Chapter 362: The Most Special One

"Has Warner gone mad?"

"Has Zhou Yi gone mad too?"

Ingham, Ho Man-sik's office.

Ho Man-sik, who had been closely monitoring the situation, frowned tightly, put down the tabloid in her hand, and her expression became extremely solemn.

Having struggled in this industry for so many years, she smelled something wrong almost immediately—Warner stirring up so-called antagonistic sentiment at this moment made it hard to say if they truly intended to go all-out.

"Sister Mani, what's wrong? Is there a problem? Is something about to happen?"

Although they knew this news breaking at such a critical juncture must be Warner's doing behind the scenes, the two members of Twins, lacking sufficient experience, pondered for a long time but couldn't figure out a single thing, so they could only turn to their omnipresent manager for help.

"Warner's ambition is too great; they must want to use this opportunity to let Zhou Yi dominate the top ten of the radio charts."

Even Ho Man-sik, who was skilled at hype, couldn't help but draw in a sharp breath at this moment, secretly calculating in her heart the probability of Warner succeeding in doing this.

"Wh-what?!"

Asa, who prided himself on having seen the world, instantly widened his eyes and opened his mouth in shock: "This is absolutely impossible! Hong Kong Radio would never allow such a thing to happen!"

Hong Kong Radio, the only government radio station in Hong Kong, was in a sense the most pure official force.

"So it's Xincheng Radio; Warner's main battlefield should be placed on Xincheng Radio."

Ho Man-sik's face was extremely serious: "You two do not appear in public for now. Also, tell the other artists inside EEG that no one is to express any comment on this matter. I will go find the boss to discuss the situation."

The two sisters of Twins looked at each other in silence.

The last time they saw Ho Man-sik wear such an expression was when Xie Tingfeng was arrested.

"Okay, understood."

Watching Ho Man-sik leave with decisive speed, the two sisters leaned against the doorframe, watching her figure disappear at the end of the corridor corner, then exchanged a glance and slipped out the door.

And on Ho Man-sik's way to find the boss Yang Shoucheng, she unexpectedly met her rival—Gan Jingjing, the head of the Ingham MusicPlus department.

"Ingham's music department is divided into two parts—EEG and MusicPlus.

"The person in charge of EEG is Ho Man-sik, and the person in charge of MusicPlus is named Gan Jingjing, that old woman wearing glasses."

Warner (Hong Kong), Zhou Yi's lounge.

Qian Jiang, holding a stack of documents to introduce the biggest obstacle to this operation to Zhou Yi, pointed at a photo and said:

"These two departments have their own ace singers, covering everything from powerhouses to idols to newcomers. Like Ho Man-sik, the manager for the artists you are familiar with, Xie Tingfeng, Twins, and Joey Yung, is her;

"As for this Gan Jingjing, the singers under her command are Wang Jie, Chen Yixun, Chen Guanxi, and Zheng Hiyi..."

Zhou Yi, with his right index finger pressing against one side of his cheek, narrowed his eyes slightly: "Wang Jie? Then isn't she a mortal enemy of Ho Man-sik?"

"Not exactly; Ho Man-sik has always kept her one step behind."

Qian Jiang shook his head: "However, this woman has a very powerful network of influence, especially over Hong Kong Commercial Radio. At the same time, Huang Jiantao, a senior executive at Universal Records' subsidiary New Era Records in Hong Kong, is her husband."

"Under Universal?"

Zhou Yi raised an eyebrow; Eminem's new movie "8 Mile," which relied on dissing him to generate heat outside, was from Universal Pictures.

That meant the senior executives of Universal Records, a sister company to Universal Pictures, could definitely find out exactly what was going on immediately.

"Even if they know what is going on now, it's useless; the emotions and rhythm have already been led by us. Now is the time when the masses are in a frenzy; anyone daring to utter a single word of dissent can be immediately guided by us to be labeled a traitor, a reputational cost they cannot bear."

Qian Jiang, who had played a move of expansion according to Zhou Yi's suggestion, was now riding high with the wind at his back—damn, this feels so good!

He never realized before that marketing could be played this way; it really has to be A-Yi.

"In your album 'Lianshan,' the songs with hope of breaking into the top ten also include 'Cheers'..."

To avoid causing Zhou Yi any misunderstanding, Qian Jiang gave him a heads-up in advance.

It was definitely unrealistic for all eleven songs in 'Lianshan' to sweep the top ten of the charts; putting aside other things, the three songs 'Can You Feel My World,' 'Ghost,' and 'In the Name of the Father' in this album would absolutely struggle to break into the top ten.

If not for the heat Zhou Yi generated earlier, whether these three songs could even break into the top thirty was questionable.

Straining to consume a huge amount of promotional resources only to likely end up in failure would be unacceptable to Warner.

As for 'Killer,' its market performance was also not as good as the B-side songs of Zhou Yi, so after comprehensive consideration, Warner removed it from the chart-chasing list.

"Rest assured, I am clear on which ones can push and which ones cannot."

Zhou Yi smiled, put down the documents in his hand, and interlaced his fingers in front of his lips: "These four A-side tracks were originally made to deal with music critics who demand musicality; even for 'In the Name of the Father,' which I value most, I am very clear that its radio chart results will definitely not be good."

In later times, there would always be a saying that when 'In the Name of the Father' started as the lead single for charting, over 800 million people across Asia listened to it, and they even created some kind of 'Jay Chou Day,' and the key is that quite a few people actually believed this.

This was just like that ridiculous 'Top Ten Genius in the World' thing; it was purely a brainwashing package released by Hao Ledi, yet many idols brainwashed by it revered it as truth.

The simplest point: if 'In the Name of the Father' was listened to by over 800 million people across Asia, then why does no radio chart anywhere have its name?

No matter what chart's data summary statistics you look at, you could flip through the entire list until it smoked and still wouldn't find the position of 'In the Name of the Father'—

Even in the Best Arrangement competition at the Golden Melody Awards that year, 'In the Name of the Father' lost to 'Prague Square.'

What was even more ridiculous was that 'Sunny Day,' which many so-called Jay Chou fans said was never popular before, was actually the one that consistently ranked high and took the runner-up spot on major charts.

If it weren't for the fact that after the arrival of the mobile internet era, the winner-takes-all Jay Chou performed so poorly it was unbearable to watch, forcing new fans to have to dig up his old album songs, 'In the Name of the Father' would never have had a chance to resurge—

This song was too ahead of its time in this era.

Facts proved that after Warner started concentrating resources to promote the ten selected songs, the data for songs not selected, such as 'In the Name of the Father,' on the daily radio charts dropped very quickly.

Other record companies in Hong Kong were not pushovers either—

At 10:08 AM on the 24th, record companies acquired by Universal, such as Zhengdong Records, Shanghua Records, and New Era Records, immediately stepped forward, standing together with Chen Yixun under Gan Jingjing of Ingham—

Zhengdong Records' ace Chen Huiling, Shanghua Records' God of Songs Zhang Xueyou, and New Era Records' current diva, nicknamed the chubby version of Sun Yanzi, Yang Qianhua, all stepped out in unison!

At exactly 13:00, Andy Lau of EMI Records was pushed by his company to rejoin the battlefield, rarely appearing in the same frame as Zhang Xueyou again to compete for chart data;

At 14:30, Wang Fei, who had transferred to Sony Records, was also pushed out by Sony; her greatest hits album 'You Are Wang Fei So I Am Wang Fei' released in May already included a large number of Wang Fei's past hits, and under Sony's strong promotion, hits such as 'Kai Dao Tu Mi' and 'Fable' started charting and pushing data again.

If it weren't for the fact that Zheng Zhongji's new song plus greatest hits album 'Encore' this year was too terrible, he probably would have been pushed out to fill a headcount too.

"Two of the past Four Heavenly Kings have come out, plus Wang Fei, Princess Lin... My god, why have so many singers' songs suddenly shot up on the charts?"

Zhou Yi's fans and fans of other singers, waking up from a nap and seeing the data changes on the charts of Hong Kong's three major radio stations, especially the daily rankings of Xincheng Radio, were somewhat confused—what's going on?

These songs didn't have such high rankings yesterday, right? They are almost entering the top ten—

Oh wait, that's not right—Wang Fei, who has an enormous number of devoted fans, already has two greatest-hits classics squeezed into the top ten, knocking out the two singles Zhou Yi had been holding the line with, "Cheers" and "Little Dimples."

Huo Wenxi, who had chosen to watch from the sidelines, was for once gnawing on something in his mouth, constantly venting the pressure in his heart—

She had refused the words passed over by those old-generation "decision-makers," and had not led her roster of singers to choose to take up the challenge.

"Are you crazy? These people can basically be said to be half of the entire current Hong Kong music scene—how could you possibly take them all on alone?"

Warner.

After hanging up on Sun Yanzi, Xiao Yaxuan, Fan Bingbin, Zhou Xun, Jay Chou, Zhang Shaohan and the others, Zhou Yi unexpectedly received a call from Cai Zhuoyan—

The other's incredulous words made the corners of Zhou Yi's mouth rise uncontrollably: "So what? I'm still half of the mainland music scene right now. We're all half the scene—who's afraid of whom?"

"Is that the same thing?" Cai Zhuoyan was baffled.

"Haven't you always wanted to become hugely, spectacularly famous, Asa? I'll teach you a method that will absolutely make you red-hot across half the sky."

Pacing over to the floor-to-ceiling window, looking down at the stream of traffic beneath his feet, Zhou Yi slipped one hand into his pocket and said, word by word: "Watch carefully, learn well. I'll only teach this once."

At 17:05, Jay Chou from Taiwan ultimately could not hold out until sunset, and was kicked out of the daily chart's top ten by Yang Qianhua's "Yang Qianhua."

And it was precisely from this moment on that, on the daily chart of the entire Xincheng radio station, among the top ten singers only Zhou Yi remained as the one outsider from the mainland—

Liu Hua, Zhang Xueyou, Wang Fei, Yang Qianhua, Chen Yixun, and Chen Huiling—the six of them were pursuing and blocking him on all sides.

At the same time, Li Keqin under Universal Records also officially joined the battlefield!

The entire Hong Kong music scene instantly descended into utter chaos.

The senior executives of Xincheng Radio were grinning from ear to ear. The vested interests behind this group, upon learning that Warner was making Xincheng Radio their main target, likewise shifted their key promotional efforts here, while repeatedly and emphatically assuring: this station absolutely would not engage in any favoritism or fraud!

"This is an impossible feat. Throughout history, no singer has ever managed to monopolize the top ten of a song chart."

Cai Zhuoyan, who had used this pretext to invite Zhou Yi out for dinner, no longer wore his former innocent expression as he spoke with pointed implication.

"Which is exactly why I'm the most special one."

Zhou Yi smiled faintly, cutting the steak on his plate: "Their songs are all old songs now—the novelty has long worn off. Besides, among this bunch, apart from Chen Yixun who might have a few more young fans, the rest of their fan bases are mainly made up of busy young and middle-aged members of society.

"They may have money, but they lack the one thing needed to chart on a radio station—free time."

(End of Chapter)