Chapter 338: The Unexpected Dark Horse

"Can it be done like this?"

Elva Hsiao was at a loss for words, and Zhou Yi was equally at a loss for words.

This was completely beyond his expectations.

Heaven can bear witness, when he gave the song to Elva Hsiao, he truly hadn't thought of all this.

"What is the total sales figure for your album now?"

"Combined across both sides of the strait and the two special administrative regions, the actual sales should be over six hundred thousand."

"That's no problem, I don't mind. This will help boost your sales, and I happen to need the heat to maintain my exposure right now."

Zhou Yi, completely indifferent, simply replied that everything would proceed as usual.

In roughly two months, domestic sales exceeded six hundred thousand. Adding in countries like Singapore and Malaysia, this was undoubtedly an album poised to break the one million sales mark across the entire Asian continent within a year.

Zhou Yi's four songs and the topicality surrounding him were no small contribution to this.

After all, the album "4U" currently has sales of around two hundred and eighty thousand in Taiwan.

"The decline of the Taiwanese music market is visible to the naked eye..."

After hanging up the phone, Zhou Yi raised his gaze, looking out through the floor-to-ceiling window at the skyscrapers in the distance, his tone carrying a hint of emotion.

Whether it was Jay Chou's "The Eight Spaces" or Tao Zhe's "Black Melon", the market performance in the mainland market was even stronger.

Tao Zhe's classic love song "Melody" written for Ms. Liu Yingpao and Jay Chou's "Back to the Past" were not only fighting neck-and-neck on the Taiwanese charts, but were also clashing in the mainland.

This was also the first time these two creative talents had faced off directly on the charts—

Since "Melody" was released with the album on August 9, and up to today, September 18, its highest weekly ranking on multiple mainland charts has been third, which is also its highest ranking in the mainland to date. The peak has lasted for two weeks, and it is now expected to launch an assault on the goal of sustaining it for three weeks.

Meanwhile, since Jay Chou's "Back to the Past" was released on July 18, and up to September 18, its highest weekly ranking was also third, but its endurance was not great; it lost its position after maintaining the peak for only one week, though it currently remains within the top ten of the charts.

Because the release month was earlier, Jay Chou had already figured out the limits of his album, so when facing media interviews, he was not so anxious about gains and losses, and could even make a few jokes at Zhou Yi's expense—

"Do you think Ah Yi will win the championship? Of course I think he will, but it might be a bit harder in Taiwan."

For reasons well known, Zhou Yi was unable to travel to Taiwan to promote his album; therefore, although his song rankings participated in the chart battle, it was obvious that without promotion, they were clearly not as strong as in the mainland.

On the 19th, on Taiwan's daily radio chart, Zhou Yi's "Little Dimples" and "Today You Marry Me" finally, thanks to the unremitting promotion of his loyal fans, barely managed to push these two songs into the top ten guard.

Ahead of him was Liu Ruoying's "When Love Is Near".

On this same day, in the mainland music scene, Sun Nan's hidden gem "Rescue" began to gain momentum, and the real-time radio data also began to soar;

Man Wenjun, whose blade was still sharp, thought he could maintain his position as the top ten guard with a single song called "I Need You", but unexpectedly, "Rescue" exploded his rear.

And Zhou Yi's two songs remained firmly nailed to the positions of champion and runner-up, stable to the point of despair.

Ah Du, refusing to believe in bad luck, started running the map frantically under Hai Die's arrangement, wanting to make "He Must Love You Very Much" return to first place from third on the daily radio chart;

Tao Zhe, who had slipped from third to fourth, was equally unwilling to have his peak cut short after lasting only two weeks, and was still striving to surge upward.

Wang Lihong and Lulu's "Break Up Kindly" also saw its data soar with the two's reunion promotion, fighting a stalemate with Shin Band's "Even If I Die, I Still Love" for the fifth and sixth positions.

Elva Hsiao's "Prague Square" and "Give Me a Reason to Forget" entered the top nine in both Taiwan and the mainland.

The final card of the Four Heavenly Kings, Guo Tianwang, with a single song called "Practice", barely hung on the position of the top ten guard.

September 23, 2002, Monday.

A brand new week.

After the Mandarin Music Top Ten, Music Wind and Cloud List, China Popular Song Rankings, and other authoritative mainland charts announced the comprehensive rankings of listening and requests for the previous week, that name high above was inevitably disheartening—

First: "Today You Marry Me", Zhou Yi

Second: "Little Dimples", Zhou Yi

Third: "He Must Love You Very Much", Ah Du

Fourth: "Melody", Tao Zhe.

Following in order were Li Shengjie's "Jian Chixin Absolute", Wang Lihong and Lulu's "Break Up Kindly", Shin Band's "Even If I Die, I Still Love", Jay Chou's "Back to the Past", Sun Nan's "Rescue", and Tang Lei's "Ding Xiang Hua".

"Guo Tianwang is indeed the final card of the Four Heavenly Kings—huh? Wait a minute, what is 'Ding Xiang Hua'?"

Warner, Qian Jiang Office.

Qian Jiang, who had opened champagne intending to properly appreciate it, widened his eyes the moment he saw that "Practice", which had barely hung on the top ten guard the day before based on comprehensive data, was gone—

Who exactly is this Tang Lei?

Which record company's new artist?

"Huh? This Tang Lei doesn't seem to be a proper singer?"

Qian Jiang, who immediately asked a colleague from the marketing department for a data sheet, fell into deep thought.

According to the data currently available, this song "Ding Xiang Hua" was uploaded to the internet by this mysterious Tang Lei alone; the lyrics, composition, and vocals were all by Tang Lei himself, but his profession was a... IT industry practitioner???

Feeling somewhat incredulous, Qian Jiang immediately retrieved the song "Ding Xiang Hua", intending to see what this song was actually singing about and why he had never heard of it.

But when the Warner staff member didn't give him a CD or cassette, but instead used a computer to open a webpage and clicked play, Qian Jiang's eyes became even more confused.

No CD? No cassette?

"The flowers blooming before the grave are the beauty you so long for

"Look at the flowers covering the mountains and fields, do you still feel lonely~~

"Listen, someone is singing that song you love the most

"Amidst the hustle and bustle of the mortal world, there is no need to worry anymore~"

When the chorus of "Ding Xiang Hua" pushed the sorrowful emotion to its peak, Qian Jiang was directly silenced.

He had heard this song on the street, and not just once; so this song was called "Ding Xiang Hua"?

"This song... isn't it sold for money? No CD release?"

Qian Jiang, who could tell the production of this song was obviously still very rough, widened his eyes and asked incredulously.

"It hasn't been released yet. Our people have been contacting this Mr. Tang Lei, but he has not replied so far."

"..."

Qian Jiang, who had been considering digging deeper into what he thought might be a fresh novelty, decisively turned to Zhou Yi after seeing the data for "Ding Xiang Hua" surge week after week—

"A-Yi, something's off. The radio data for one song is rising almost as fast as yours, and the key is, it has no official distribution channels."

"What?"

Zhou Yi, who was still memorizing tomorrow's program script, felt puzzled, then immediately took the materials from Qian Jiang's hand—

The next second, he instinctively patted his forehead.

Good heavens, I almost forgot about this song.

"Never mind, this song is just riding a wave of popularity. Without official channels, it won't affect me." Having realized this, Zhou Yi smiled and shook his head.

If the Hong Kong music scene and the Taiwan music scene each had their own eras in the past, then the era undoubtedly belonging to the mainland music scene is the ringtone era and the internet era.

In a sense, these two eras can be said to be interconnected.

Exactly when the first mainland internet song was published can no longer be verified, but one point can be basically confirmed: the song that pushed open the door to the mainland internet song era was "Ding Xiang Hua" in 2002.

This song can be regarded as the first generation of mainland internet super-hits; Tang Lei's initial production was extremely rough and was simply uploaded directly to the internet, but it exploded in popularity across the country thanks to its abundant emotion and the free, easily spread nature of the internet.

However, due to the lack of profitability, Tang Lei never earned a single penny.

For this reason, he officially released the single disc of "Ding Xiang Hua" in 2004 through the channels of Song Ke, Gao Xiaosong, and others.

When Dao Lang's "The First Snow of 2002" in 2004 initially spread across Dajiangnanbei via Song Ke's internet channels, it borrowed the internet popularity process of "Ding Xiang Hua" in 2002.

Moreover, because Dao Lang himself was incredibly popular in '04, when Song Ke formulated the promotion for Tang Lei's official disc release, he even used the slogan "Dao Lang II."

"This person named Tang Lei is such a waste; such a good song just uploaded like that."

Qian Jiang smacked his lips a few times, looking very regretful: "But the speed of this internet spread is truly frighteningly fast."

Obviously, this was just like Zhou Chuanxiong's "Twilight" before.

Was "Twilight" popular? Of course it was. But the popularity of piracy wouldn't affect Zhou Yi's market at all.

No matter how popular the piracy world got, Zhou Chuanxiong couldn't receive a single cent, and he almost switched careers and gave up music.

"Yeah, it's quite frightening..."

Putting down the materials, Zhou Yi rubbed his brow and swallowed the second half of his thought back into his stomach.

The appearance of "Ding Xiang Hua" meant that the era of massive MP3 downloads in the mainland was about to arrive. Baidu MP3, a platform dedicated to searching for and downloading MP3s, would also launch, sounding the death knell for the domestic physical record industry.

The good days for singers in the physical record industry were about to end; only a handful of people at the Jin Zita peak could still make money from records, and the already underdeveloped copyright ecosystem was completely destroyed.

It even developed to the point that after '05, even top-tier singers like Zhou Jielun saw their record sales decline year after year, forcing him to begin entering the film and television industry to find new profit points.

(End of this chapter)