This paper interrogates the cultural politics of “bad music” and the discursive construction of taste via online platforms in contemporary Taiwan. Such music is arguably imbued with more nuanced complexities when performed by self-identified “bad boys” (8+9, or +9, 89) within the Taike/8+9 culture—an often-stigmatized subculture interwoven with Taiwan’s layered colonial histories, class hierarchies, and gendered imaginaries, shaping precarious constructions of Taiwaneseness generally and Taiwanese masculinities specifically. To explore this tension, the proposed paper centers on “Ài nǐ zhēn de méi bànfǎ (No Way to Love You, or “Panamera”),” released by 89 Jiàokēshū (89 Textbook) in 2025—a song simultaneously derided as “bad” online and as amplified through digital platform logics, generating significant traffic while also igniting fierce debates within Taiwan’s hip-hop scene. This paper builds an argument through two levels of analysis: Firstly, by treating popular music as a multi-layered text composed of verbal, sonic, and visual symbols, I employ musical semiotics to analyze both the music itself and the song’s music video. By this, I examine how 89 Textbook intentionally manipulates various layers of symbolic meanings to represent bad music and the image of the bad boy, resonating with past musical practices and the collective imagination of Taike/8+9 culture in Taiwanese society. Secondly, by analyzing YouTube comments on the MV, “diss songs” from other artists, and discussions on popular Taiwanese platforms (such as PTT and Dcard), I explore how these online communities manifest power through the transforming of songs into polyvalent cultural signifiers that reflect and mediate perceptions of public taste, value, and class, and masculinity. Through this case study, I aim to reflect on the role that platforms and social media play in changing how people listen to music and the ways that this, in turn, shapes value judgments of contemporary Taiwanese popular music.

Campaign songs and jingles remain ubiquitous during election period in the Philippines. Capitalizing on the power of popular culture and media to shape public perception, candidates seek to gain votes and public support by integrating well-known songs and catchy tunes in motorcades, political rallies, and advertisements for radio, television, and social media platforms. It is commonplace to encounter re-curated lyrics of popular music tailored to the taste of voting publics. As such, campaign songs are generally formulaic and highly simplified, as they adhere to the conventions of the music industry that prioritizes consumption and have the tendency to promote hegemonic ideologies.

Veering away from traditional politics and rhetoric are former Vice President Leni Robredo’s presidential campaign songs that contributed to the Pink Movement. Consistent with her grassroots feminist rhetoric, the genre and lyrics of “Rosas” (trans. Rose or Pink) by Nica del Rosario ft. Gab Pangilinan and “Handa Ka Na Ba Kay Leni?” (trans. Are You Ready For Leni?) by Ogie Alcasid encourage reflection and avoids aggressive persuasion. The paper problematizes how these songs articulate Robredo’s gendered political identity, and how they serve as instruments of resistance to the patriarchal bias of rhetoric. Grounded in Sonja Foss and Cindy Griffin’s conception of an invitational rhetoric, the analyses center on how the these campaign songs, along with the visual narratives in their official music videos, advance the feminist principles of equality, immanent value, and self-determination, as contextualized in the adversarial and polarizing nature of the 2022 Philippine national elections.