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This week we travel to Xi'an, ancient capital of China and home to rocker Xu Wei. A guitar player since childhood, Xu gave up a respectable teaching post in the mid-1980s to start his first band. He later became an itinerant musician, moving to Beijing in the mid-1990s and joining the local rock scene.

The move paid off, as Xu's new contacts helped him put together his first album, which exploded in popularity in campuses across Beijing before eventually spreading nationwide. Our selection this week comes from his third album, released eight years later. A reminiscent look at his earlier days running wild, "Perfect Life" is a simple song, but still captures his quasi-iconoclastic approach to Chinese rock.

There are some great shots of Beijing in the video - although you can blink and miss the distinctive panorama of Chang'anjie in the opening scenes. If you enjoyed this video, our staff also recommend the more popular but significantly more challenging 蓝莲花.
 said on
October 8, 2008
I've heard 蓝莲花 before but not this one. It's not bad music, although a lot of his songs sound the same to me.
 said on
October 15, 2008
Great website! I'm really fond of his version of 晴朗. Much quieter than its more popular covers, but with more feeling.
Mark Lesson Studied