Chapter 457: The World's First, Second, and Third Are All Me

The Beatles, universally recognized as the world's number one band in Europe and America, and even when expanding that scope to the global music scene, their number of supporters surely exceeds their detractors.

Judging solely by influence on music history and on future generations, even the peak Michael Jackson, hailed as the King of Pop, could not claim to surpass them.

Therefore, as the former editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone, Raul Jackson's words in his column, once published, immediately ignited the entire European and American music scene—

Countless curses and criticisms poured in.

Even more radicals wished that this seventy-three-year-old old man with a history of heart disease would drop dead immediately.

As an insurmountable monument in the history of the world music scene, the birth and dissolution of the Beatles were full of stories—the cultural frenzy the Beatles unleashed almost bound the band's name to the music histories of Britain and America.

For today's believers, the Beatles are untouchable gods;

and for the mainstream media of the Anglo-American cultural circle, the Beatles are kings that outsiders cannot touch.

Michael Jackson could previously be crowned King of Pop to challenge the Beatles' status because his skin color and nationality could be considered somewhat his own. Now Zhou Yi, a Chinese, also wants to use the Beatles to boost his status?

Who the fuck do you think you are?

"Fuck! Raul Jackson is simply senile! How could Spike possibly compare to the Beatles?!"

"I admit Spike's album is indeed good, but wanting to compete with the Beatles is talking nonsense!"

"Warner bought it, absolutely Warner's public relations, no doubt!"

"Jackson, be careful of making money but having no life to spend it on!"

"..."

Insulting remarks, whether from genuine people or paid trolls, kept emerging on the internet; fortunately, the old man's main battlefield was offline media channels, so these voices did not affect him; the lag in message transmission through traditional media channels was clearly manifested at this moment.

Although the internet was already full of netizens arguing fiercely over the old man's heavyweight column, magazines and newspapers like The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, The Village Voice, Vibe, Blender, and Entertainment Weekly had no way to make comments immediately—

Not to mention rushing to write, even printing and typesetting were damn too late!

This wave actually benefited American and British online music and entertainment magazines and websites led by AllMusic, Metacritic, New Musical Express, Slant Magazine, and Stylus, whose traffic saw a leapfrog growth compared to before!

Especially the Stylus website.

A new website and new brand established only last year; Zhou Yi's wave of traffic was simply a windfall for them!

The music review and scoring website Metacritic even blatantly sought to ride the traffic wave, forcibly breaking the rules established by its founder when creating the website in 1999, and directly opened its scoring mechanism on its own website the day after Zhou Yi's album went online—

A full score of 100 points, starting at 11 AM on March 2, the result was that in less than three hours, it turned itself into a freak—

Either ninety-one hundred points or ten-twenty points, highlighting the extreme; the few middle-grounders giving fifty-sixty points seemed somewhat out of place.

"This scoring has become the letter C; this broken website will surely fail sooner or later!"

Caribbean region, Barbados Island, Saint Michael District.

Robyn Rihanna Fenty, who just celebrated her 15th birthday last month, felt somewhat indignant about the smear campaign against her idol Mariah Carey's "rumored boyfriend's" new album.

Although she also knew the status and influence of the Beatles, she did not believe the Beatles were truly so invincible and untouchable.

At the very least, she believed Spike's creative talent was absolutely not inferior to anyone's—since his debut, he had personally handled all the album production, something even a resurrected Beatles could not do.

But unfortunately, she was powerless against this and could only complain verbally.

Having no money to buy the album, she could only go online and give a 100 score to the best of her ability, helping to balance the website's score for Spike's new album, that was all.

Ever since her mother divorced that drug-addicted alcoholic father last year, her life at school had completely degenerated into being an object of daily mockery and bullying—for this reason, Rihanna, no longer wanting to live that life of bullying and discrimination, chose to drop out of school after forming a girl band with two little friends and winning the campus singing competition.

She told her mom she wanted to go out and pursue her music dream, together with her two good friends.

Rihanna originally thought that with the title of campus competition champion, she should be able to gain the appreciation of record companies in her hometown, but the result was that to this day she could still only hang out wandering around the various nightclubs in her hometown, not even getting a chance for a stable residency...

The past regular life had also been messed up into a complete mess by herself.

To make a living, and even more to support herself, Rihanna had to go all out with her two good friends, but as days passed, she now didn't even know what exactly she was busy with.

She felt she had lost herself in the infinite loop of mechanical going to work and off work—finding work—going to work and off work—finding work.

The contempt and mockery of former classmates, the complete mess of life;

the mother's hidden disappointment, the companions' vaguely revealed intention to leave the team, all were stimulating the self-esteem in Rihanna's heart.

Her life, her life seemed to be a foreseeable failure.

And one she had messed up with her own hands.

If she hadn't dropped out, if she hadn't blindly pursued her dream so blindly...

"Am I out of luck, Am I waiting to break (Is fate destined to be so, is it an unavoidable disaster)"

"When I keep saying that I'm looking for a way to escape (When I keep saying I'm looking for a way to escape)"

"Oh, I'm wishing I had, what I've taken for granted (How I wish to have what I've taken for granted)"

"I can't help you when I'm only gonna do you wrong (When everything goes wrong again and again, I'm not worth having)..."

When she passed a music and video store on her way home, the new song playing in the store, which she had never heard before, immediately caught her ear—

The extremely rhythmic drumbeats seemed to knock into her heart, Spike's voice, which she was slightly familiar with, came from the speakers; on the small TV placed outside the window, Spike dressed in black seemed trapped in the mire of life unable to extricate himself; every line of lyrics was like a sharp sword, piercing directly into young Rihanna's chest.

I destroyed everything I once possessed, perhaps it was fate, repeating the same mistakes again and again...

But, can this be blamed on her?

Since she was born, fate had not given her much right to choose.

The father who drank and took drugs directly destroyed the whole family; it was cruel reality that forced her to pick up the gun in her hand, leave the comfort zone, and attempt to carve out a brand new future.

The weight of life pressed on her until she could barely breathe; she didn't even have time to reconcile with the awkward self in her heart.

"In the meantime we let it go (It's time to let it go)"

"At the road sign we used to know (Back to the familiar crossroads)"

"We can let this drift away, Oh, we let this drift away (Let right and wrong drift away with the wind, let it drift away with the wind)..."

In the small TV in the window, Spike grew older, singing the core idea of the entire song "Shots" with an extremely open-minded image—reconciling with oneself.

The youthful recklessness of "Enemy", the unshakable determination of "Natural", the self-reconciliation of "Shots".

Who hasn't done a few stupid things when young?

Who hasn't been foolish when young?

Who hasn't stubbornly walked one path to its end in their youth?

Whether it's success or failure, these are all part of your life's journey; there's no need to resist them. Just as "Natural" sings, lift your head, and you can still move forward—

As long as you can reconcile with the version of yourself that gets stuck on trivialities.

Just as "Shots" sings: Dear, people always have to learn to change.

Rihanna, inexplicably feeling like crying, pressed her lips together, instinctively stepped closer to the shop window, and looked up through the glass at the DVD footage the store was playing to attract customers, her eyes filled with longing.

If she could, she too would want to reconcile with herself.

If she could, she would also want to reconcile with her original family, with her father, and with those classmates who mocked and bullied her.

But she is just an ordinary person.

She is just a confused and powerless ordinary person.

What she wants is clearly so simple, yet so difficult.

As the song "Shots" ended, Rihanna, who had stood silently before the shop window for a long time, clenched her right hand. She tried several times to go in and buy the album, but finally, after patting her pocket and weighing the balance of life, she helplessly chose to give up—

And just as she was about to leave, another extremely catchy intro froze the steps she had prepared to take.

"I've been reading books of old (I have read through ancient texts)

"The legends and the myths (Those myths and legends)

"Achilles and his gold, Hercules and his gifts (Achilles and his treasure, Hercules and his powers)

"Spiderman's control, And Batman with his fists (Spider-Man's control, and Batman with his fists)

"And clearly I don't see myself upon that list (Clearly, I cannot compare myself to them)..."

With a touch of British slow-rock mixed with electronic dance music, Zhou Yi's voice, no longer screaming as in the previous track, was exceptionally gentle in "Something Just Like This"—

Greek mythology, Spider-Man, Batman.

These are all figures and stories well-known in the Western world, yet at this moment, they have all become vivid geniuses in the MV under Zhou Yi's pen, while Zhou Yi himself is now just an ordinary person seen everywhere in life.

Ordinary studies, an ordinary family, growing up in an ordinary way.

It is so ordinary, yet it made Rihanna, standing before the shop window, completely lose her composure—

In the past, she had also fantasized about whether she could become a superpowered being, and then use superpowers to improve her life.

She had thought about the friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, about Batman's money power, and even about flying around like Supergirl, punching people like her father straight down.

But all of this was ultimately just fantasy.

Back in reality, she is merely a child who can do nothing.

"When we were young, we fantasized about becoming superheroes in comics and on TV; only after growing up did we realize that changing the things around us within our means, being able to kiss the one we love, and taking care of our family is already being a very extraordinary superhero.

"No matter what happens, remember to look forward. As long as you don't die, you are forever young.

"Spike's breadth and vision make me admire him; this is an album that reflects his outlook on life and his worldview."

Johnny Davis, an editor at the British website "New Musical Express," which was founded in the 1950s and actively transformed into an online music and film discussion site after the advent of the internet, gave a high score of 9.1 directly on the site after listening to the entire album—the site's maximum score is 10.

"The most crucial point is that Spike is not satisfied with just expressing his views; he has also made further innovations in his album. The use of electronic music in the song "Something Just Like This" is a step above the "DJ" track in the previous album, and can be said to have single-handedly opened up a new form of electronic music songs—

"He incorporated unique rock elements, blending them with the electronic dance music patterns that tend to become tedious after being heard dozens of times.

"At a time when popular electronic music has mostly disappeared, or is still stuck in the old disco dance era of the last century, or the new millennium dance floor song era with maximum nightclub vibes, the change Spike's "Something Just Like This" brings to the music scene is undoubtedly revolutionary.

"The simplest comparison: the application of electronic music elements in Spike's previous album's "Yeah" and "DJ" songs, when compared to this song, is like the product of two different eras after innovation.

"This is a very terrifying fact.

"A Chinese person, a Chinese musician who has never received formal Western music education, has actually achieved the advancement and renewal of genres in the global music scene.

"I heard that Spike has also created a new style of Chinese music in his hometown, gradually leading a trend; perhaps this unprecedented way of using electronic music is the foundation for Spike to become a legend in the Western world.

"Raul was right; Spike might truly have the potential to rival legends."

Johnny Davis's heartfelt outburst received hundreds of endorsements within less than half an hour of being posted.

As a senior editor at "NME," Johnny Davis has extremely senior credentials in the industry; even after the diva Madonna released an album, she would refer to this editor's evaluation of her. At the same time, he is another industry authority figure who has publicly praised Zhou Yi, following the former editor-in-chief of Rolling Stone, Raul Jackson—

"Johnny has done it too!"

Zhou Yi's fans, who desperately need allies, are now not only buying the album in droves but also jumping up and down non-stop to help their idol Zhou Yi win this "uphill battle."

And with the involvement of Johnny, yet another authority figure in the music criticism world, more and more casual listeners are beginning to become curious—

A Grammy winner, last year's global sales king, the Lion King from China.

Why is there so much controversy surrounding Spike's album this year?

Logically, after winning a Grammy, shouldn't the album's reputation and sales all soar red, just like Norah Jones did?

And it was precisely under this controversy that Zhou Yi's new album "Forever Young" skyrocketed in popularity at a rate no one expected—

March 4, 2003, the second day of the second lunar month, the Dragon Raises Its Head.

Just three days after the album's release, the new round of the American Billboard charts was officially updated—

On the Hot 100 singles chart, Zhou Yi, in a manner that shocked everyone's eyes, had his entire album selected, directly creating the record for the fastest entry of an entire album's songs on the American Billboard Hot 100 singles chart!

FUCK!

This result undoubtedly caused the noisy internet to explode instantly!

Wait, how can all the songs enter the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart even though the arguments are so heated?

And following the announcement of the singles chart, in the Top 200 Albums chart, "Forever Young" silenced all the haters with a result of 927,000 CD copies sold in three days, claiming the weekly champion throne of the Top 200 Albums!

Three days! 927,000!

"Unbelievable! Unbelievable!!!"

"He sold more in three days than others do in a week?!"

"Arguing online, never losing offline!"

"Is this the power of the Grammy?"

"..."

In Zhou Yi's album "Forever Young," the three songs currently ranked highest are "Viva La Vida," "Counting Stars," and "We Are Young," placing 45th, 51st, and 67th respectively.

Debuting on the charts!

By comparison, 50 Cent, the hottest hip-hop artist from January of this year until now, saw his debut studio album "Get Rich or Die Tryin'" sell 870,000 copies in its first week; his lead single "Inda Club," after climbing for six weeks, reached the runner-up position following today's update.

Barring unexpected events, this song will claim the number one spot on the Billboard chart next week or the week after, making 50 Cent the man to have a number one single on his debut album.

As everyone knows, 50 Cent is a newcomer personally discovered by Eminem.

And Spike, at the Grammys, essentially rode straight into Eminem's face.

On an HBO music program under Time Warner, when Zhou Yi appeared as a guest, sitting calmly in his seat to accept an interview, he smiled and stated he did not care about these things at all—

"He will not be my opponent; I can be certain. I have never even considered him."

"Then what do you think of people placing you alongside The Beatles, Elvis Presley, and Michael Jackson? Who do you think is number one in the world?"

"Me."

"...? Sorry, I didn't hear clearly; what did you just say?" The host, somewhat stunned, hurriedly asked again, hoping he would clarify.

Zhou Yi straightened his collar, shrugged, and said, "Number one, number two, and number three in the world—I believe they are all me."

"..."

(End of this chapter)