At the call of Mao Zedong, many places have taken action. * * * The Propaganda Department of Yunnan Provincial Party Committee issued a notice of "immediately organizing the collection of folk songs" to all counties, demanding that the folk songs praised by the people of all ethnic groups be recorded and sorted out. Some places quickly sorted out some folk songs. 1958 April 14, People's Daily published an editorial "Large-scale Collection of National Folk Songs". 1958 On April 26th, Zhou Yang, deputy director of the Propaganda Department of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Party Committee of the Chinese Writers Association, presided over the folk song forum of the China Federation of Literary and Art Circles, Writers Association and Folk Literature Research Association, and issued the "General Mobilization of the Army of Collecting Wind". At the second meeting of the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China held in May, he made a speech entitled "Xinmin Songs Open a New Way for Poetry", which systematically expounded the ideological content and artistic characteristics of folk songs in theory and expounded the party's principles and policies for collecting folk songs and other folk literature. In his speech, Zhou Yang quoted 10 "Great Leap Forward" folk songs, and asked people to sort out10 "Great Leap Forward" folk songs and compile them into "Hundred Songs of Xinmin", which was printed and distributed to the delegates as an annex to his speech.
Since April 1958, the All-China Federation of Literary and Art Circles and the Party committees of provinces, municipalities, autonomous regions and counties have issued notices on soliciting new folk songs, demanding the establishment of "collecting folk songs" organizations and editing institutions and launching a large-scale "socialist collecting folk songs movement", and stressing that this is a political task. With the advocacy and promotion of Mao Zedong and the strong support of Guo Moruo, Zhou Yang and others, the new folk song movement quickly swept the land of China and developed into a large-scale mass movement throughout the country. From the poems published in various places, the new folk songs published in newspapers and periodicals, and the Red Flag Ballad edited by Guo Moruo and Zhou Yang published in June 1959, it can be seen that the contents of the new folk songs at that time mainly involved praising the party and leaders, building water conservancy projects, eliminating the "four evils", putting satellites in agriculture, smelting steel, general line, people's communes, education and so on.
1959 in March, that is, one year after the "new folk song movement" began, Mao Zedong made a speech on the "new folk song movement" at the enlarged meeting in the Political Bureau of the Central Committee. Because Mao Zedong gave up the promotion and support of the "New Folk Song Movement", the truth of the "satellite" of high agricultural yield was gradually revealed, and then a serious food famine occurred in the whole country, and the people's creative enthusiasm was greatly reduced. The "New Folk Song Movement" gradually died down from 1960.
During the "Cultural Revolution", the society was in great turmoil and the cultural construction was greatly retrogressed. During the ten-year catastrophe, due to the "Left-leaning" trend of thought and the interference of the Gang of Four, all traditional things became "four old", and Xinmin songs were among them. It is believed that only the form is desirable and the content is completely negative. A large number of folk songs collected in the past were burned, and new folk song workers and researchers were brutally persecuted. China culture, China music and China new folk songs have returned. After the reform and opening up, China's social, political and economic development began, and the society developed in an all-round way, and Xinmin songs mushroomed and re-developed. In the past 20 years of reform and opening up, Xinmin songs have been continuously innovated and developed on the basis of inheriting the traditional national cultural and artistic heritage.
With the emergence of different styles of music works, pop music and national music constantly collide. The combination of traditional folk songs and modern fashion elements gave birth to the so-called "new folk songs" in the 1990s.
"New Folk Songs" shows its charm to the public with its brand-new style of lyrics, singing and performance. In particular, traditional folk songs are combined with popular singers who represent regional characteristics, so that Xinmin songs can be interpreted by national singing and convey the charm of national folk songs in a more popular way. The new folk singers, who are mainly engaged in national singing, have also absorbed more natural voices from popular singing, and interpreted the new folk songs in line with modern people's hearing with "person-to-person" singing. With the progress of society, the rapid development of economy and the constant renewal of science and technology, the spread and development of new folk songs are affected. From radio to MTV and then to the internet, Xinmin songs have also developed from monotonous auditory beauty to a new height of visual and auditory beauty. The rise of new folk songs has its unique background and significance, and also contributes to the inheritance of China folk songs.