Chapter 518: What Century Are You Living In, Still Listening to Traditional Records?

Kai West's evaluation score was not good.

As a recent dental graduate working like a beast, his 27 years so far couldn't be called smooth sailing—at best, they could be described as quadriplegia.

A sister dealing drugs, a brother in prison, a father dead and mother vanished—this was clearly among the worst-case scenarios for a traditional white male family.

Not to mention he'd taken on expensive student loans just to finish his studies.

After finally graduating and landing a spot in America's medical system through hard work, he'd just been chewed out days ago over core performance metrics.

Fortunately, his landlady treated him kindly, offering gentle comfort that became a light in his heart, making his vacation time truly pleasant.

"West, don't take that day to heart—Walker's just jealous you're younger than him."

Tucson, Arizona.

After returning from his Xia Weiyi vacation and resuming work at the hospital, Kai West received encouragement from colleagues, who also took the chance to diss their heartless superiors.

Having learned his lesson, Kai West only smiled and nodded: "By the way, Conny, you said earlier you had a way to buy Spike's Chinese albums—was that true? I asked around in Xia Weiyi, and none of the record stores had any Chinese albums in stock."

Zhou Yi's English-language popularity doesn't mean his Chinese albums will sell well in America.

In pop music, linguistic barriers and limitations remain objectively real.

Unfortunately, Kai West was a studious person—he loved diving deep into everything, whether academics, work, music, or film.

As a new fan of Zhou Yi, determined to collect everything, he'd been trying to complete his entire collection of Zhou Yi's albums—including Chinese albums and EPs.

He knew Zhou Yi was Chinese.

But unfortunately, Chinese songs remained niche; the record stores he could find either carried just a few copies, already bought up piecemeal by earlier fans, or didn't carry any at all.

"I told you to find someone online to trade with—you never listen. Warner restocks in batches, and physical distribution channels restock even slower." Hearing this, his colleague was speechless.

"I don't trust it. Who knows if it's a scam? Distance is too far. I won't pay first, and they won't ship first—there's no way I'm flying across the country just to buy an album." Kai West, having been scammed a few times before, now radiated outright resistance to online secondhand or new purchases.

Mainly because no one was selling on local forums.

Beware of internet fraud—everyone's responsibility!

"Then just download them online—Spike's songs are all available on the internet now."

"No way. The pirated audio quality online is terrible—I can't stand it, and Spike doesn't get paid."

"What? No no no—I mean genuine, Apple Music Store—Spike's entire catalog is there, and Apple claims all audio is CD-quality."

Seeing Kai West shake his head like a rattle drum, his colleague—who habitually surfed the web—grabbed him by the arm and led him to his desk, pulling out a white iPod from his drawer.

"Look, these are all mine. Cheaper than buying albums—each song's $1.99. I bought 17 songs total for $33.83. Isn't that cheaper than buying albums? These 17 songs? I bought them individually…"

On the small screen of the iPod, each Zhou Yi song, as his colleague introduced them, appeared before Kai West's eyes.

Ten songs for $19.90;

One album cost just $0.10 more—$20 total—far cheaper than physical albums on the market.

Though Kai West didn't understand what the extra $0.10 was for, it didn't stop people from buying cheaper individual tracks to build their own playlists—just like his colleague, who'd bought 17 of his favorite songs at once and downloaded them to the iPod.

Compared to the album price on the iPod, this was a steal!

The colleague, feeling like he'd hit the jackpot, became a free sales pitch machine, enthusiastically explaining to Kai West just how comfortable this Apple Music model was.

Of course, the prerequisite for comfort was owning a genuine iPod.

"This… can this even be called an album? Where's the bonus stuff?" Kai West asked, puzzled.

Physical albums could be played forever; if you didn't want them anymore, you could resell them for cash. Wouldn't this thing just die once the data got erased?

His colleague scoffed at his confusion: "What century are you living in, still listening to traditional records?"

Tapes and CDs are hard to carry, and you need bulky equipment just to play them.

Now, with this tiny iPod, you can store and listen to everything—and the genuine audio is CD-quality. Isn't that better than lugging around a tape recorder or TV?

The only downside is you can't watch music videos.

But then again, if you want music videos, just buy the physical version with them—physical albums haven't been discontinued.

"…."

Kai West, always wary of internet things, wavered.

Because he'd actually put on headphones and heard high-quality MP3s.

Though to an audiophile like him, the sound still fell short of the advertised "perfect CD-quality," it was clearly above the baseline—Apple had clearly pulled out all the stops.

Most importantly, he discovered all of Zhou Yi's Chinese albums and Chinese songs on Apple Music Store.

He tried listening to a few—and found they actually worked…

His colleague's words echoed in his ears:

"What century are you living in, still listening to traditional records?"

"We all listen to digital records now!"

After researching all afternoon, Kai West was successfully converted—he left work and immediately bought a brand-new iPod endorsed by Zhou Yi, then went home to experiment himself—just to try, he downloaded every single song in Zhou Yi's catalog.

Yes, Zhou Yi had a dedicated section.

As the first top-tier superstar to authorize Apple, Zhou Yi's decision drew widespread private mockery in an era when everyone still lived off physical albums.

Recall how Madonna released fake audio tracks to trick internet pirates into spreading them as if they were real;

Eminem had even released his physical album a week early to combat piracy.

In contrast, Zhou Yi's move to embrace Apple looked like surrender to the internet age. In an era where all big names still clung to physical records, being scorned was only natural.

Naturally, he received Apple's highest possible treatment.

While other artists' songs required manual searching, Apple placed a giant banner on the homepage of the Music Store—a huge poster of Zhou Yi—clicking it revealed two clear sections: Chinese songs and English songs, with easy paid downloads.

"God, so convenient—I've never used such an easy way to buy an album in my life."

"Thank you, internet. Thank you, Apple. Thank you, Jobs."

"…Jobs, what the hell are you talking about?!"

"What does 'what the hell are you talking about' mean? Is that even an English phrase?"

"It means 'complimenting someone.' Spike taught Depp Chinese before, and Depp even proudly mentioned it in an interview. Just search and you'll see; Spike is truly a very sincere person..."

"..."

(End of this chapter)