Chapter 623: The First Step into the World's Hall

"Fuck! This stupid dog is talking nonsense again. What the hell does he even understand?!"

"He's just a curly-haired ape jumping up and down in a zoo, desperate for tourists to feed him. Does he deserve to comment on Spike?"

"Hey, buddy, are you being discriminatory?"

"..."

Thanks to this wealthy man's habit of constantly jumping around in various hot entertainment news stories to seek attention, and even frequently creating news to make headlines whenever he felt like it, the Zhou Yi fever currently blowing up in America clearly became the target he decided to ride on—

Being scolded didn't matter; he had plenty of money.

He only sought fame, flooding the news to become a familiar face, pushing himself as much as possible toward the direction of "known to all."

As for why he chose to ride on Zhou Yi...

It was mainly because the end of the year had arrived.

2003 was an extraordinary year for the American music scene, or even the entire Western music scene.

First, the reputation of the world's number one Guo Tianwang, Michael Jackson, continued to decline, and under the accumulation of various unfavorable factors inside and outside the arena this year, he completely lost the public opinion reputation that had been evenly matched with the scandals;

Later, Madonna, hailed as the world's number one female Guo Tianwang, saw her new album, promoted with great momentum and high expectations, suffer a sales Waterloo. Not only was it not crushed head-on by Zhou Yi, but it was even beaten to the ground by up-and-coming talents, and its reputation in the art market plummeted.

Other top-tier Guo Tianwang of the previous generation, such as Mariah Carey, also strangely appeared in situations where their exposure hadn't decreased much, yet their popularity slid again and again, allowing a new generation of singers to take their seats at the table.

Among these, Beyoncé, who went solo after leaving Zhu Tianming, 50 Cent who was humiliated by Zhou Yi face-to-face, the rock supergroup Linkin Park, and Avril, the punk little witch from Canada, were considered the four hottest rising stars of the year in the Western music scene.

Above these four stars stood Zhou Yi, who single-handedly smashed through the entire American music scene; his soaring popularity stemmed from that epic battle on the Billboard charts, where one album and five singles all took the number one spot.

Among the four stars, only Beyoncé, whose album didn't make the cut in time, managed to avoid being beaten by Zhou Yi, becoming the sole survivor.

In this situation, when major authoritative music magazines in America conducted their year-end selections, Zhou Yi's terror was naturally remembered once again, and 50 Cent, who had barely managed to get through, once again became a laughingstock, rewritten into Duan Zi by many talk shows good at capturing hot topics.

With high discussion, Zhou Yi's heat naturally went up.

Especially after various year-end summaries of this month were released one after another.

"Following the pop album 'The Attitude Show', another masterpiece has arrived. Spike, who has entered the rock circle, has delivered 'Forever Young', an album that can be called a legendary rock album. This is an album that balances substance and the market; Spike himself has deeply implemented the rock spirit that shines like gold..."

This was the review written by PITCHFORK, an authoritative American music criticism institution and music website, for Zhou Yi's album. The wording was full of its characteristic boldness, directly using "legendary" as a prefix, and rarely giving 'Forever Young' an ultra-high score of 10/10.

As an entity established only in 1995 but rapidly growing into the most authoritative music criticism website in all of America and even the entire Western world due to its independence, PITCHFORK has always favored independent musicians and so-called artistic albums.

For Zhou Yi, this outsider, their previous album 'The Attitude Show' received a mere 7-point rating from them, but this year's 'Forever Young' completely reversed the offensive, forcing them to give a full 10 points in this year's year-end summary.

They were full of praise for his act of carrying the banner against racial discrimination, believing he was about to lead the trend and underlying tone of new era rock songs.

The veteran music magazine Rolling Stone even directly gave a full 5/5 star rating, placing Zhou Yi's 'Forever Young' at the top of the Top 50 Albums of the Year list in its year-end special issue '2003 Yearbook'.

What made the entire American music scene and even the industry boil even more was that Rolling Stone not only ranked Zhou Yi's album as number one for 2003 but also included it in their released list of 'The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time'.

In the early 21st century, Rolling Stone magazine began preparing for the ranking of 'The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time', and it was only at the end of this year that it was finally completed, producing this version of the ranking.

Countless ancient gods, divine beasts, and pioneering music pioneers shone brightly on this list, and among this group of lists dominated by the 60s and 70s and contested by the 80s and 90s, albums from the new millennium were pitifully scarce.

Yet Zhou Yi, purely by relying on one album 'Forever Young', forced his way in, and not at the very bottom, but ranked at number 254.

For comparison, Zhou Yi's rival Eminem was also included in the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums, with his 1999 release 'The Slim Shady LP' ranking at number 273.

This decision directly caused a major earthquake in the global music world.

"The field of pop music has always been dominated by American music, but now, an Asian, a Chinese person, has torn open the veil of racial discrimination with angry rock, and single-handedly chiseled open our music scene, which is named open but is actually closed.

"This is a miracle.

"Not a single song on the entire album is criticized; the depth of the album's content perfectly retrieves the rock substance that is gradually disappearing.

"To this day, every song in this album has achieved an extremely terrifying level of popularity, making it arguably the strongest rock album of the 21st century, without a doubt, something Spike himself will never be able to surpass in the future.

"Spike's terrifying talent seems inexhaustible, as if God grabbed his hand and wielded a pen to cast this magical 'Forever Young'.

"He is like a child of God, a treasure bestowed by God upon the world's music scene, a person favored by God..."

Knowing that ranking Zhou Yi in the 500 Greatest Albums would definitely cause a lot of controversy, the Executive Vice Editor of Rolling Stone magazine proactively published an explanation of the editorial board's unified decision on his personal blog, and the title used even caused a huge uproar in the American public opinion sphere!

Son of God!

"Fuck! Old man! How much money did Warner give you to speak against your conscience like this?! Spike doesn't even believe in God!"

"So irritable? Are you an Eminem fan? Or a 50 Cent fan? Spike once said 'I am under God', have you all forgotten?"

"I am a fan of no one; I am a believer! And wasn't that statement proof of Spike's arrogance? When did it become proof of being the Son of God?"

"A passerby sitting at a table with a dog."

"*****!"

Because of the year-end conclusion of the American music scene, the public opinion in the British and American music scenes was almost a mess.

PITCHFORK: 10/10

Rolling Stone: 5/5

Mojo (British veteran music magazine): 4/5

Billboard 200 (Billboard Album Chart): T1 (21 weeks)

RC: D

Although the famous authoritative music critic RC surprisingly gave a D, this did not hinder Zhou Yi's album from achieving a complete victory in both reputation and commerce; its heat exploded directly after being included in the 500 Greatest Albums.

In Japan, after the results of the Rolling Stone 500 Greatest Albums list were released, the Japanese music scene, which was already hot-selling Zhou Yi's new Chinese album, actually saw another wave of Zhou Yi fever; the characteristic of worshipping the strong erupted again after this news, and Zhou Yi gained a batch of fans who turned from passersby—

"Sugoi!"

"Sugoi!"

Surprised exclamations and endless praise filled the air; the gold content of the "Rock Saint" title released by Fuji TV in the past rose once again—

"Didn't you see that Americans call Zhou Yi Jun the Son of God?!"

"They say we can brag, but aren't Americans better at bragging than us?"

"If you're so good, go do it! Go to America and beat the Americans into submission, get your album ranked in the World 500 Greatest Albums list, will you?"

"We were still being conservative in our bragging; Americans call him the Son of God, while we only dare to call him the Rock Saint, which shows a lack of imagination..."