8 . There’s no tune, no lyrics and you can’t dance to it. Don’t let that put you off white noise is the music industry’s next big thing. Streaming services have seen an explosion of tracks in the last year consisting entirely of recordings of rainfall, ocean waves and winds.

Some of the recordings have earned their creators millions of pounds. Record companies and tech firms have taken notice. Apple is including background noise in its next operating system, and TikTok has been promoting pink noise and brown noise — sounds with lower frequencies as an aid to concentration for students at the start of the school year.

Noise fans say that studying, sleeping and meditation(冥想)are all enhanced by listening to these sounds at proper levels. The economics of music-streaming mean noise-makers can cash in. Someone falling asleep to White Noise Baby Sleep’s 90-second track Clean White Noise on repeat for seven hours will win up 280 plays. So far it has been played 837 million times, worth an estimated $2.5 million in royalties(版税). The lead track on Spotify’s own Rain Sounds playlist, two minutes of rainfall, has more than 100 million plays. In contrast, Laura Mvula only has 541,000 Spotify streams for the title track of this year’s award-winning album, Pink Noise —not a slice of sleepiness but tuneful, lyrical dance-pop that took her three years to make.

Spotify, Apple Music, and other streaming services pay royalties in roughly the same way. They set aside a sum of money for royalties, which is then divided up between distributions, record labels, recording artists and songwriters. That means that Mvula will get a smaller slice of the Spotify pie than will White Noise Baby Sleep, while most of it goes to the major record companies.

It’s hard to work out who is making such noise. Spotify lists White Noise Baby Sleep’s songwriting credits as belonging to an Erik Eriksson. It’s not obvious who Eriksson is or whether he is part of a larger organization, but the Medium website One Zero last year established that many of the artists’ names are pseudonyms(假名)used by companies.

Short clips of the “kemusan” — or “subject three” dance — has become a latest Internet sensation on social media platforms at home and abroad. By December 10, the dance,     1     is widely thought       2     (originate) from a wedding dance in South China’s Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, had gained more than 8.88 billion views on short video platforms.

The dance went viral quickly and has been adapted into     3     (vary) versions — people of all colors and from different walks of life have sprung into the interesting dance. Why has “subject three” dance become     4     instant hit? Nowadays, young people seek to express     5     (they) in personalized and diverse ways. Young people     6     (allow) to release mental and physical tiredness in routine life and enjoy original delight and pure    7     (happy). Even without personal participation, holding e mobile phone to shoot or watch someone do this dance is enough to connect emotionally and feel a spiritual resonance (共鸣). “Subject three” dance meets the emotional needs of young people, provides them with an outlet to express their feelings     8    reflects a pleasant sharing of beauty. Besides, the dance belongs     9     no specific type, and the movements are not set,     10     (leave) space for everyone to create their own style.