Chapter 530: When You're Out in the World, It's All About Background

"Zhou Yi Sweeps Golden Melody Awards with Five Individual Honors: Unstoppable from Creation to Production!"

"The Golden Melody Awards Are Unstoppable; Zhou Yi Is at Full Power!"

"The Supreme Music Emperor Affirms the Correctness of the Golden Melody Awards"

"Zhou Yi: The Grand Slam Winner of the Golden Melody Awards, the Pride of Mainland Music"

"Zhou Yi Sweeps the Golden Melody Awards, Forging a Brand New Legendary Record in Chinese Music!"

"A Night of Shame for Taiwanese Musicians!"

"The Golden Melody Awards Are Committing a Crime!"

"..."

Perhaps due to the sheer shock, overnight, news of Zhou Yi sweeping this year's Golden Melody Awards spread like wildfire across the two shores and three regions—like a single stone stirring up a thousand waves, directly causing chaos and confusion!

Taiwan, Hong Kong, the Mainland, Macau—

Any newspaper or magazine with even a hint of entertainment attributes dedicated their front-page headlines to this young singer who created a legend.

Even media outlets in Asian countries like Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, and Korea, as well as Western nations like the US and UK, that follow Zhou Yi chose to report on this matter. Their public might not know what the Golden Melody Awards are, but recognizing Zhou Yi was enough.

Zhou Yi wins awards → Report on Zhou Yi to death → Sales come in → Performance bonuses are secured.

This is a perfect positive cycle.

Of course, besides praise, there were also many voices of doubt—

"Impossible! Absolutely impossible!"

"Have the Golden Melody Awards gone mad?!"

"Is this really just leaning on foreign support? Don't the others deserve a single award?"

In Taiwan, once the results were announced, aside from the fans of Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi, only Chen Yixun's fans stopped making a fuss.

Chen Yixun, who took home the King of Songs trophy, became the only person in this edition to win an award under Zhou Yi's pressure; his fans still recognized the fairness of the Golden Melody Awards.

"Selling well globally with an English album doesn't mean a Chinese album should win every single award; I hope the Golden Melody Awards judges can understand this, thank you."

"I advise the Golden Melody Awards judges to first understand the concept of the album. Giving every single award to Zhou Yi isn't that blatant rigging? Warner has lost all face!"

"Just a passerby, but I think Zhou Yi deserves it; just tell me, who else could have consistently outshined Zhou Yi's 'Lianshan' from last year?"

"This is Warner creating a god; the Golden Melody Awards are ruined! Ruined! They have become a backdrop for Warner's god-making!"

"..."

As the main base of the Golden Melody Awards' audience, this year's awards had already faced much criticism and complaint from many in Taiwan for disliking Tao Zhe's 'Black Orange'. Now, once the results came out, all the judges, including Warner, triggered a massive coalition of singers' fans.

Furthermore, after meticulous analysis, someone exposed the truth of Warner's 'manipulation' of the Golden Melody Awards in one fell swoop—

"I don't know if you've noticed, but the three winners in the Pop category of this year's Golden Melody Awards are either from Warner or have a good cooperative relationship with Warner.

"Let's not even mention Zhou Yi, who swept five trophies; he is Warner's unshakable Emperor, and Sun Yanzi, who was crowned the Golden Melody Queen, is also from Warner;

"The only one to break Warner's blockade, Chen Yixun, belongs to Yinghuang. You have to know that his relationship with Zhou Yi has been very good these past two years; Xie Tingfeng's comeback press conference also specifically thanked Zhou Yi..."

The beneficiaries are either Warner or those close to Warner; who would believe Warner didn't manipulate the Golden Melody Awards if you say that?

Isn't this obviously creating a god?

Once this idea was brought up, conspiracy theories about this year's Golden Melody Awards entered a fast lane of development, and Zhou Yi's previously excellent reputation in Taiwan showed a subtle trend of crumbling.

Warner immediately released an official statement, declaring that the company had never intervened in the Golden Melody Awards in any way, but still, the result was simply too shocking to ignore; only the fans of Zhou Yi, Sun Yanzi, and Chen Yixun were likely to believe it.

"This situation went wrong because the Golden Melody Awards already have a record; targeting 'Black Orange' specifically had already damaged their credibility, and pulling this stunt now puts you directly on the fire to be roasted."

Taiwan, Warner, conference room.

Winning awards is a great joy, but Zhou Jianhui's expression was clearly not very good: "Yao Qian originally suggested splitting one or two awards away, so you wouldn't face such huge criticism, but that was resisted by some people."

As the General Manager of Virgin Records, Yao Qian could not fail to see the intent behind this 'praise to kill'.

Does Zhou Yi deserve it?

In terms of quality, of course, he does.

But this behavior of eating alone will cause huge controversy wherever it happens.

It's still the same saying: the Jianghu is not about fighting and killing, but about human relations and worldly wisdom.

Zhou Yi, spinning a pen, couldn't help but sneer: "Looks like my face carries quite a bit of weight? To ruin my reputation in Taiwan, they are willing to destroy the credibility of an entire Golden Melody Awards?"

This is an award that Taiwan worked hard to establish; its influence in this current era can be said to be the undisputed number one Chinese-language award.

Qian Jiang's expression was somewhat strange: "Actually, according to the information I found, the Golden Melody Awards didn't originally plan to do this. They initially planned to have you run alongside for multiple awards, but pressure from above forced them to choose this path."

Since they were already suppressing 'Black Orange', suppressing one more was just suppressing; at worst, they'd give one award, which is enough.

Moreover, the Golden Melody Awards had legitimate reasons—who told Zhou Yi not to respect the Golden Melody Awards? Last year, he even fought backstage, creating news about the 'Three Stick Men', directly making the Golden Melody Awards a laughingstock for several months, and who knows how many years they'll be dragged through the mud afterwards.

You don't respect me, so I won't respect you; isn't reciprocity right?

After receiving pressure from above, the Golden Melody Awards committee, after discussion, arrived at this result and this reason.

"Yao Qian opposed it, but the opposition was ineffective; the number of people supporting him was insufficient to pass the vote."

Zhou Jianhui tapped the table with his right index finger, his eyes narrowing slightly: "Then, the Mainland got involved."

"The Mainland?" Zhou Yi, who never expected there to be more to this, raised his eyebrows, his expression slightly surprised.

He hadn't heard of this matter either.

"Do you remember last year, because of you, the Mainland stepped in to ban the broadcast of 'Meteor Garden'?" Zhou Jianhui asked rhetorically.

Zhou Yi nodded.

Originally, in his memory, 'Meteor Garden' should have been banned after being broadcast for a while, which is why F4 also had extremely high popularity in the Mainland; various merchandise sold like crazy, and posters were pasted wall after wall.

But the reality was that when he, who was at the height of his fame back then, was restricted enough by the Taiwan side, the Mainland side silently and directly banned the drama at the very beginning of 'Meteor Garden's' broadcast on an equivalent basis, causing F4 to become a fire around the continental region that year, unable to eat the biggest piece of the cake.

Things had been tacitly peaceful, but this year, Zhou Yi's explosion in popularity on a global scale was truly unstoppable—

The restrictions on him were intensified; they were openly suppressing him.

Originally, the principle was 'you're good, I'm good, everyone is good, don't go too far,' but this side couldn't sit still anymore—

In the past, there was simply no choice, because they couldn't find a leading figure in mainland pop music and could only pick the tallest among the short.

Now, with Zhou Yi's appearance, not only has this gap been perfectly filled, he has even exploded in popularity worldwide.

If you let him lose face under your suppression, where am I supposed to put mine?

"You know that third part of 'My Fair Princess', right? This drama was originally scheduled for release in July, but it's been delayed until now and still hasn't aired — it's been completely blocked."

Qian Jiang pushed a document in front of Zhou Yi: "And things like 'Lavender' and 'Dolphin Bay Lovers,' those idol dramas that were huge hits in Taiwan — they had all been negotiated for introduction and everything was going well, they were all supposed to air in the mainland this year, but the result is they've all been completely blocked."

All Taiwanese idol dramas, including veteran productions like Qiong Yao's golden trademark, have been blocked; there is no discussion of revisions, just a single line stating "still under review," cutting off all stakeholders in mainland China, Taiwan, and even Hong Kong.

If you press further, the mainland will occasionally throw out a couple of official lines, saying things like 'don't worry, we're just going through the process, it takes time,' choking everyone half to death with a single sentence.

Anyone with a brain who's not an idiot can basically see what the mainland means.

The mainland's toughness shown over Zhou Yi exceeded the imagination of the Taiwanese side.

You have to know that in this day and age, when it comes to film and television dramas, Taiwan's sales channels are completely dependent on mainland channels; otherwise, output value wouldn't have rebounded from its low point and kept rising higher year after year.

Compared to the music industry, whose market has gradually been destroyed by piracy, the film and television drama sector is actually a more important piece of fat that can create economic value, and the newly emerging idol drama category is even more a money-making weapon, continuously cultivating high-popularity Taiwanese male and female stars to rake in cash.

Either you treat Zhou Yi fairly, or don't come make money — even Qiong Yao can get lost.

You think your Qiong Yao is more red-rooted and righteous than my Zhou Yi?

Completely ignoring Na Ying and the others, the mainland could be said to be firmly backing Zhou Yi.

After being snubbed on the mainland, Taiwan's major companies immediately united with their interest groups to lobby, especially with Yinghuang leading the collective northward push in the Hong Kong entertainment circle—

They were anxious.

If they didn't hurry, the mainland's money would all be earned by that group of Hong Kong boys.

Under the unexpected heavy pressure from the mainland, the restriction package just arranged for Zhou Yi could only be helplessly cancelled, and the Golden Melody Awards were able to treat Zhou Yi fairly.

"My face is actually this big?"

Zhou Yi was immediately shocked after hearing Qian Jiang finish.

Good lord, the mainland isn't a monolithic block — being able to suppress others and express such huge support for him behind the scenes is simply tough beyond measure.

"You're China's face to the world for the eight minutes at next year's Athens Olympics — if we don't back you, who will?"

Zhou Jianhui, who helms Warner, has also gotten in touch with quite a few relevant connections, and understands Zhou Yi's current status on the mainland even better than Zhou Yi himself: "You think Na Ying got on the 1998 Spring Festival Gala to duet with Wang Fei and then shot up in status how?"

Tian Zhen and Sun Le had purchased numerous puff pieces back then expressing their defiance, making claims such as "Suri's background is unqualified," "she is a bar-dwelling tough girl who only knows how to cling to powerful figures," and "she has no brains," among others.

But the key issue is that back then only Na Ying could go head-to-head with Hong Kong and Taiwanese singers in the pop music field and album sales; even Sun Nan wasn't quite up to it, he hadn't really gotten his act together yet.

If even Na Ying could be backed, there's no need to mention Zhou Yi, this 'child' who has already fought his way abroad.

However, this fairness, under the ulterior motives of certain people on the committee, was ultimately magnified…

Didn't you want fairness? Wanted Zhou Yi to get the honors he deserves?

Then I'll give him all of them!

Don't say I'm unfair — I'm very fair, because Zhou Yi's album quality last year truly deserved to take these trophies.

Chen Yixun's award win even directly became a fig leaf used to cover up certain people's manipulation, and became a window to showcase the Golden Melody Awards' fairness and impartiality — last year he truly could beat Zhang Xueyou, who was at a low point; giving the Best Male Singer trophy to the young Chen Yixun perfectly proves that we are authoritative and know the industry, giving out trophies based on merit, not fame.

Don't ask — ask and we'll just say we emphasize fairness, fully compliant, so tell us, isn't this fair?

Yao Qian consequently resigned in anger…

(End of chapter)