On January 28, the nomination list for the NetEase Cloud Music 2025 Hard Original Music Awards was officially released. Musicians such as Ai Zhiheng Asen, Chace, Chen Wenjing, Fan Xiaoxuan & 100% Band, Gareth. Emerging musicians such as Silent Orange, RingAgain, and Huang Yeyuan were shortlisted for the New Voice of the Year with their outstanding performances. Music fans can search for "Hard Music Awards" on the NetEase Cloud Music APP to view the complete list and listen to the selected playlist. The official list of winners will be announced in March.
The 2025 Hard Original Music Awards comprehensively take stock of this year's high-quality original music works, and set up a total of 15 awards in comprehensive categories, style categories, and industry categories. While ensuring the professional judgment of the judges, the award selection fully incorporates multiple perspectives and industry consensus.
The "Comprehensive Awards" take works as the core and pay attention to their overall performance in the original music ecosystem of the year. They are set around the five dimensions of album of the year, song of the year, EP of the year, collaborative song of the year, and planning of the year, and fully cover high-quality works throughout the year.
Chace's "Anti-People Pleaser", Yufu's "Heal Me Good", Zhang Zhenyue's "Follow the Feeling", Fan Xiaoxuan & 100% Band's "Passenger", Jude's "Leaving the Silver Wasteland", Qi Zitan's "The World and the Queen of Loneliness", Ai Zhiheng Asen's "Wake Up After the Rain" and other high-quality works were shortlisted for the album of the year. The selected albums have different themes and distinct focuses, and conduct in-depth exploration of musical expression from multiple dimensions. "Passenger" is a sincere work by Fan Xiaoxuan and the 100% Band. It is not only her first attempt to create with a guitar, but also cleverly echoes the avant-garde temperament of the band's debut work "Breakthrough", achieving a new breakthrough in the personal creative dimension; Jude uses music narrative to write a romantic, poignant and dialectical story; Qi Zitan boldly integrates classical, electronic, folk, and rock, insisting on exploring the relationship between the individual and the world.
The annual song track gathers a number of outstanding works, such as Chen Li's "Fruit", Gareth. Tao Zhe's "Stupid Pop Song" expresses his thoughts on himself and music creation. NetEase Cloud Music's song has received more than 10,000 comments and has won unanimous praise from music fans.
Huang Haoting/YELLOW Huang Xuan's "Do it", Dou Jingtong/Black Skirt's "Fruit Fly", Jude/Wu Qingfeng's "Chameleon", The Crane/Wei Ruxuan's "Right Side of My Heart", DEN/Yuan Yawei TIA RAY's "Blue in the Eyes" and other works were shortlisted for the annual collaborative song. Dou Jingtong teamed up with the Korean musician Black Skirt Band to release "Fruit Fly", which deeply integrated the other's iconic independent music texture with his own lazy and free singing voice, creating a lazy, private and psychedelic auditory atmosphere; Jude invited Wu Qingfeng, who is also good at dramatic music narrative, to collaborate. One person wrote the lyrics and the other composed the music, creating a unique chemical reaction.
The competition for the annual EP award is also exciting, with Zhang Xingchan’s “No, now!” ", Lexie Liu's "TEENAGE RAMBLE", Silent Orange's "Guru Orange" and other works were shortlisted. "No, now!" "As Zhang Xingchan's first album "No, no! "TEENAGE RAMBLE" is the first all-English EP released by Lexie Liu. It invites outstanding domestic and foreign producers to co-create. It is a sincere work with great experimentalism and communication power under the retro resurgence.
This year's Hard Original Music Award has launched an annual planning award, paying attention to those works that combine creative planning with music concepts and use a clear and complete aesthetic system to construct dazzling and vivid works. "Life BGM Planning-Polyphony of Love & Self-Improvisation", G-BLOCK "G-BLOCK Mixtape", Jiang Sida's "Family Story", etc. are shortlisted.
The "Style Awards" focus on the creative expression and completion of different music styles in that year, and combine the maturity, innovation and overall presentation of the works in their genres to select the representative works of the year, covering seven categories: contemporary pop, rap, urban rhythm, rock, electronic/dance music, instrumental music/fusion, and folk songs.
Whle's "Bionic Flower", Shi Xiwenyue's "Gray Sun", Burger Yellow's "Girl, Fly", etc. were shortlisted for the best contemporary pop album; Xiaohu's "ADHD Snake", Xia Zhiyu/Gemagica's "Everybody Loves Hip-Hop", Chen Yihao Clear's "Ashamed" were shortlisted for the best rap album.
In terms of best urban rhythm album, works such as Li Yinghong's "Oriental Beauty", Sunset Speed "QUIT QUIETLY", Huang Haoting's "SAX TAPE" and other works are shortlisted; red-haired boy murder case "BRUTAL GIRL DELUSION", VOOID's "Vooid" (2025)", Homecoming RiotInSchool's "//Profane Punk Rock" and other nominees for Best Rock Album; for Best Electronic/Dance Album, 2z2's "ERA*", Zhang Tongxi Selina's "Oh. ", Shii's "Tears of Acquaintance" and other albums were shortlisted.
Kuljelje Ljamcun's "Atavism", Tao Yun's TAOTAO's "I Am Here", Wild Child's "Burning Stone", etc. were shortlisted for the best instrumental/fusion album; Lu Jiangbo's "Ang Zhifan", Cook and Actor's "Hoo!" ", Mu JingMU's "Flowers of the Field" and other works were shortlisted for the best folk album.
The "Industry Awards" focus on the development and breakthroughs of musicians and original music ecology, and set up three major awards: New Voice of the Year, Breakthrough Musician of the Year, and Scenario Contribution of the Year. Comprehensive selections are made from the dimensions of creative development potential, impact breakthrough, and positive promotion of the music ecology.
The New Voice of the Year is about original musicians who have entered the public and industry’s horizons for the first time with distinctive creative expressions this year, and who have demonstrated clear aesthetic orientation and sustainable development potential in their works. Excellent musicians such as Silent Orange, Sarah Chen, Haiwei, Huang Yeyuan, JOYCE, and rubenmccarter are shortlisted.
Musicians such as DOUDOU, Huayunlong KLE, and Lanlao SKAI ISYOURGOD have completed a new leap in their careers this year with the evolution of their artistry and increased influence, and have been shortlisted for the Breakthrough Musician of the Year Award. Organizations and media such as BIE Box, Unknown, HOPICO, and howhowmusic have promoted the development of Chinese original music with their outstanding professionalism and continuous love and have been shortlisted for the Annual Scene Contribution Award.
The selection scope of NetEase Cloud Music's 2025 Hard Original Music Award is new works released on NetEase Cloud Music from January 1 to December 31, 2025. In the early stage of shortlist recommendation, the award organizing committee invites the jury to recommend and vote based on the year's original music works and musician candidate pool, and specially opens the "registration channel" to invite musicians and copyright holders to independently submit works; it also launches a "music fan nomination activity" to participate in the topic recommendation of the year's original selection. This year's jury is composed of music creators and producers such as Bai Tian Buliang and Li Yuan, media such as Freshmusic and STD Sonic Communication, well-known music critics and self-media such as Aidiren and Duruomuyi, and senior music fans such as Laiwu Kitchen and Qipu.
As China's largest original music platform, NetEase Cloud Music continues to focus on the ecological development of original music creation, and currently has more than 819,000 original musicians. NetEase Cloud Music has successively launched China's first plan to systematically support original musicians, the "Stone Plan" and the diversified support plan "Yunladder Plan" to provide musicians with income, traffic and functional services. In addition, NetEase Cloud Music launched the "Hard Floor" series of projects in 2018 and held the country's first original musician festival "Hard Floor Fireplace Night". Since then, it has continued to promote Chinese original music in the form of charts every month, gaining wide recognition from music fans and musician groups.
