Chapter 520: The New King of the Internet Era

For Zhou Yi, this was an inevitable outcome.

The difference lies in that this time he became the man standing in the tide of the era, reaching out to pluck the fruit, becoming the pig riding the wind.

But for the Western music scene, for major record labels, and even for distributors, this outcome was nothing short of a sudden revolution for them—a blade striking their carotid artery.

No middlemen taking a cut; however much is sold, that is the amount.

Nor are there vague statistics from physical stores or offline advertising promotion data; there are only internet tags with clearly marked prices.

This result stunned everyone in this era.

Whether it was the King of Pop Michael Jackson, the White Hip-Hop God Eminem, or the already notorious 50 Cent, regardless of whether they had a grudge against Zhou Yi, all fell silent after this result was released.

Sell however much is sold; singers themselves can estimate the sales figures with reasonable accuracy, and situations like Madonna's partnership with Warner, where the company Little Bull Records should have profited but instead lost over sixty million dollars due to channel operations, will never happen again.

For singers, especially top-tier singers like them, this is undoubtedly major good news.

Because this can increase their speaking power.

With the announcement of this number by Apple, everyone, whether they accepted it or not, now clearly understood one thing in their hearts—

The era of physical records has truly ended.

It ended on Apple's platform, it ended in Zhou Yi's hands.

Countless record labels and stakeholders in the distribution channels cursed Zhou Yi viciously online after this result was released, slandering this singer from the distant East with unprecedented intensity, yet they still could not stop this man from becoming the sole representative of internet paid music—becoming a god on the spot!

His fans were no longer limited to obtaining songs from various traditional channels, and his income no longer relied on the dense network of upstream and downstream distributors.

He opened a new chapter for the music scenes of America, Europe, and even the entire world—the internet paid music system was officially established from this point forward.

No matter how much slander or how one views it, the name Zhou Yi is firmly bound to the history of world pop music. Henceforth, whenever pop music history is mentioned, this man from China will be an unavoidable figure.

When the so-called traditional "ascension to godhood" channels and speaking power were all in the hands of the old money of the traditional West, Zhou Yi, who did not take the usual path, directly used his influence to join forces with Apple to create a completely independent "ascension to godhood" route outside the traditional record channels—

"Speaking on a grand scale, from now on, everyone who can make money relying on the internet paid music system owes him a share of the credit."

The king of the previous era, the representative of the last afterglow of the traditional record era, Michael Jackson, sat in his chair; after his initial turmoil, his mind finally returned to calm, shaking his head repeatedly, filled with countless emotions.

If Zhou Yi can maintain stable output of works in the future, at least stable at around three world number-one blockbuster albums, which is roughly six to seven years. Then, combined with the achievement of opening up a new battlefield, he will be the solid next King of Pop—

Even if there are many controversies, Warner can market him up, and there will be many people willing to admit it.

Unconvinced?

If unconvinced, just hold it in.

Zhou Yi's fans will naturally possess a sense of superiority when arguing in the future; this is the greatest status advantage of the pioneer.

Facts proved that it was not just Michael Jackson who had this thought.

On the 25th, Zhou Yi and Apple's action, which could be described as reshaping the mountains and rivers, swept through the entire traditional media world at an extremely fast speed under the coverage of all US media—

The Los Angeles Times: "The First Person of Internet Paid Music—Spike"

The New York Times: "The Collaboration Between Spike and Jobs, A New Pattern of the 21st Century Music System"

On the 26th, The Washington Post: "Precise Vision, Perfect Cooperation"

The New York Post: "The Founder of the New Era of the Music Scene—Spike"

"..."

On the 27th, even British newspapers like The Mirror and The Guardian joined in to report on this matter.

When Apple officially announced on the 29th that Zhou Yi's song paid downloads had officially broken the 15 million mark, everyone in the Western music market was numb beyond any further numbness.

From the 23rd to the 28th, five days, a total of 15 million songs sold.

Those who never thought internet paid downloads could unleash such energy were all dumbfounded, including Jobs himself.

"God, Spike's songs are too popular on the music software."

Having watched the data every day for these five days, he felt he was almost turning into the shape of Zhou Yi.

The copyright library of the Apple Music Store was not without other songs; he had obtained the majority of the copyright libraries of several major record labels.

Yet even so, the glory still belonged solely to Zhou Yi.

The swarming curses and the most extravagant praises coexisted; Zhou Yi's reputation in the West was deeply embedded in people's minds through these repeated fights—along with that extremely glaring list.

July 23-28, 2003, Apple Music Store Paid Download Rankings:

Rank 1: "Baby", Paid Downloads: 1.1077 million;

Rank 2: "Viva La Vida", 1.0065 million

Rank 3: "Yeah", 959,200

Rank 4: "Counting Stars", 919,200

Rank 5: "We Are Young", 819,200

Rank 6: "Something Just Like This", 817,700

Rank 7: "Apologize", 783,200

Rank 8: "Natural", 772,600

Rank 9: "Goodtime", 770,300

Rank 10: "Enemy", 757,700...

Just the top ten paid downloads directly cut a total sales volume of 8.7133 million songs; ranks 11-20 were also songs from Zhou Yi's two English albums, with a total sales volume exceeding 6.3 million. The sum of ranks 1-20 exceeded 15 million...

A single music store, the top 20 of the paid download chart directly dominated by the same singer—that uniform "Spikechou" almost blinded everyone's eyes!

Beneath this list, all doubts were fragile, and all insults were insignificant!

This is simply a miracle—no, this is a divine sign!

Admittedly, there was initially Apple's cover recommendation, but to sell to this number, it can only be said that everyone, including Warner, underestimated the expected popularity of the songs in Zhou Yi's two English albums—

"Attitude Show" has eleven songs, "Forever Young" has ten songs, totaling twenty-one songs; only the Reggae song "Rude" from one album failed to make the top fifty, while the remaining twenty songs swept the top twenty, creating a scene on the charts for the first time where he fought himself for a full twenty spots.

"Two albums, twenty-one songs, twenty internet blockbusters..."

Damn God, Jesus, and Mary!

Is this fucking human?!

If putting these songs on an album for sale before only made people think Zhou Yi was wasting resources, purely squandering them, then when the Apple Top Five chart came out, even within Warner, many executives wanted to kneel and kowtow to Zhou Yi.

Even more so, some wished they could strangle Zhou Yi, this profligate squanderer.

Dad—no, Grandpa, I beg you, Grandpa!

If these 20 hit songs could be split out, they could make up the lead singles for seven or eight albums.

You damn fool, releasing them all in just two albums, you really don't hide anything!

Screw you!

And also on the 29th, one of Germany's and even Europe's largest-circulation daily newspapers, Bild, unusually published a pop music column, adding more fuel to Zhou Yi's feat. Along with British papers like The Guardian and The Sun, Zhou Yi's fame once again echoed across the entire European continent—

Bild: Chinese singer Geshousi leads the new era of internet music!

The Sun: King of Internet Pop Music! Geshousi's scandalous girlfriends roundup! Every one scorching hot! Who will rise to become the Queen!

"..."

This issue, The Sun sold the best.

Even Xia Qila was included in the roundup; when interviewed, she was quite ambiguous, pushing and pulling with two remarks, and did not give a clear answer...

And it was also through The Sun's consistently exaggerated style that people remembered Zhou Yi's data was merely for the US region. With the subsequent rollout of the iPod globally, the sales of Zhou Yi's classic songs would undoubtedly multiply several times on top of this...

That is to say...

"Holy crap! How many billions can you earn?! And in US dollars?!"

Mainland China, Hong Kong Airport, VIP lounge.

Having finished recording "Meeting," Sun Yanzi packed her luggage, bought a ticket on the same flight as Zhou Yi, and prepared to fly to Taiwan to attend this year's Golden Melody Awards, which the media called "the least suspenseful."

This also counted as Zhou Yi's annual trip to Taiwan.

Only this time, after attending the least suspenseful Golden Melody Awards, he would fly directly from Taiwan to Japan, instead of returning to the mainland as before.

But while reading the newspaper, upon seeing The Sun's reminder, she counted on her fingers, suddenly widened her eyes, and looked somewhat dazedly at Zhou Yi, who seemed like nothing was wrong.

"Not just that. Apple doesn't charge me money because my total sales have already exceeded 3 million songs."

Zhou Yi, having taken a bite of an apple, laughed and flicked the woman's smooth cheek, which had been well-rested and cared for, with his finger: "Not only that, for the part exceeding 3 million songs, they also give me 40% of the sales revenue as an incentive."

"Then isn't Apple losing blood all the way to grandma's house?" Sun Yanzi, who had opened her mouth to bite but ended up biting nothing, pretended to grind her teeth.

"How is that possible? At most, they just don't make money off me and give me a little subsidy."

Zhou Yi chuckled lightly, feeling very content.

His songs were all perennial chart-toppers, runners-up, third-place finishers, and even regulars in the top ten. In the record era, stuffing them into one record didn't make the impression obvious, but once they landed on internet music websites, that was the beginning of these songs' explosive influence.

Calling it a sweep is not an exaggeration.

The Apple Music Store is just starting now, but next year's revenue will reach over 4.3 billion US dollars, directly occupying half of Apple's total annual revenue. This is the power of iPod plus paid music store downloads.

By 2016, the paid download songs sold by the Apple Music Store had already exceeded 25 billion.

How fat this piece of meat is can be imagined.

The internet windfall; the winner takes all.

Once the momentum starts, the speed of making money will far exceed anyone's imagination in this era, including Jobs himself who proposed this concept.

Regardless of whether Old Joe's goals of 1 million songs and 3 million songs look like giving away money to idiots now, at least back then, over 99% of people thought he was a madman.

In the mainland, an internet practitioner named Xie Zhenyu also saw the business opportunity of building a music platform in various reports, further solidifying his belief—

As long as he does this project in hand well, the future financial prospects will definitely be very bright!

Xie Zhenyu, who saw the future in the Apple Music Store model, was extremely excited and continued to lead the team wholeheartedly into the research and development work—

And the project they are currently developing is a music software called Kugou Music...

(End of this chapter)