Chapter 222: We Don

"Apart from these, I've turned down everything else for you—there are just too many events now trying to leverage your influence to boost their status."

Qian Jiang, when speaking of an artist's influence, was both exhausted and happy.

It's just that Zhou Yi has no intention of wasting his influence to make money; otherwise, just from attending award ceremonies, he could have earned a fortune.

Whether in mainland China or Hong Kong and Taiwan, in this year's Chinese-language music scene, Zhou Yi is unquestionably the most valuable person—no one else comes close.

Many smaller or newly established award shows, if they want to appear legitimate and prestigious, find it an excellent choice to secretly pay Zhou Yi to attend their gala and accept awards.

To some extent, this is also a revenue stream for top-tier singers.

Of course, there are also new award shows with such deep pockets they don't need to pay anyone: for example, this year's Xincheng Mandarin Power Awards in Hong Kong, and last year's Music Cloud Awards on the mainland.

"The Xincheng Mandarin Power Awards are hosted by Hong Kong's Xincheng Radio. As far as I know, they have huge ambitions—to make this award show a direct rival to Hong Kong's original three major music awards—so their guest invitation list essentially aims to include every current music star."

"As for the mainland's Music Cloud Awards, they invited you last year for their first edition, but I declined because of scheduling conflicts."

When speaking of this award show, now emerging as the most authoritative in mainland China, Qian Jiang was stunned: "Their selection method is dubbed the Chinese Grammys."

"I won't say how brazen the imitation is, but at least after last year's selection process and results were announced, many people were genuinely convinced."

"Its influence has surged past the heavily inflated Global Chinese Music Chart and the steadily declining CCTV-MTV Music Awards."

"Yan Zi went last year—you can ask her, your New Artist award was the one she brought back for you."

Although it still has some watered-down elements, compared to other mainland award shows that now split one award into seven or eight just to hand out prizes like pork, the Music Cloud Awards, organized by Guangxian Media, still carry substantial prestige.

Even in the fan-voted category, its value exceeds the increasingly criticized Hong Kong awards, ranking only below Taiwan's Golden Melody Awards.

Simply put: in terms of charts symbolizing song popularity, last year the Music Cloud Charts surpassed the veteran China Songs Chart and tied with the CCTV-MTV Music Awards as the mainland's most symbolic metric.

"I didn't even go to the Music Cloud Awards last year—yet they still gave me an award?"

Zhou Yi, who hadn't even noticed that one of his many New Artist trophies last year was from the Music Cloud Awards, was genuinely surprised now.

"They wouldn't pull a watered-down award stunt—the organizers still have real ambition. Besides, last year Tian Zhen's mic-drop incident at a watered-down award show embarrassed everyone."

"In your words, after Ying Da won the Golden Melody Award in Taiwan and made history, Tian Zhen and the organizers became the laughingstock."

After handing Zhou Yi a neatly organized annotated file, Qian Jiang plopped his bulky frame onto the sofa, grabbed his thermos, lifted the lid, and took a sip: "Also, the Spring Festival Gala team contacted me—they want to know if you're confident you can sing live?"

"If you are, you should sing live—it's this year's standard."

?

Hearing this, Zhou Yi slowly let out a question mark.

Live singing at the Spring Festival Gala?

Are you kidding me?

Noticing his expression, Qian Jiang nodded toward the bound file: "Take a look—you'll see. In the past, it was unavoidable: from 1983 to 1993, equipment and venue limitations forced many accomplished singers to lip-sync."

"Starting in 1994, the Spring Festival Gala announced it would leave the lip-sync era behind, but back then it was mixed: classical singers sang live, while pop singers still lip-synced due to live conditions and skill limitations."

"It wasn't until 1999 that the director Lang Kun addressed and eliminated the issue of pop singers lip-syncing on the Gala. This year's chief director, Chen Yulu, was also trained by Lang Kun, so naturally he's revived the live-singing concept."

"..."

Flipping through the sheet music and vocal guidance for "Friend," Zhou Yi was unusually puzzled.

It wasn't that he feared singing live—he had full confidence in his natural ability. But mainly, he feared making a mistake and dragging others down…

A normal mistake doesn't matter, but this is his first time on the Spring Festival Gala. As long as he delivers a steady performance, that's success.

After the China-Korea Music Festival, he now understood just how terrible the live equipment in CCTV's studio really was.

November 10.

One day after the official broadcast of the China-Korea Music Festival, Zhou Yi's new single "Yellow Race" reappeared—debuting in the top five of mainland China's major charts.

Although the program wasn't broadcast in Hong Kong or Taiwan, Warner couldn't resist selling DVDs; the single's presence on the DVD's visual footage pushed its airplay on Hong Kong and Taiwan radio stations steadily upward.

In just two short days, by November 12, "Yellow Race" had entered the top ten of Hong Kong and Taiwan radio airplay charts.

Hong Kong was fine—because of the stunning white robe with cloud patterns Zhou Yi wore during the China-Korea Music Festival, people quickly copied the outfit and wore it; the look was surprisingly good, and the stage performance even boosted sales of Zhou Yi's personal photo book again.

The other side, however, was less pleased—especially those under restrictions.

Warner, damn it, openly advertised during DVD sales that they were partnering with CCTV and Xinhua Bookstore on charity: Zhou Yi didn't profit, Warner didn't profit, Xinhua Bookstore didn't profit—all profits after costs would be donated to build schools in underdeveloped mainland regions.

This wasn't just publicly stepping on their faces—it was stepping on them while openly making money to subsidize the mainland. It was an utter humiliation.

They wanted to urge Zhou Yi's fans—and other listeners—not to buy that damn concert CD, but it was useless.

Worse, because the Korean Wave had also sparked a craze in Taiwan, Korean artists led by An Chixuan appeared on the DVD, drawing massive fandom from Korean Wave fans who eagerly bought it—another revenue stream.

But when they bought it home, they discovered the songs included covers of Zhou Yi's own tracks?

Zhou Yi's fans now had their tails practically sticking up in the air—they already liked him, now they liked him even more.

In this era of scarce information channels, without the China-Korea Music Festival, many had nearly forgotten Zhou Yi had once sold songs to Korea.

Rumors also spread that Sun Yanzi would appear on this year's Spring Festival Gala.

"Uh, I'm not quite clear on that yet."

After finishing her final variety show shoot in Taiwan and preparing to depart for Hong Kong for promotional activities and album promotion, Sun Yanzi, bound by confidentiality rules, could only smile and shake her head when asked about the Spring Festival Gala.

"What about the New Year's Eve Gala? Will you be participating in this year's Taiwan New Year's Eve Gala, Yanzi? Will Zhou Yi come too?"

"I'll probably attend, but whether Zhou Yi can come isn't up to him—if not, I'll just sing two more of his songs on stage, call it the Twin Stars merging."

Sun Yanzi, who had participated in Taiwan's New Year's Eve concert last year, joked: "It's just that my voice doesn't sound much like his."

After completing her Hong Kong activities, Sun Yanzi, in an interview with Hong Kong media, dropped a bombshell—

"After singing 'The Summer That Blew in the Wind,' a sweet love song, do you want to fall in love? Honestly, yes, a little."

Sitting on a single sofa, Sun Yanzi, holding the microphone, suddenly burst into laughter—she seemed to have thought of something: "But right now, I'm still prioritizing my career—I just don't rule out falling in love."

"What about marriage? Have you considered getting married?"

"Not yet, but before I debuted, I did think about marrying around 25 and having one or two children before 30—after all, beyond that age, for eugenics reasons, it's not ideal."

"Do you think you'd be a good romantic partner?"

"Uh, I don't think I'm a bad romantic partner."

Speaking of matters of the heart, Sun Yanzi unconsciously bared her teeth in a grin: "I'm not the type of girl who's too proactive; I probably wouldn't make a very good romantic partner.

"Moreover, my view on love might seem somewhat contradictory right now. To me, being a wife carries more responsibility than being a lover, and at present, I'd rather focus my energy on my career, so as for love, let it be fate.

"If I truly had to choose between the two, I feel that right now I'd be more suited to being a lover."

PS: This line is Sun Yanzi's exact quote from an interview in July 2001; shifting the timeline a bit shouldn't be a problem, right? ()

The human world!

(End of this chapter)