Xiang Nan is the lead guitarist for Cobra–a five-member thirtysomething band with the distinction, and the burden, of being the only all-girl rock band in China. The government doesn’t like them much, and they’re forced to perform in tiny Beijing coffeehouses or out in the provinces. Their first CD was released in China this year without the song ““1966’’–that’s the year the Cultural Revolution began. Lyrics like ““The Red Express never reaches its destination’’ just didn’t go over.
Against the odds, Cobra is breaking through to a wider audience. They got out of their windowless basement practice room to tour Germany, Hong Kong and the United States. Their CD, ““Hypocrisy,’’ has sold 90,000 copies. And they’ve gotten a ton of publicity, even if there’s a numbing similarity to it. ““They always ask us, do we have husbands?’’ says drummer Wang Ruifang, rolling her eyes. (They don’t.) But hundreds of thousands of Chinese now know who they are. And they just quit their day jobs, so they can concentrate full-time on their dense, melodic anger. That’s a great leap forward.
