This week I’ve been in Gansu province, a long spindly northwestern stick of land that’s often described as China’s poorest region. It’s certainly also its most diverse. The other day I went from Linxia, a town about three hours on the highway from the provincial capital Lanzhou. There’s 50 mosques and a lot of traditional Islam in this town. I didn’t have a a lot of choices when I went looking for an example of the local Hui music in one of the town’s several music stores. As is often the case in Chinese provincial towns there’s more VCDs than CDs.

But then I spotted Bono peeking out from a pile of paper-wrapped CDs in the pop section. The shop sold How to Dismantle An Atomic Bomb, the band’s most recent release. In travels around China I’ve tried to figure out who’s the most popular western artists in locals music stores. From Urumqi in the country’s west, to Xiamen in the south and Harbin in the north and Shanghai in the east, I’ve come to the conclusion that U2 and Christina Aguilera are listened to more than any other artist.

Of course neither artist gets much from being in several million music stores around China: 90 percent of the CDs and DVDs of western artists which I’ve seen are pirated versions. Much depends on the region - it's a lot harder in Shanghai to get a fake than it is in Beijing or Guangzhou, unless you go down the back streets. But until CD and book brands take their prices down to compete with the fakes they'll have the bulk of the market here. After all who’s going to pay RMB50 (a special China price for some of U2’s earlier albums in Beijing department stores) for genuine U2 product in Linxia, where the average monthly wage hovers at around RMB800?

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