Chapter 471

In terms of pure marketing, the top tier of the mainland entertainment industry in this era—straight up, that's the top tier of the Hong Kong circle—is actually not inferior to the world's top level. In fact, because there's so much talent and the competition is so fierce, the vision of the top marketing talent even has to stay ahead of the American music scene, which is still obsessed with playing the politically correct marketing game.

The prosperity of Hong Kong's entertainment industry in the 1980s and 1990s attracted entertainment talent from all over the country to swarm in, directly causing the Hong Kong circle, which had originally been learning its marketing style from Europe, America, Japan, and Korea, to complete its own metamorphosis in just over a decade.

The most direct comparison is between rebellious little heartthrob Xie Tingfeng and America's sweetheart Britney Spears.

Before Britney was hyped up as "the last diva of the physical album era" and "the one who ended the era of gods," Xie Tingfeng had already been packaged by Emperor Entertainment Group in late last century as "the man who ended the era of the Four Heavenly Kings."

Although he had never personally handled Xie Tingfeng's case, Qian Jiang had at least seen pigs run.

He just needed to make slight adjustments to the specific details based on the American situation, and there was no worry that Zhou Yi couldn't take that seat.

With the first English album exploding globally and the second English album reaching even greater heights, Zhou Yi, backed by the two English albums "Attitude Show" and "Forever Young," already had enough qualification to challenge the throne of European and American pop music.

This is also an unwritten rule on the European and American side—

If the first album's fire is about popularity and sales, then the second album's fire is about class and status.

Of course, this is also the result of the excellent physical record ecosystem in Europe and America.

One album usually takes two to three years to digest; the time span of two proper studio albums is at least four years. Four years—if the second album doesn't flop, then it's a proper Heavenly King seat.

"There's one more thing."

Watching Zhou Yi begin to flip through his upcoming promotional schedule, Qian Jiang, who had just opened his notebook, slapped his forehead and handed the promotional budget document newly approved by the Warner Records board of directors to him: "Originally the board didn't agree to your crazy champion-single domination plan, because it's too outrageous in this era.

"But now, with your personal image having undergone a qualitative leap in America, and even further driving the surge of thoughts like racial equality and anti-discrimination, they've changed their minds and think it's indeed worth a try…"

To complete a super-domination, it's impossible to succeed without a powerful driving force as a gimmick, but Zhou Yi has now relied on the press conference to ascend to godhood in one battle, completing his foundation in a way Americans had never seen before.

Especially since Zhou Yi's current album has already produced two champion singles, the remaining three targets aren't that out of reach—at worst, just throw money at it.

Warner Records might be short on cash, but what it's least short of is cash.

The former is total capital investment, the latter is promotional investment targeting a single person.

"Just one city, spending six to seven million dollars in a year?"

Zhou Yi furrowed his brow as he opened the document and saw this budget estimate.

No matter what era, this amount of dollars is no small sum.

In his memory, a few years later, a mole inside one of America's major record companies leaked to reporters the annual radio promotion cost of a hit single—

Basically, to lock down the major and minor radio stations in a metropolis like New York or Washington, the annual promotion cost for a single city for the five major record companies was roughly four to five million dollars.

This also led to international major record companies like Warner, Universal, and Sony being condemned by American public opinion, who believed they had colluded to monopolize the industry, creating unfair competition against smaller companies that couldn't afford such huge promotion budgets.

"Well, there's no choice. Although the baseline over here in America is around five million dollars a year, what you're doing is something they'd consider downright treasonous, so we can only throw more money at it." Speaking of this, Qian Jiang couldn't help but shake his head.

An additional twenty-five million dollars in promotion funds upfront, with more to be added if the results are good.

This was the plan given by the board of directors, which was currently engaged in internal strife.

Although Zhou Yi's stepping on Madonna's actions made those within the company who were close to her unhappy, due to the fact that most of Warner's upper management had already been blacklisted by Madonna, even if this group wanted to cause trouble and refuse, they couldn't make any waves.

No record company can resist the temptation of five champion singles from one album, because the direct and indirect benefits brought by this far exceed the cost.

Especially since Warner is a publicly listed company.

"But you still need to pick the songs to be the main push going forward. You're the author, the choice is yours." Saying this, Qian Jiang's expression was somewhat pained.

Zhou Yi's album can be said to have created an unprecedented miracle in Western music history—every single song on the album became a hit.

On the Billboard, Zhou Yi's fans, besides having to suppress challengers, spent more time guarding against their own people stealing their home: for instance, "Viva La Vida" was stolen by "Counting Stars."

It can be said that when Billboard previously announced the change of ownership of that champion title, the fans who liked "Viva La Vida" were dumbfounded. They had originally thought that song could at least hold the champion throne steadily for eight to twelve weeks or more.

At times like this, the drawback of the overly luxurious distribution of songs on Zhou Yi's album was fully revealed—they didn't even know how to chart, the internal friction was too severe.

"For the third champion single, let's mainly push 'One More Night.'"

Already used to Qian Jiang's attitude, Zhou Yi chose without even looking the best Billboard-charting single of the anti-K-pop hero Maroon 5's career.

Nine consecutive weeks at number one on the Billboard chart—this level of prestige alone is already high enough.

What's even more incredible is that the song pressed under Maroon 5's "One More Night" for nine consecutive weeks, unable to move, was Park Jae-sang's globally sensational "Gangnam Style."

"One More Night" nine consecutive weeks at number one on Billboard, "Gangnam Style" nine consecutive weeks at number two on Billboard.

Maroon 5 withstood the pressure of "Gangnam Style"; when the world fell, they held the Billboard chart as the last line of defense for the American music scene, and were thus jokingly dubbed the Anti-Korean Hero, Old Ma Five.

"The fourth recommendation is 'We Are Young'."

After pondering for a moment, Zhou Yi circled 'We Are Young', which had achieved six consecutive number-one spots on the Billboard chart.

As for the fifth song, the scope was far too broad. To be fair, both 'Apologize' and 'Payphone' could be recommended.

However, judging by this momentum, there was no rush for the fifth song; they should wait for the results of the third and fourth.

"Alright, I'll go make the arrangements."

Qian Jiang nodded and was just rising to notify the company when an unexpected phone call interrupted his movement—

"What did you say?"

Under Zhou Yi's rather surprised gaze, Qian Jiang shot up from the sofa in the lounge as if his backside were on fire: "Billboard number one has become another of Ah Yi's songs?!"

On April 22, 2003, US time, the new episode of the Billboard Hot 100 arrived as scheduled.

Compared to the previous issue, the top ten rankings changed little; the most conspicuous among them was the new champion single 'Apologize'.

After 'Counting Stars' had stolen the crown from 'Viva La Vida' last time, 'Apologize' stole the crown from 'Counting Stars' this week, successfully reaching number one.

Meanwhile, Madonna's new song, which many in the industry had pinned high hopes on, didn't even make the top thirty this week...

Instead, Linkin Park, which had been behaving quietly, silently pushed their single 'Numb' from forty-seventh last week to twenty-third this week.

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

"Spike with one album and three number-one singles? How could I be having such a dream?"

"Outrageous! Why does he get more popular the more he's criticized? Who exactly is listening to his songs?!"

"One album, three number-one singles! Tying Madonna's album record!"

"..."

Due to the music battle with Madonna previously, Zhou Yi's eyeball heat remained at a high level once again; his Google celebrity search volume topped the list again, naturally driving his single results as well.

This didn't matter before, but now it directly filled the last gap in Zhou Yi's new album's cyber-bug-fighting online competition record—the number of number-one singles from a single album.

From the 1960s to the 1990s, the United States produced many artists who achieved three number-one singles from a single album, including Madonna herself, whose album "True Blue," released on June 29, 1986, achieved the feat of one album, three number-one singles.

This was also a tactic Madonna's fans frequently used to attack Zhou Yi over the past week—without an album achieving one album, three number-one singles, how dare you even sit at the table?

Now, the boomerang came back so quickly.

"I deserve some credit! The data grinding wasn't in vain, feels good!"

"Jump! If you have the guts, jump again!"

"Can you now knock your over-the-hill middle-aged woman back to her original form?!"

Zhou Yi's fans, who had fiercely pushed the data for a week, were now utterly vindicated and proud.

For this achievement of Zhou Yi's, they had neglected sleep and meals over the past week; because they wanted to secure a new number-one single, they turned their attention to other songs within the album.

Before Warner could even step in to stir the pot, the fans, whom Zhou Yi had already tricked into equality, spontaneously achieved the result of three number-one singles under normal promotion, shocking the entire Western music scene!

It must be known that before this, not only had no Asian singer ever achieved such a feat, but among foreign singers with one album and three number-one singles in the US, they were also a minority; Zhou Yi could be said to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the gods of the last century based solely on this one achievement.

"Viva La Vida"

"Counting Stars"

"Apologize."

When the names of these three songs were officially recorded by Billboard, and when the album "Forever Young" appeared on Billboard's official honor roll, Madonna's downward path became exceptionally obvious.

And to coincide with this shocking news, Warner officially released Zhou Yi's album's global sales figures up to this point—14.05 million copies!

From March 1st to April 21st, in a span of one month and twenty-one days, the album secured over ten million copies in legitimate sales globally.

Among these, the US accounted for 5.32 million copies, China for 1.05 million, Japan for 2.15 million, South Korea for 0.75 million, and the UK for 2.67 million; the total sales from these five countries reached 11.94 million copies, while sales from the remaining regions added up to a total of 14.05 million copies!

And according to the data chart released by Warner, the moment Zhou Yi's album skyrocketed globally coincided exactly with the end of the news conferences broadcast in various countries.

In just under two months, global sales already exceeded fourteen million copies; selling over thirty million copies within its lifecycle is almost a foregone conclusion!

"Unbelievable! Unbelievable!!!

"Two consecutive albums with lifetime sales over thirty million copies! This is simply too crazy! Spike is the first singer to conquer both the Eastern and Western pop music markets! The first!"

Jay James, then editor-in-chief of US "Entertainment Weekly," used the word "unbelievable" twice in a row with an exaggerated expression while appearing on a music talk show to describe Zhou Yi's achievements, while also pointing out Zhou Yi's true trump card—

That even the Beatles, Elvis, and Michael Jackson, as strong as they were, had never conquered the Eastern pop music market.

Due to Zhou Yi's Asian identity, when competing with Western singers on global sales, he naturally had a huge voting bloc from the Asian circle, especially Japan and his home base, China.

If the Asian market were removed, Zhou Yi's sales figures would not differ much from those of Western top-tier artists like Eminem.

In other words, Zhou Yi is the man who truly, in name, conquered both East and West.

"To be honest, compared to one album, three number-one singles, this sales figure is even more unbelievable. In a global market where the record industry is constantly declining, Spike has managed to maintain a high position for two consecutive years... this is simply a miracle.

"This should be a record that even he himself will never be able to surpass in the future; I can be one hundred percent certain."

Jimmy Bonaccorsi, editor-in-chief of "Vanity Fair," also shook his head directly: "The expected total sales for two albums exceed sixty million copies; without a doubt, Spike is the last king before the collapse of the physical record market.

"Madonna is already old, even if she was once the world's number one diva."

The irreversible decline of physical records is a consensus among every industry insider.

Now, the competition is about who can scoop up the biggest piece of meat from the last afterglow of this era.

Eminem and Britney were launched by the US music scene to harvest the whole world, but now Zhou Yi from China has stolen the march.

"I even feel that with this album's sales, Spike shouldn't have just one album, three number-one singles; he should have one album, four number-one singles; Billboard very likely suppressed his data."

The "Los Angeles Times," which went from stubborn denial to being "beaten into submission" after firing its original editor, even published doubts about Billboard.

The entire editorial staff of Billboard was numb.

Damn it, we used to secretly adjust Zhou Yi's data and were accused of racial discrimination; now we don't adjust Zhou Yi's data and are still accused of racial discrimination; how do we get scolded no matter what we do?

Is there any justice?!

Is there any law?!

It's one thing for Zhou Yi to use the target of racial discrimination to pin us down, but damn it, what kind of big-shot are you pretending to be, "Los Angeles Times"?!

The "Washington Post" even used a large portion of its space to reflect the importance it attached to Zhou Yi's achievement—

"Spike Zhou, an insurmountable monument in the post-physical album era."

"It is obvious that with just two albums, Spike Zhou from China has already stamped his name onto the history of world pop music, and stamped himself into the textbooks of world pop music.

"He can no longer be bypassed, because he is currently the highest peak in the new century's music scene.

"The records he created will forever be remembered by future generations.

"The old king is dead, the new king must rise. Spike Zhou, a new generation music king rising in the 21st century..."

(End of this chapter)