Chapter 97: We Represent the Mandarin Music Scene

"New Power in the Mandarin Music Scene, the Battle for Best Newcomer Has No Doubt!"

"He Is Not on the Treasure Island, Yet the Treasure Island Is Filled with His News at All Times!"

"One Person Nominated for Six Golden Melody Award Categories, Shattering the Record for Most Nominations for a Newcomer!"

"The Man Closest to Zhou Yi—Jay Chou!"

"Jay Chou: The Biggest Surprise of the Treasure Island Music Scene in the Millennium Year!"

"..."

March 30, 2001, after the full list of Golden Melody Award nominees was made public, all major news media in the market focused on this one thing—

The battle among the three top newcomers at the 12th Treasure Island Golden Melody Awards.

Zhou Yi, Sun Yanzi, and Jay Chou.

Compared to Sun Yanzi and Jay Chou, Fan Weiqi and Dai Peini, who were also nominated for the Best Newcomer list of the Golden Melody Awards, posed absolutely no threat to Zhou Yi; they were purely there to pad the numbers.

These two were well aware of their standing when interviewed by the media, and both stated that being nominated for the Golden Melody Award list was already a great honor for them.

Among them, Dai Peini and Zhou Yi were both singer-songwriters of the same ilk; only one song on her debut album had lyrics written by a friend, while she wrote the lyrics and composed all other songs herself, adding significant points, and in the estimates of various media outlets, there was still a 1% chance of a surprise upset.

As for Fan Weiqi, she was truly left with nothing but the treatment of a mood-setter.

The reason she was frequently mentioned by the media was that she and Zhang Shaohan, who exploded in popularity after releasing her first solo album this year, both belonged to Formosa Records, the two had a good relationship, and often went to various venues together.

When Zhang Shaohan herself was asked about this matter, she firmly took Zhou Yi's side, smiling like a 1:1 scaled-up exquisite doll: "The Golden Melody Awards? Of course I support Brother Yi. Jay Chou is quite good, and Yanzi is my good friend, but there's no way, in my heart, Brother Yi is the strongest one."

Since her debut, because of her mentor Yao Qian, she had not registered for the Golden Melody Awards for two consecutive years, but Xiao Yaxuan also chose to support Zhou Yi, and even bravely started rallying support for him—

"For reasons well known to all, it is very difficult for Zhou Yi to appear before the fans on the Treasure Island, and this is unfair. I hope everyone can support him more, support Zhou Yi more.

"I know Zhou Yi; his music is very pure and should not be subjected to such treatment."

Anyway, since she hadn't registered for the Golden Melody Awards, Xiao Yaxuan spoke up for Zhou Yi with such ferocity, without the slightest hesitation. If not for her mentor Yao Qian holding her back, she could have literally turned the sky upside down.

In comparison, Jay Chou himself, who was at the center of the storm, spoke quite conventionally, looking as if he had memorized a PR script.

Things like "Jay Chou and Zhou Yi are good friends," "Our relationship is healthy competition," "I am happy for Zhou Yi," and so on, blah blah blah.

These were actually considered uninteresting by the media; they were more enthusiastic about stirring the pot and inciting a massive fan war between the two camps.

Some busybodies also wanted to use the gimmick of a "Warner Internal War" to incite infighting between Sun Yanzi's fans and Zhou Yi's fans, even bringing out the gimmick of "Sun Yanzi defeated Zhou Yi at the Singapore Golden Melody Awards to win Best Newcomer" to stir up some hype.

But before the topic could even heat up, it was neutralized by Sun Yanzi herself during an interview—

"I took Zhou Yi's newcomer award in Singapore? Indeed, Zhou Yi himself often says I took the award he could only win once in Singapore."

Sun Yanzi, with a playful smile, made no secret of her habit of showing off in front of Zhou Yi: "I still occasionally tease him with that trophy, so it doesn't matter whether I win Best Newcomer or not; I am the woman who interrupted his Southeast Asian newcomer award grand slam, the one who made his first experience imperfect; he will remember me for a lifetime."

As soon as these words came out, the fans who had already been stirred up by the media instantly felt refreshed, and those fans who had previously felt some ambiguity between the two due to the release of an internal Warner video were so excited their eyes were shining.

There's a show! These two definitely have a show!

Ship it! You can ship anything! These two speak so boldly in private, there must be something fishy!

In this era where the internet trend was already gradually rising, the terrifying twin stars of the same company, Sun Yanzi and Zhou Yi, definitely hit the G-spot of a large number of netizens.

And Wang Lihong, who was nominated for the Best Mandarin Male Vocalist Award at the Golden Melody Awards with "The Very First Day," when asked who he supported, smiled and smoothed things over: "I think anyone could win; award competition is just that cruel; it's not that whoever doesn't win the award is a loser.

"In a sense, we all represent the Mandarin music scene."

Sony Music, wanting to ride this wave of popularity, directly had Wang Lihong bring up the concept of "New Power in the Mandarin Music Scene."

Although his saying this was somewhat criticized by people.

After all, Wang Lihong had been the "Little Jacky Cheung" for several full years since his debut, showing no trace of connection to the so-called "New Power," whereas others like Zhou Yi and the rest were all just debuted.

Compared to the chaos outside, Jay Chou himself was much simpler—on the second day after the Golden Melody Award nominee list came out, he directly called to invite him to play ball.

"Zhou Yi, have you arrived in Taipei? Let's go out and play ball together; Liu Genghong and the others are there, plus two other friends."

The so-called "Double Zhou" spontaneously reported by the Treasure Island media was not a big deal to him.

Putting aside the fact that Zhou Yi was his savior, even if it were just about speaking through music, Jay Chou was very convinced.

After all, he actually quite liked Zhou Yi's music, especially the two songs "Give Me Time for a Song" and "Flower Field Mistake."

In terms of the themes and handling of these two songs, Zhou Yi gave him a lot of inspiration.

To some extent, he felt that some of the media's praise for Zhou Yi was actually conservative, after all, Zhou Yi's debut album truly opened up a new category market for the Mandarin music scene, just like Tao Zhe.

However, compared to the hiphop element songs that the public loved, he preferred the song "Flower Field Mistake," which had very strange arrangement and composition; the elements were very novel, and he could clearly feel that Zhou Yi was playing with something very new through this song.

Just like the classic old song "Watching the Spring Breeze" adapted and covered by Tao Zhe.

Moreover, he could be certain that Tao Zhe's adapted version of "Watching the Spring Breeze" was also highly rated in Zhou Yi's heart; otherwise, the hiphop element-heavy song "Happy Worship" in his debut album would not have the rap lyric "Afro in Watching the Spring Breeze."

This was his intuition as a musician.

And on Zhou Yi's side, to be honest, when he received Jay Chou's call, he was somewhat amused and helpless.

Truly both bad and loving to play.

It was just that he kicked the basketball into the hoop with his foot; what a big deal was that?

"What, did Jay Chou ask you to play ball again?"

Warner Office Building, inside the recording studio lounge.

Watching Zhou Yi hang up the phone, Sun Yanzi, with monitoring headphones around her neck, sat in a chair, turned around, and looked at him as he wrote down the basketball court location, asking curiously.

"Yeah, that guy's news is quite timely. Want to come along? It's been a long time since we last met."

"I can't play basketball; why would I go? Be a cheerleader?"

She said that, but Sun Yanzi's body was very honest as she stood up from the chair. After all, staying in the recording studio for too long wasn't good either, and she also wanted to go out for some fresh air.

Hearing this, Zhou Yi said noncommittally: "That's perfect then; be a cheerleader who serves tea and water for me."

"Oh please, with your meager three-legged cat basketball skills, I'll be your cheerleader?" Sun Yanzi, taking off her headphones, laughed out loud: "You're only good at soccer; in basketball, you play about as well as Jay Chou.

"I even suspect that the reason Jay Chou likes finding you to play ball so much is purely because he finally found someone at his level, so he doesn't have to get beaten up."

As someone who had once seen Jay Chou and Zhou Yi's performance on the basketball court, which could be described as "Wolong and Fengchu," Sun Yanzi still didn't want to recall those segments of bullfighting matches that could be said to be extremely boring.

Moreover, compared to Jay Chou, who occasionally showed off flashy moves, Zhou Yi was a pure shooter hovering outside the three-point line; once the ball was in his hands, it was a guaranteed three-pointer.

The motto on the court is: never mind whether you score; the pose must be cool.

Honestly, even kicking with his feet is more accurate than shooting with his hands.

"Nonsense. I've hardly ever played basketball. Back in high school, because people saw I was tall, they called me over just to fill out a team."

Regarding Sun Yanzi's opinion, Zhou Yi expressed strong protest.

His skill in football is far greater than in basketball; didn't you see that Anta came to his door with a contract because of the popular football memes he created?

If you have the guts, let Jay Chou come to the football field and compete with him; if he doesn't make him look foolish, he can change his name to "Gossip" on the spot.

Because he didn't have a Taiwan driver's license, Zhou Yi still rode in Sun Yanzi's little BMW to the basketball court. The paparazzi who often lurked at the Warner entrance, seeing Zhou Yi and Sun Yanzi heading out together, were so excited they frantically pressed their camera shutters.

Zhou Yi, who didn't care much about the paparazzi at all, glanced in the rearview mirror and jokingly reminded Sun Yanzi; the latter immediately stomped on the accelerator.

After shaking off the paparazzi, the two, speeding along like the wind and lightning, finally arrived at the basketball court.

Noticing Sun Yanzi's license plate, Jay Chou immediately stood by the basketball court, raising both hands and waving continuously toward the BMW: "Here! Here, Zhou Yi!"

Behind Jay Chou, a man who was playing a one-on-one duel with Liu Genghong heard his loud shouting, immediately stopped his movements, straightened his back, and looked toward the BMW.

Doing the same as him was a woman sitting on the ground by the court, acting as a cheerleader.

"Let me introduce you; this is Luo Zhixiang. He's also very good at playing basketball and is a famous artist."

After seeing that the people getting out of the car were Sun Yanzi and Zhou Yi, Jay Chou, who had immediately chosen to forget certain things, began introducing them at once.

And when introducing the woman who stood up from the stone steps by the court, Jay Chou's face showed a visible excitement: "She is Xu Ruoxuan, also a good friend of mine. She helped write the lyrics for three songs on my album: 'Cute Woman', 'Tornado', and 'Istanbul'."

(End of this chapter)