Chapter 237: Who is Zhou?

"I'm John, the guy who's been all over the news lately, and I'm gonna dedicate a song, 'The Lazy Song,' to my old boss and all my former coworkers.

"I wanna tell them I don't regret a single thing I did. I'm home every damn day now, living like a king — you have no idea how good it feels!

"Also, I love Spike Zhou — he gave me the courage to embrace this beautiful new life!"

United States, Washington, D. C., Tejano Music Radio (WURA).

The radio staff had been nearly numb to it all, but when John — hailed as "the one who started it all" — called in, his words jolted the operator wide awake—

What the hell?

"Hey, Jesse, what's up?"

"Victor, it sounds like that guy from the news called in, and he requested a Spike Zhou song."

"You what?"

The director named Victor froze, staring at the young Latino kid in front of him, wishing he could kick himself—

Fuck!

What a golden opportunity!

Spike's song request rate at every major American radio station was shooting straight up, and John — the guy who fired the first shot of the resignation wave — deserved most of the credit.

If they could just get him to come into the station for a guest interview, the listenership numbers would skyrocket.

"Alright, let's take our next caller…"

The on-air host Jimmy stared at yet another request slip pushed across his desk, took a deep breath, and slumped back into his chair—

How is it this song again?!

Why don't you people request something else?!

What about Britney?

Britney's song is sitting at number thirty on the Billboard chart right now — don't her fans want to push her ranking higher?

Are they really satisfied just because album sales are high?!

Three days straight of hearing this song on repeat, and now even with his eyes closed at night he hears Zhou Yi's voice singing and swaying in his ear; in his dreams, Zhou Yi and a bunch of people in gorilla masks are chasing him around.

He couldn't understand it.

An Asian — more precisely, a Chinese person — how did their song suddenly get so popular?

The damn thing has already shot to number one on this week's radio request chart, with a cliff-like lead over second place!

On what grounds?

Who is this Chinese kid?

Eminem? Or Usher?

Or maybe Justin Timberlake?

The names of three male singers flashing through Jimmy's mind made it clear he was deeply unhappy about the appearance of this Chinese person called "Spike Zhou," but since he was on the clock, he could only swallow it all down.

After work, he finally had time to vent to a friend: "This singer must be with Warner, right? Warner's promo push is insane — I swear this song is everywhere you look lately, it's terrifying.

"And it doesn't even sound good. The MV is a joke too — what was that supposed to be? Just him in a room twisting around with a few gorillas and that's supposed to be dancing?

"The song's message is trashy as hell, pure ear-candy — and this got popular? I don't get it…"

"Don't be jealous, Jimmy. It's just because your new song never got released, right?"

A friend he'd gone out to eat and drink with after work pointed at him and laughed: "Besides, nobody listens to those message-driven songs you make.

"This Spike Zhou song has already cracked the Billboard Hot 100 top 70 — if you think it doesn't sound good, that's your problem."

As the most authoritative chart in American music, thanks to its strict entry mechanism, the Billboard Hot 100 — which only admits songs after combining radio airplay and sales data — is in some sense more valuable than the Billboard 200 album chart, which only counts sales.

Precisely because of this, when most singers' fans — or even the singers themselves — get into online feuds, the phrase they always throw around is how many number-one singles they have.

These "number-one singles" refer to weekly chart-toppers on the Billboard Hot 100.

Generally speaking, songs ranked 90–100 on the singles chart are a mixed bag. Some really are low-quality and riding purely on marketing, not worth much — but these tracks usually fall off the chart within a week or two and vanish without a trace.

From number 89 and up, you can say you don't like them, but you absolutely can't say they aren't popular — even a small hit is still a hit.

From number 70 and up, you can fully say the song has the ability to break through to the mainstream, or already has.

For an ordinary singer, once their song enters the Billboard Hot 100 top 50 or above, that's an undeniable mega-hit — the kind where your ancestors' graves are practically smoking.

Because it means commercial gigs, fame, and all sorts of royalty streams. If a singer-songwriter writes and performs their own song and it enters this range, that's basically a retirement plan.

As long as you don't do anything stupid, you won't starve — you'll be living in a house and driving a nice car.

And now, on the Billboard Hot 100, for the first time ever, a Chinese singer has broken into the top 70—

From its official release on November 26 to today, December 12, in just half a month's time, it went from zero buzz to number 68.

If before, the various American record labels had been laughing off Warner's ridiculous hype and treating this Chinese singer named Zhou Yi as a joke, now it was Warner's turn to look at them as the joke.

The famous American magazine Entertainment Weekly even ran a rare front-page story: "Spike Tears Apart Tom and Jerry!"

As a classic American — and global — animated series, Tom and Jerry needs no introduction.

Zhou Yi's sudden emergence made more than a few people start whispering among themselves, and they began digging into his background.

Warner subsidiary Atlantic Records was shocked to discover that this Zhou Yi was actually one of their own: "He's from Asia?!"

"Chinese?"

Atlantic Records at this point was no stranger to the Asian market — especially the Chinese market—

Because the female duo M2M on their roster had huge popularity in Taiwan, China, so much so that Atlantic had even had M2M record Chinese versions of their songs to thank fans and further expand the market.

Because of his rare background, the name Zhou Yi was noticed by virtually every artist fighting it out on the American music scene — especially when they estimated that the potential of his song clearly hadn't been exhausted yet.

"'The Lazy Song' should be able to crack the top twenty, maybe even the top ten."

The White King of Hip-Hop, Eminem, who was preparing next year's new album, listened to the single after being briefed by his manager and gave his assessment: "His vocal delivery is incredibly infectious."

As someone who came up through hip-hop, the man who single-handedly held his own against the teen-pop wave led by Britney Spears at the start of the millennium did it on the strength of his vocal charisma.

"Spike Zhou?"

Inside the Destiny's True Girl group, Beyoncé—who was already preparing to go solo—found that face very familiar, and immediately asked her manager: "Is this Chinese singer on the 2002 World Music Awards nominee guest list along with us?"

"Let me check… Yes, looks exactly the same, it's him."

In New York, Alicia Keys, who had just debuted this year, was busy promoting, trying to help her number-two single on the year-end chart overtake the number one—when her manager suddenly brought her a piece of news—

"Alicia, a singer from China has knocked another song from your album out of the Billboard top 70."

"Spikezhou? Whois Zhou?"

Alicia Keys was very puzzled, but after hearing the song, she fell into silence.

As time went on, along with Zhou Yi's increasingly fierce offensive, more and more pairs of eyes were watching his journey.

Usher, who was on fire this year to an absurd degree, even saw a hint of his good friend Michael Jackson in Zhou Yi's MV dance moves, and immediately shared it with him—

"Mike, there's a singer here with a song, very interesting."

In Japan, Utada Hikaru, who was planning to officially enter the American market next year to fight it out, was utterly stunned—

I haven't even gone yet—how did you already take off in America?

(End of chapter)