Chapter 271: I'm Here

"June 27th, Miss Luo Quan's new album!"

This was a hot search that ignited Twitter in Japan.

Japanese fans had already started looking forward to it more than ten days ago.

And Miss Luo Quan, on the third day after returning to the country following the wrap-up of "The Lord of the Rings," handed in the answer sheet to the fans who had been waiting eagerly.

This was her second album, and also her anniversary album. The album was titled "I'm Here," and the official release date was July 19th.

Miss Luo Quan rarely didn't provide a blurb for this album to explain the creative journey behind it.

But actually, there wasn't much to explain. The first meaning was that today, one year ago, she officially debuted and started her path as a singer.

And the second album was a transitional one, which could be considered as not forgetting her original intention, with commemorative significance inside.

The second meaning was a quote of Caesar's famous saying: "I came, I saw, I conquered!"

This was Miss Luo Quan declaring her status to the Asian music scene. With her popularity and record sales, she was fully worthy of the title of Asian music diva!

There was no need to mention youth or seniority anymore. No matter what circle ranked status, in the end, it all depended on strength, and Miss Luo Quan's strength was absolutely beyond doubt.

The new album featured a three-song release, each completing one of the three tasks previously proposed by fans on Twitter.

The song titles were already out:

"Haru wa Yuku" (Original: Aimer)

"Meng Jiang Nu" (Suggested cover version: Ling Jiu daze)

"Kakusei" (Original author: Toshihiko Sato)

From the song titles, one could see that they were quite consistent with the requests proposed by the fans. As for how the songs actually were, she believed the fans who were waiting on Twitter and constantly refreshing their screens would soon give their evaluations.

Sony chose to list them on online music platforms for sale in the form of singles again, earning a wave of digital album money at a low price first.

Once the songs were released, they would immediately let the printing factory start producing records and then sell physical albums offline.

This would include Miss Luo Quan's recent photo shoots and postcards with messages to make up for the regret of not having MVs.

Miss Luo Quan not filming MVs was something everyone in the industry knew. There was no other reason; it was purely because she was lazy.

Because of this, Miss Luo Quan's physical records were generally cheaper than those of her peers.

And the fans were quite fond of this; the song quality was so high, and it was sold cheaper than others—it was simply the conscience of the Japanese music scene.

She didn't know if Miss Luo Quan blushed when she heard these evaluations.

Actually, in the two days since returning to the country, she had already selected the ten songs for the new album, but it would take another two or three days to finish producing them all.

Listen to that—is that human talk?

Some singers might not even be able to finish deliberating on a single line of lyrics in two or three days.

And she only needed three days to finish an entire album.

The foreign internet was already boiling, but the domestic movement wasn't very large, only hitting the hot search on Bilibili.

But that was very normal, because Weibo was currently cooperating with Tencent to vigorously promote the self-titled album of Girls' Generation.

Miss Luo Quan's new album also had promotion, but the intensity was clearly not as high as the former.

It wasn't that Miss Luo Quan had "fallen out of favor"; it was just that the popularity of the girl group Girls' Generation was too high.

Although the first season of "Creating Girls' Generation" had ended, the girls who came out of this show had just begun their idol careers.

The fans of the nine currently hottest girls were all integrated together, regardless of how many conflicts they had had before or how many arguments they had fought.

Now, their idols had become a whole, sharing all resources—if one prospered, all prospered; if one suffered, all suffered.

Except for some "toxic-only" fans with strange thought processes, slightly normal fans wouldn't continue to attack other members in the girl group at this time.

What needed to be done at this time was to hit various charts, letting Girls' Generation maintain popularity during this short period of silence.

In a few days, the debut album would be released, which was the main battlefield where they had to fight and spend money.

With performance results, the company could be satisfied and continue to promote Girls' Generation.

The hotter the group, the more topics each member in the group would have, and fans would naturally be more willing to spend money.

Then, it would enter a virtuous cycle.

This could be considered a fan-circle law that had been proven many times.

Before "Creating Girls' Generation," many girl groups that debuted from variety show auditions relied on their debut albums to earn a fortune for the companies behind them.

And Girls' Generation was much better than those girl groups, and the popularity gap was like heaven and earth.

How much those girl groups earned—it wouldn't be an exaggeration for Girls' Generation to earn ten times that!

Especially under the condition that this was an album produced by Miss Luo Quan.

So, to maximize profits, Tencent naturally had to focus its work on Girls' Generation this time. After all, Miss Luo Quan wasn't their signed artist, while Girls' Generation was Tencent's only girl group.

It could only be said that the release of the two albums just happened to collide, and Miss Luo Quan also felt helpless.

If nothing unexpected happened, the domestic sales of "I'm Here" would definitely be beaten to a pulp by "Girls' Generation."

Except for those singers with off-the-charts national popularity, no one could compete with traffic stars in monetization ability, let alone a group like Girls' Generation, which had both popularity and strength at the top.

If it were the Jay Chou of her past life, he might be able to do it, but she felt that her current appeal in China was probably far from that of Jay Chou in her past life.

Of course, this was only in terms of the domestic market; if it were in Japan or the United States, it would be another story.

Anyway, after suffering the Waterloo of "18," she had never held any hope for the domestic market again.

Even though the album "Love" sold a good result of 8.32 million, it didn't change her thinking.

However, she also understood it quite clearly: songs in whatever language sold well in that region, that was OK. Very few people could sell well in multiple languages on a global scale.

Her "Love" barely achieved this task because it used English.

If it were a Japanese album, it probably wouldn't have this possibility.

The time for the songs to unlock arrived quickly, and the fans who had long been unable to wait immediately paid and clicked play.

After listening to the three songs, many people showed expressions of loss.

The songs were all very good, but they always felt that they didn't have the feeling of the heart being moved that they had when listening to those two albums a year ago.

To put it bluntly, it was actually that the quality of the songs had declined.

There was immediately discourse on Twitter:

"The songs are actually not bad, but I always feel they aren't as good as before."

"If it's ten points, I can give 'Coming of Age' one hundred points, but this time, I can only give eight."

"If you require Miss Luo Quan based on the standards of a year ago, these songs have actually declined significantly."

"'Kakusei' is the only song I think is not bad."

"Continue waiting; maybe there will be surprises later?"

It could be seen that the fans were not very satisfied with these three new songs.

As the saying goes, the greater the hope, the greater the disappointment when expectations cannot be met.

Fortunately, the reputation Miss Luo Quan had accumulated before was too great, and the fans' tolerance for her was high enough, which was why they were only complaining in gentle language.

Miss Luo Quan had actually anticipated this long ago. There were only so many famous songs, and only so many good melodies.

If one could create good music infinitely, the world's music scene wouldn't be in such a state of "the old not being replaced by the new" as it was now.

Moreover, she also had to take care of fans of all age groups, because it wasn't just young people listening to her songs; there were also many middle-aged people.

Style was a difficult point to balance.

And those complaining online this time were also mostly the older batch of netizens.

The three new songs all belonged to the trendier style of pop music; young people would definitely like them, but it wasn't certain for older people.

However, even so, the three new songs still provided proud data of over one million each, crushing any singer other than Miss Luo Quan.

On various charts, looking down the list of song titles, the singer's name was Miss Luo Quan; the three new songs quickly rushed into the top three among the fans' playback.

Although the album's rating fell slightly, how could Miss Luo Quan be unprepared?

Meals had to be eaten one bite at a time, and songs had to be released one by one.

Three days later, the fourth new song of "I'm Here" was released:

"Yuyake no Uta" (Sunset Song)

PS: The original singer Masahiko Kondo is a scum encountered once in ten generations, but this song is indeed good...

This was a relatively retro love song written to satisfy the fourth comment. The netizens who had complained about the new album before were also maintaining relatively high expectations at this time.

They believed in Miss Luo Quan; she wouldn't let them be disappointed forever.

And when the song was unlocked in the evening, just hearing the guitar accompaniment at the beginning of the song, in just a few seconds, it made them feel refreshed.

"This feeling... it's back... everything is back!"

This song didn't disappoint these older fans. The thick Japanese song style of the last century—the singing style, melody, and lyrics—every detail was perfect. It simply had a feeling of dreaming back to the 1990s, the era known as the Golden Age!

The album's reviews flipped again:

"This is what I was waiting for!"

"Listening to this song, I feel I've become much younger. What a strange experience."

The recovery of reputation was just that simple.

If it were in China, given Miss Luo Quan's previous performance, many people would probably have come out early to say she had "run out of talent."

Fortunately, it was in Japan, where the public's attitude toward her was not at all like that toward an ordinary star.

In the national survey of "people you most want to see," ranking second only to the Emperor was no joke.

And the fourth song also gained a full 2.15 million sales within three hours of release, and broke through 4 million at midnight, directly exceeding the cumulative sales of the previous new songs over three days.

The next day, Miss Luo Quan's fifth song was released:

"Dango Daikazoku" (Dango Family) by Chata

This was the last task the netizens gave her, and also the one Miss Luo Quan felt she completed most brilliantly.

Perhaps it wasn't retro in style, but it was her favorite one.

The song was released, and the reviews were rave.

There was no one who wouldn't like such a good-sounding, cute, and warm song.

Some manga masters who were also fans even created a black-and-white manga with various dangos as protagonists on the third day of the song's release.

The art style was very cute, and the plot was basically consistent with the lyrics. Although it was relatively simple, it was quite popular.

It had gained millions of clicks on the manga website, and it was said that an anime production company was already preparing to buy this creative idea for an anime adaptation.

Miss Luo Quan didn't expect that this song of hers would actually have the chance to be adapted into an IP.

If it could develop to the level of Pokémon or Hello Kitty, that would be too amazing.

Of course, these were just things to think about; those two were behemoths that had been in the top ten of the global IP list for years. Wanting to reach the same level as them was too difficult.

The new album release reached this point, which could be considered half-finished.

Although the reviews were slightly bad at the beginning, it didn't last too long and was quickly reversed.

Judging from the fans' comments now, although voices like "not as good as 'Coming of Age'" were still not few, everyone basically acknowledged that this was a quite good album.

If it weren't a work by Miss Luo Quan, the evaluation might even be higher.

Among them, "Sunset Song" became a hit song that dominated KTVs, "Kakusei" received usage requests from many young hot-blooded anime, and "Dango Family" was even about to derive an anime.

Such achievements were rarely achieved by singers now.

And this was only half the songs released, and they were created to complete the netizens' tasks.

Creations with specified themes like this were definitely not as good as free play.

So the quality of the next five songs might even go to a higher level!

Just over a month ago, Miss Luo Quan had just swept this year's "Japan Record Awards," getting all kinds of awards until her hands were soft, directly breaking the record for the Record Awards.

And now that half of the new album was released, the public opinion in Japan rose again. Fans believed: if the Japan Record Awards next year didn't give awards to these songs, then the judges must have taken money!

And many musicians who had served as judges also expressed their praise for some songs in this album.

Following this trend, when the remaining five songs came out, Miss Luo Quan sweeping all awards at the next "Japan Record Awards" would be like "a flea on a bald head"—it was obvious.

Even if she released such an album every year from now on, even if the quality declined, as long as it didn't decline too outrageously, with her national popularity, the scene of the Record Awards every year would probably become her show.

At this moment, many Japanese singers finally understood the meaning of her album title.

I came, I saw, I conquered!

Miss Luo Quan had already conquered the Japanese music scene, so where would she conquer next?

Asia or the world? No one knew.

However, Miss Luo Quan hadn't thought that far ahead yet; she just wanted to do the things in front of her first.

Just as the fans analyzed online, the quality of the remaining five songs on the album was indeed better than the first five.

On July 4th, the song title for the sixth song of the "I'm Here" album was announced:

"Itsumo Nando Demo" (Always With Me) (Original: Yumi Kimura)

One couldn't tell the style from the name, but when announcing the name, Miss Luo Quan also released an audio clip of about ten seconds, which was a humming that was so gentle it could make one's bones melt. ===== CHAPTER 272 =====