Chapter 301: Please Do Not Elevate Song Contents to the Singers Themselves

"I've already started practicing, starting to slowly get anxious, anxious that this world has no you~"

"Believe in yourself! ohohoh, you will surpass the limit, surpass yourself!"

"Breakup happiness, wish you happiness, you can find someone better~"

"My head is full of you, my heart is full of you, this small love in Da Cheng is so sweet~"

"I should be under the car, not inside the car, seeing how sweet you two are~"

"Baby, baby, oh~~"

Guangzhou, Haizhu District, Pazhou.

Slightly noisy music, overlapping voices.

Shops facing the street played the most popular songs of the moment; crowds bustled to the breakfast shop entrance, chatted in small groups, then turned to leave carrying soy milk, buns, and fried dough sticks.

Old Qin, who had opened the shop early in the morning, after restocking all the goods, casually sat back at the counter, eating the egg-fried rice noodles with pork intestines he had bought back—

"Boss, do you still have Zhou Yi's English album?"

"Yes, 150."

"Damn, why is it 15 yuan more expensive here?"

"I'm selling the official Warner release; the materials are very substantial, and pirated versions can't compare. If you think it's too expensive, I can even throw in an Andy Lau album."

Seeing business coming in, Old Qin hurriedly wiped his mouth, stood up, and introduced the shop's current promotion.

Andy Lau, one of the Four Heavenly Kings of Hong Kong, released a new album earlier this year; one song in the album, "Practice," once again became his representative work with both popularity and critical acclaim.

Of course, after more than half a year of market baptism, Andy Lau's album had also entered the "discount promotion" period. "Practice" could not stop Andy Lau's declining influence in the music scene; the market response does not lie.

"Don't tell me you stocked up too many pirated Andy Lau albums? What's the difference between me spending an extra fifteen yuan to buy an Andy Lau album here?"

"Hey, don't talk nonsense; I don't sell pirated copies. It's a discount promotion now, do you understand?"

Old Qin cut off the customer's nagging, sized up the young man from head to toe, judging him to be someone who had just entered society: "How about this, if you think it's too expensive, I can give you a new album. Have you heard of Mayday from Taiwan?"

"I've heard of them, you can even give away a Mayday album?"

"About that, their band is now falling apart and has renamed themselves the Shin Band. I happen to have the first album released by the band members after they changed their names, it's called Shin Band..."

Seeing the young man still half-skeptical, the boss directly produced evidence: "If you don't believe me, look at the slogan yourself. The singer from Mayday is called A-Xin, right? Look at this Shin Band one, it's called Xin."

"..."

Eh hey, it really is?

Seeing the "Shin Band SHIN Self-Titled Album" wrapped in a Mayday cover that the boss had pulled out, the young man, after much hesitation, spoke up: "Boss, how about you give me another copy of Elva Hsiao's new album '4U'?"

"No, Taiwan released it first, I haven't stocked it yet."

Facing this greedy customer who wanted to swallow an elephant, Old Qin snatched back the three albums he had taken out: "If you don't want them, then forget it."

Anyway, Zhou Yi's albums sell themselves.

"No, no, I'll buy, I'll buy."

Other places offer buy-one-get-one-free, or buy-an-official-copy-get-a-pirated-one-free; here it's buy-one-get-two-free, and both are official copies, so the young man felt it was quite worth it.

After the young man left, a mom with a child came to buy discs—

"Boss, do you have Ultraman discs? Not Jack or Taro, my son has already seen those."

"Yes, of course, the new Ultraman: 'Gaia Ultraman'."

Old Qin, who had just gone to make a call to the upstream supplier to urge them to speed up copying Elva Hsiao's new album, turned around and pulled out an Ultraman whose cover didn't look like Ultraman at all.

"Urging what? I said seven days, seven days later, do you want to break the rules? Damn it! If all the singers go drink the northwest wind, what do we eat? Do you go up and sing?"

"No, isn't it just urgent? Her new album is reportedly produced by Zhou Yi, with four songs written by Zhou Yi."

As a shrewd audio-visual merchant, Qin Yong knew clearly who was the most awesome in today's music scene.

July 12, the reigning top female artist under Virgin Records, Elva Hsiao, officially released her new album "4U". Among these, in the published tracklist, four songs for which Zhou Yi was responsible for lyrics, composition, and arrangement had particularly eye-catching titles—

"Pirate", "Prague Square";

"No Crime in Heartbreak", "Give Me a Reason to Forget".

Among them, the two songs "Prague Square" and "Pirate" even featured Zhou Yi himself providing vocals.

For many fans suffering from Zhou Yi addiction and even passersby music lovers, this was undoubtedly an uncontrollable urge to buy.

Especially as many gossip magazines dug up news of Elva Hsiao and Zhou Yi strolling through the Moroccan Square watching fountains and white doves.

No matter how good Zhou Yi's English songs sound, they still lack a certain something; Chinese songs have irreplaceability for the Chinese-speaking audience.

With Zhou Yi's own Chinese album reportedly not coming out until October, Elva Hsiao's "4U" received immense attention the moment it hit the shelves.

This was evident from the fact that at the new album's press conference, the question Elva Hsiao herself was asked most was actually about Zhou Yi—

"Zhou Yi? I did call to congratulate him.

"But when he will return is hard to say; after all, he is still very busy over there in the US, probably won't return to the country until around the 20th, after all, July 26 is the day his concert in the Imperial Capital kicks off."

Elva Hsiao, whose mouth corners couldn't stop turning up when talking about Zhou Yi, completely ignored the look her manager threw at the air, and was eager to drag the reporters into a long, rambling discussion about Zhou Yi's achievements in the US.

Yao Qian down below could only helplessly shake his head.

"So, Elva, may I ask if these four songs mean you and Zhou Yi have broken up? Did Zhou Yi formally break up with you before writing these songs for you?"

"What?"

"Right now, the outside world is spreading that Zhou Yi has completely broken up with you and chosen to be with Sun Yanzi.

"So he wrote 'Your Smile', 'Summer Blown by the Wind', and 'Good Time' for Sun Yanzi, and wrote 'No Crime in Heartbreak' and 'Give Me a Reason to Forget' for you."

"...???"

Elva Hsiao, clearly choked up, opened her mouth, wanting to say something, but fell silent with words on the tip of her tongue.

This actually works?

"Elva, may I ask if this is true?"

"Uh, as a singer, I want to say that actually many song contents have nothing to do with the singers themselves." After weighing her words, Elva Hsiao pressed her lips together: "Please do not arbitrarily elevate the song contents to the singers themselves, thank you."

"Then, what do you make of the fact that Zhou Yi met a model in Ireland and wrote her a song called 'Galway Girl'? Is he good at writing about his own experiences?"

"..."

The young Elva Hsiao, facing the reporters' barrage of questions, clearly had her train of thought led astray and forgot to deny her relationship with Zhou Yi in the subsequent questions.

Down in the audience, Yao Qian's teeth were itching with rage.

Damn it!

Zhou Yi, look what you've done!

Despite the scolding, Yao Qian had to admit that the quality of these four songs by Zhou Yi would indeed have an effect on Elva Hsiao's career—there was market appeal, and there was a breakthrough in style.

It proved that, at a time when Zhou Yi's high-quality composition was becoming increasingly well-known, his name itself was a guarantee of quality—

By July 11, the pre-order volume for the album alone had exceeded 100,000 copies across Taiwan.

Elva Hsiao's popularity could at most support a pre-order volume of around 60,000 copies, but after Zhou Yi's name was listed under the producer column, it jumped straight to the 100,000 level.

This was Zhou Yi's influence in the domestic music scene right now!

Yao Qian was both delighted and worried.

He was delighted because Elva Hsiao's results this time would definitely not be poor, but worried that that little rascal Zhou Yi might lure Elva Hsiao over to Warner.

Although Zhou Yi himself had not expressed such an intention to date and had even said that Elva Hsiao staying with Virgin was the right move, he couldn't help but remember that there was still Chen Zeshan over at Warner, who was good at poaching talent; what if he took up Zhou Yi's banner?

Amidst Yao Qian's wild speculations, on July 13, Elva Hsiao's new album had been released for only one day, and its potential to become a popular blockbuster was visible even to the blind—

Not only did all four songs written by Zhou Yi for her top the charts on major radio stations,

but among them, the music video for a song titled 'Pirate' attracted the attention of a giant in Er Bian who was currently collecting information related to Zhou Yi, due to its unique MV theme.

United States, Disney.

The person who had originally just wanted to collect information on Zhou Yi, the newcomer who had topped the album charts, froze upon seeing the music video for 'Pirate'—

Because she thought of another major project at Disney headquarters that was already fully prepared and in the process of assembling a crew: 'Pirates of the Caribbean'.

Although she couldn't understand Chinese, she could still understand and hear the various pirate motifs in the melody and the music video.

So, she sent this music video to Jerry Bruckheimer, the producer specifically hired by Disney.

Jerry, who placed extreme importance on the 'Pirates of the Caribbean' project, wanted even the musical score to be the best; for this reason, he had been searching for someone who could meet the standards in his mind.

"Jerry, are you interested in talking to that Spike who has recently become insanely popular? I think he seems very interested in the pirate profession and even made a music video with the same theme of Caribbean pirates for his friend."

PS: Just one update tonight to take it slow; I dare not click three times again.

The title of the previous chapter was typed with a confused mind; I can't change the title myself... I'll check with the editor tomorrow.

(End of this chapter)