "Little Apple", featuring Chopstick Brothers, on 24 November 2014. The song was produced by Shinsadong Tiger and was released as a digital single by MBK Entertainment and distributed by KT Music. Chopstick Brothers also featured in T-ara's music video.
This is actually the first time that Kpop artists are releasing a cover version of a Cpop song.
Other versions
Strawberry, May Ng and Stella Chen of RED People, otherwise known as Amoi-Amoi, released a cover version of the song, including various Malaysian fruits. The video includes scenes of Chopstick Brothers' original music video as well as T-ara's music video. Norwegian Power Metal artist PelleK uploaded a cover of this song on his YouTube channel Pellekofficial on January 14, 2015 in a metal style and has been both complimented and criticized for his pronunciation of Chinese words.
Awards
When "Little Apple" won the International Song Award at the November 2014 AMA's, the Chopstick Brothers along with 2 others actually gave a live lip-synched performance of it. However, American viewers didn't see it because it was done during a commercial break.