Chapter 442: The Gold Content of Zhou Yi's Day Continues to Rise (4k)

The Global Chinese Music Chart is a music ranking jointly selected by seven radio stations across Asia.

Each station rates every singer based on their performance on the chart, announcing rankings for single episodes, quarters, and the year, finally selecting the most popular songs and artists of the entire year to award prizes; it was founded in 2000.

These seven stations are the Capital People's Broadcasting Station, Guangdong People's Broadcasting Station, RTHK, Shanghai Media Group News Media Group, Taipei Voice, and stations in Singapore and Malaysia.

Typically, the data rankings among these seven stations differ, and even last year's Zhou Yi could not achieve complete unification.

But this time, Zhou Yi's "Ode to the Young China" achieved an unprecedented feat, completing a triple jump to rank first on the real-time data charts of five regional stations: the Capital People's Broadcasting Station, Guangdong People's Broadcasting Station, RTHK, Shanghai Media Group News Media Group, and Taipei Voice!

Although the song had gained some popularity when the China-Korea Song Festival aired, there was still a certain gap before truly achieving widespread circulation.

But this time, thanks to the Spring Festival Gala, the song directly stunned many middle-aged and older listeners.

"Xiao Liang, play 'Ode to the Young China' again for me to listen to."

"Eh, sure thing."

"The adaptation of this 'Ode to the Young China' is quite grand..."

Words like these frequently occurred in the homes of leadership in many government units after the New Year.

As extremely sensitive people, they all smelled the importance of Zhou Yi's song against the backdrop of the times; not to mention the song was indeed good to listen to and possessed the necessary circulation power of a pop song.

Some traditional-leaning print media even started blowing up Zhou Yi to the skies continuously from the third day of the Lunar New Year—

Youth Daily: "The Youth Must Strengthen Themselves, the Young Must Strengthen Themselves!"

Jiang Xi Daily: "Passing the Torch, the Horn of the New Era!"

People's Daily: "The Youth of the New Century, The Strongest Sound of the New Century"

"..."

The outcome of People's Daily was basically to define the nature of Zhou Yi's song.

To be honest, Zhou Yi himself never thought this song would even draw this newspaper over.

Although this newspaper often did the opposite of his name, flipping sides faster than turning a page, and was rated as a third-rate newspaper.

But there is no doubt that it is currently one of the most influential official media outlets in the country.

"Mainly because the significance of this song is too great in this era, and over in Taiwan, your fans organized a home invasion, making the song top the daily rankings of the Taipei Voice station, giving the song an added layer of meaning regarding unity."

"Taipei Voice? Me?"

Zhou Yi, who had just started busy with English album recording after the New Year break, was greatly surprised.

As a region Zhou Yi himself could not access, getting first place on a major station in the Taiwan region was already very difficult to obtain; this thing ultimately relies on massive radio promotion to push singles, and Taipei Voice is exactly such a stage.

But this time, post-New Year Taipei Voice unprecedentedly handed over the first place to Zhou Yi—and for a song with such strong background color as "Ode to the Young China."

This is unimaginable.

"Your results and public opinion in the US are too top-tier; the fans in Taiwan, to show you their determination to keep supporting you, directly agreed to pull a home invasion on you after the New Year, rushing the data of 'Ode to the Young China' to first before the authorities could react..."

Speaking of this, Qian Jiang was also somewhat helpless but sighed in admiration at the extremely fierce combat power of Zhou Yi's fans in Taiwan.

The US music scene in February 2003 was not very peaceful in terms of public opinion.

Due to Eminem's team previously using the tactic of turning an opponent's force against them, subtly molding him into a street hero battling the outsider Zhou Yi, Warner not only did not halt it but instead reversed course and intensified it—

Directly steering the situation into a direction Eminem's team did not expect—or rather, no one would expect: racial discrimination.

This blew up the old nest of US public opinion, or rather, could be said to have directly poked the old nest of the entire Western world's public opinion.

In 2003, so-called democracy and freedom, and racial equality, were always one of the important weapons the US used to bluff the whole world. Although racial discrimination had not yet developed into the madness of later years, it was still a topic that could not be spoken of openly.

But now, Warner, almost single-handedly, turned the entire US public opinion force led by Eminem's team into suspected racists, swapping the concept of accusations against Zhou Yi into suppression against Zhou Yi—

And this, simply because of his identity as a Chinese person.

"I don't know exactly what changes have occurred in external public opinion, but I want to say that we cannot hold hostility towards Spike just because he is Chinese, or look at him through colored glasses."

In a TV interview on February 5, Ron Shapiro, a member of the Warner Music Group board of directors and president of Atlantic Records, a subsidiary of Warner Music, spoke with such righteous boldness to reporters: "Spike's achievements on the Billboard are visible to all; he is a gem of the global music industry, and music has no borders.

"We cannot simply decide that such a person does not deserve these achievements just because of his identity or his skin color.

"In fact, as a foreigner, he managed to break into the US music scene using English and achieve these results; those mocking him as unworthy of his position, I think you should reflect on yourselves, reflect on why you lost to someone whose native language is not even English.

"Undoubtedly, Spike is a genius..."

Last night, the data for the latest episode of the Billboard Hot 100 was officially released, causing an uproar throughout the entire US music industry today.

Without Zhou Yi making any appearances in the US, doing any radio promotion, or running any offline venues, relying solely on Zhou Yi's extremely high controversy, the feud with Eminem, and Warner's varied channel hype tactics, Zhou Yi's new single "Enemy" officially broke into the top fifteen, ranking thirteenth on this week's Billboard Hot 100.

This is an unprecedented miracle.

Since world-class Guo Tianwang in the US do not disappear when they are promoting singles, they cannot be included in the comparison list, so major media outlets could only list foreign singers who could not come to the US for promotion during their single promotion period due to various reasons.

And before this, not even a single foreign singer had ever managed to have their single surge into the top fifteen on the Billboard without making an appearance.

Not a single one.

This triggered the source of the current controversy—Warner's hype tactics for Zhou Yi.

Some thought it was too much, doing nothing but day after day flipping back and forth to create various hype, even organizing some challenge that was damn ridiculous, making the absent Zhou Yi look as if he had come to the US, with non-stop news day after day;

Others thought that to forge iron one must be hard oneself; if he didn't have real skills, the song "Enemy" wouldn't have spread throughout the US.

Although on the radio charts, the overall ranking weight dragged behind because Zhou Yi indeed did not push any singles, the sales were high!

Since officially launching on January 15, up to February 2, in 17 days, the single's total US sales broke 1.3 million copies, momentum directly approaching last year's Eminem hip-hop god-single "Lose Yourself."

This is a terrifying number.

You have to know, Eminem's god-single "Lose Yourself" is now heading towards a global target of eight million.

And in last year's album sales war, Zhou Yi, who had one more Asian market than Eminem, achieved a complete victory over him in total sales comparison.

Eminem's "The Eminem Show" plus the single "Lose Yourself" combined could only match Zhou Yi's "Attitude Show" in total sales, and in the end, he was defeated by a sales gap of over two million—

Eminem's 2002 English album plus single global total sales were around 26 million, while Zhou Yi's single "Attitude Show" 2002 global total sales were 28.91 million.

Eminem, who had cultivated the European and American markets for many years, ultimately failed to extract more coins from fans and passersby, while Zhou Yi completed a reversal over Eminem by relying on his unique East Asian market.

And this doesn't even count the World Cup single sales or the Chinese album sales.

Counting everything, he is the only singer of the entire year whose total sales broke 38 million copies, undoubtedly the number one in the world!

So many people began to wonder: if Zhou Yi hadn't been busy with various domestic activities in China at the end of last year, but instead had directly released the single "Enemy" to challenge Eminem, would Eminem have suffered an even more crushing defeat?

Originally, many had been questioning that Warner had inflated the total sales figures since they lost; now, Zhou Yi's new single had completely exploded across the United States, which directly triggered a violent backlash—

One side was saying, "You are suppressing me. Stop making excuses; this is racial discrimination, and it is wrong."

The other side was accusing Warner of inflating sales figures—not just for English albums, but also for Chinese albums and the World Cup single "Victory." The gist was that the American music scene would not allow a fraud to establish a foothold; they must drive out this despicable fellow who could blow a one-cent claim into ten dollars out of the United States.

Both sides fought increasingly fiercely over this issue, and the stereotype of racial discrimination became Warner's best shield for counterattacking—

"You question my inflated sales? You are racist!"

"You say a Chinese person couldn't possibly sell that much? You are racist!"

"You think Zhou Yi shouldn't receive any award recognition? Then you are even more racist!"

In short, everything could be twisted into racial discrimination.

At this very moment, it wasn't just the Eminem camp that was numb; the judging panels of the three major American music awards were even more numb...

As the most dazzling dark horse singer in the American music scene last year, Zhou Yi was undoubtedly selected for the three most important awards in the American music scene—the Grammys, the American Music Awards, and the Billboard Music Awards.

Even the most famous Grammys gave him six nominations; naturally, the other two could not turn a blind eye and each gave him some nominations.

As for whether to actually give him an award, to be honest, they were inclined in their hearts not to.

Not to mention that Warner was primarily targeting the most famous Grammys; the other two were even more delighted to first see what reaction the Grammys would have.

And in the UK, the co-parent of the US, Zhou Yi was also nominated for the highest honor in the British music industry, the Brit Awards, where he once again competed with Eminem in the categories of Best International Male Artist and Best International Album.

For others, such as the Canadian Juno Awards, Zhou Yi was also nominated.

A Chinese person had almost been nominated for every European and American pop music award ceremony that could be nominated for; one had to say this was a miracle, and it also caused this so-called "anti-racial discrimination" wave to begin spreading in these European and American countries...

The attitude Warner put forward was very simple: just ask if you intend to give the award or not.

If you give it, it is the most fair and just award ceremony; if you don't, then you are rigging the results and being racist.

On one hand was the increasingly surging public opinion pressure; on the other hand was Warner's friendly public relations that offered money and perks. This combination of carrot and stick forced even the stubborn old scholars of the Grammys to bow their heads and wipe their glasses.

This became the source of confidence for the so-called "Zhou Yi Day" theory—

Forcing all European and American music award ceremonies to bow with his own strength!

"The weight of 800 million people in Europe and America having listened to 'The Lord of the Father', the weight of global total sales breaking 45 million copies, the weight of being the world's best-selling artist, the weight of carrying 58 nominations from top award ceremonies across the globe!"

"To commemorate the great achievements created by Zhou Yi, countries such as the UK, France, the US, and Canada unanimously agreed to set January 15th as an annual 'Zhou Yi Day'."

"Because the new song 'Enemy', which blocked the path of European and American music award judges, was born on January 15, 2003, and also because January 15th is Zhou Yi's lunar birthday!"

Tianya.

In this community, which was the best at spreading rumors during the early era of the mainland internet, a fan essay written solely to brag about their idol was posted after stitching together news reports from multiple Hong Kong media outlets; combined with Zhou Yi's incredibly positive-energy "Ode to the Youth of China" broadcast after the Spring Festival Gala, it instantly went viral across the entire internet!

Mainland "Southern Entertainment News": "Zhou Yi: If the youth are strong, then China is strong!"

Hong Kong "Ming Pao Weekly": "A Day Worth Commemorating"

Hong Kong "Sun Newspaper": "The Little Emperor of Chinese Music Defeats Europe and America!"

Taiwan "Liberty Times": "Zhou Yi's Person is Not Seen, But Zhou Yi's Songs are Heard"

Even Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" put Zhou Yi on the front page of its latest issue: "The Chinese Music Myth That Created a Commercial Miracle: Zhou Yi"

"..."

Whether in the domestic market or in Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, wherever the Chinese music industry within the Chinese cultural sphere existed, excited Zhou Yi fans were everywhere—

"Let the haters speak! Who else is unconvinced?!"

"A total of 58 major award nominations from countries around the world, and this doesn't even count Asia; in the Chinese music circle, there has never been anyone before or since!"

"Teresa Teng? Does she even deserve it? Warning you, don't try to cash in on this."

"Putting other things aside, who else can produce 58 nominations on a global scale?"

"..."

As a singer, besides sales figures, the thing fans use most to compare and fight is awards.

Because his debut time was not particularly long, the number of Chinese awards Zhou Yi actually had was not comparable to those great seniors, but no one expected him to overtake them on a curve now...

The concept of "Zhou Yi Day" was even cited by quite a few relatively traditional print media in the mainland; however, they still had a bit of conscience, knowing to play it close to the line by adding quotation marks.

(End of Chapter)