1990: Starting from Baojia Street

The reason why Zhou Yan had a more profound impression of those two scores was, firstly, because the author's name was Snoopy, which was quite special, and secondly, the scores were very well written, with solid basic skills, otherwise he would not have given a triangle.

It’s just that the melody is too ordinary, without any originality, and it fails to impress Zhou Yan.

He didn't expect that Snoopy was David Tao.

This time, it can be said that Zhou Yan himself made a mistake.

Seeing that Zhou Yan didn't say anything, Xu Xiangjie continued, "We want to sign David Tao now, but the price will be very high, maybe even higher than signing Wu Bai. I also heard that the Rolling Stones offered very good conditions. David Tao has what it takes to step onto the stage. The Rolling Stones signed him with Sony because they wanted him to move from behind the scenes to the front and become a singer."

Zhou Yan pondered and said, "Then do you know why David Tao rejected Rolling Stone and Sony?"

Xu Xiangjie shook his head, "I don't know the details either."

Wang Zuxian, who was standing by, smiled and said, "Tao Zhe's mother, Wang Furong, is my schoolmate."

"Oh, yes, Wang Furong also graduated from the Guoguang Drama Acting School." Xu Xiangjie nodded and asked Zhou Yan, "Teacher Zhou, are you interested in this Tao Zhe?"

Zhou Yan thought for a moment and asked, "Can I meet him?"

"It depends on the situation. Tao Zhe is not always in Taiwan. He is in Los Angeles a lot of the time. I heard that many of his works are produced remotely. This is the same as you, Mr. Zhou."

Indeed, Zhou Yan also often participates in music production remotely. The difference is that he is in China, making music for foreign musicians, while Tao Zhe is in the United States, making music for domestic musicians.

"Try to contact him first. If you can make an appointment, it would be best to meet in the next two days."

Zhou Yan has already made up his mind that it would be best if he could meet Tao Zhe, but if he can't, he must let Xu Xiangjie go and talk to Tao Zhe.

Although Xu Xiangjie said that it is more difficult to sign Tao Zhe now, as both Rolling Stone and Sony have hit a wall, no matter what, signing Tao Zhe now will definitely cost less than signing him later, and he does not want to miss this opportunity.

He also wanted to see what kind of demanding conditions Tao Zhe, a newcomer, could put forward.

"Okay, I'll get in touch right away."

Xu Xiangjie was quite happy to have work to do, but he was afraid that the people he mentioned would not arouse Zhou Yan's interest.

In fact, Xu Xiangjie is also very optimistic about Tao Zhe. Compared with Zhou Chuanxiong, Tao Zhe has more solid basic skills and a more diverse style of music.

Although many of the songs written by Tao Zhe do not conform to the aesthetic tastes of most listeners, he definitely has the ability to write good melodies. For example, the melody of the song "Secret" from Alex To's new album "Discovering Love" which was just released in August is very nice.

Zhou Yan looked at the time and said, "Contact me now. I don't have much time in Taiwan."

Hearing this, Xu Xiangjie couldn't help but sigh. Although the two brothers of the Zhou family gave people completely different impressions, they were very similar in one thing, which was that they were swift and decisive in doing things and did not give any chance to procrastinators.

However, Xu Xiangjie did not raise any objections. He nodded, walked to his desk and started making a phone call.

After a while, Xu Xiangjie put down the phone and said to Zhou Yan with a smile, "He happens to be in Taiwan recently. I have an appointment with him to meet at ten o'clock tomorrow morning. Is that okay?"

"No problem, where is the location?"

"It's in our company. I asked him to make a trip."

"Okay, I'll come over tomorrow morning."

Zhou Yan chatted with Xu Xiangjie for a while, then asked for some songs produced by David Tao, and then went back with Joey Wong.

……

The next morning, Zhou Yan arrived at Huanyin Company at 9:50.

When he arrived at the door of Xu Xiangjie's office, he heard Xu Xiangjie's voice from inside, "David, please come this time."

"Mr. Xu, you're joking. It's not far away anyway, so I came here. I can't let Mr. Zhou come to find me, haha."

"Thank you for your understanding. Teacher Zhou is very busy. I met with you today and will return to the mainland tomorrow."

"Actually, I'm going back to Los Angeles the day after tomorrow..."

Tao Zhe had just finished speaking when Xu Xiangjie smiled and said, "Teacher Zhou is here."

Originally, Tao Zhe had his back to the office door. When he heard Xu Xiangjie's words, he immediately stood up, turned around and looked at Zhou Yan.

"Mr. Zhou." Tao Zhe took the initiative to greet him.

Zhou Yan also took a quick look at Tao Zhe.

In fact, Tao Zhe is a little older than Zhou Yan, but Tao Zhe dresses very young. Today he only wore a brown short-sleeved T-shirt on the upper body and a pair of blue jeans on the lower body.

He has long hair parted in the middle. Although he looks average, he looks cool at first glance.

As an ABC, Tao Zhe's Mandarin is pretty good. His pronunciation is at least better than most Hong Kong people.

abc's Chinese proficiency depends entirely on his family. It can be seen that Tao Zhe's parents pay great attention to his Chinese education.

Actually, this is understandable. After all, Tao Zhe's mother, Wang Furong, sang Peking Opera, and Tao Zhe must have been influenced by it since he was a child.

After they met, Zhou Yan said the same thing as Xu Xiangjie, "I'm sorry, I'm the one who wants to see you, but I still want you to make a trip."

Tao Zhe smiled and waved his hand, "You're welcome, Mr. Zhou. I'm also very happy to meet you."

"Please sit down." Zhou Yan smiled, walked to the other side and sat down, then got straight to the point, "Tao Zhe, I won't beat around the bush with you. I asked you to come here today because I wanted to talk to you about inviting you to join Huanyin. I guess you had a premonition before you came, right?"

Tao Zhe nodded, "In fact, when Mr. Xu called me, I roughly knew what it was about, but I didn't expect that you, Mr. Zhou, were also in Taiwan."

Tao Zhe didn’t say the rest. If Zhou Yan hadn’t been here, Tao Zhe wouldn’t have made the special trip. At most, he would have just chatted with Xu Xiangjie on the phone.

Too many companies have contacted him, and it would be too time-consuming for him to meet with each one of them.

"Well, in that case, let's be honest with each other. What do you think about the contract?"

Tao Zhe put his hands on his knees, sat up straight, took a deep breath and said, "Actually my conditions are very simple. I told them all when other record companies contacted me before. I choose a record company and don't care about other conditions, just don't interfere with my creation, and don't rush me to release records."

As soon as he finished speaking, Zhou Yan nodded and said, "No problem."

Zhou Yan's decisiveness surprised Tao Zhe.

Before, whether it was the Rolling Stones or Sony that approached him, he had told them his conditions, but no company gave in. Now, whether it is the Rolling Stones or Sony, they both talk about performance, and they can neither give singers much freedom nor tolerate singers not releasing albums for a long time.

For big record companies like these, no matter how good the singer is, if they don't release an album, the benefits will be poor.

Tao Zhe licked his lips and said, "Mr. Zhou, you may not have understood what I meant just now. First of all, do not interfere with the creation. What I want is complete freedom. You can neither help me choose songs nor limit the style of my album. All these things must be decided by myself, even..."

At this point, Tao Zhe looked at Zhou Yan with a slightly moved look, and then continued, "Even you, Mr. Zhou, cannot interfere."

When saying this, Tao Zhe was a little shaken, and this kind of hesitation had never appeared when he talked with other record companies before.

The reason for this hesitation was naturally because the person sitting in front of him was Zhou Yan, an internationally renowned musician.

However, this hesitation only lasted for a moment, and he became firm in his thinking.

So what if it’s Zhou Yan? He has to take the lead in producing his own album.

After listening to Tao Zhe's emphasis, Zhou Yan nodded and said, "I can guarantee this. As long as there are no principled issues with the album, Huanyin will never interfere with you."

"What is a matter of principle?" asked Tao Zhe.

“If the song involves illegal, political or other issues, we will intervene.”

Tao Zhe smiled and said, "Don't worry, there won't be such a problem. Even if there is, I will listen to the company's advice. If you agree to this condition, then I will talk about the second point. You can't rush me to release an album. This means that I may not be able to release an album for two or three years, or even three to five years. Can you tolerate this?"

Zhou Yan said straightforwardly, "No problem. I won't limit the number of albums you must release during the contract period. It's up to you to decide how many albums you want to release. But there is one thing you must be clear about, that is, if you don't release albums, your income will definitely not be high. When you don't release any works, the company can only guarantee your basic income."

"Of course I understand this. I didn't sign with the company because I wanted a long-term meal ticket and to just eat and wait for death every day. I personally definitely want to release an album soon, but I can't just give in or compromise."

"Well, besides these two conditions, do you have any other conditions?"

"As for the other details, it depends on your company. As long as they are not too outrageous, I can accept them."

Zhou Yan nodded and said to Xu Xiangjie, "Tell Tao Zhe the conditions of File A."

"Okay, David, let me briefly introduce you to the conditions of A-level..."

It took Xu Xiangjie four or five minutes to introduce the conditions for being an A-level singer to Tao Zhe.

The A level is not the highest level of phantom sound. There are also S level and SS level above A level.

However, there is no SS-level singer in Huanyin yet. For now, only Wu Bai is in the S-level, and the A-level is slightly lower than the S-level, which is similar to Wang Lihong's conditions.

In fact, when Xu Xiangjie heard Zhou Yan asking him to introduce A-level conditions to Tao Zhe, he was quite surprised. He originally thought that even if Zhou Yan was interested in Tao Zhe, he would not give too good conditions.

Unexpectedly, Zhou Yan directly raised Tao Zhe's treatment to the same as Wang Lihong's. You know, the conditions Zhou Yan gave Wang Lihong before were already exceptional for a newcomer.

In other words, Zhou Yan made another exception for Tao Zhe.

Xu Xiangjie could only attribute this to the fact that Zhou Yan went back and listened to the songs that David Tao had recently written. It should be that Zhou Yan was moved by the songs that David Tao wrote for others.

Tao Zhe was also very surprised after hearing the conditions offered by Huanyin. Excluding the degree of freedom and album release time, the conditions offered by Huanyin are still better than those offered by Rolling Stone and Sony.

Originally, Tao Zhe thought that since Huanyin could give him enough space, he could lower his demands for treatment. After all, one cannot have everything.

Since you want freedom, it is normal to be treated worse.

Seeing that Tao Zhe was silent for a while after listening to the introduction, Xu Xiangjie asked, "Do you have any problem with this treatment?"

Tao Zhe finally came to his senses and said immediately, "I don't have any problem. As long as Huanyin can satisfy me in terms of freedom and release schedule, I can sign a contract with you now."

Zhou Yan was a little surprised to see things going so smoothly. He thought there would be some twists and turns today. After all, Xu Xiangjie also said that both Rolling Stone and Sony had hit a wall with David Tao.

In fact, this is the difference in cognition between Zhou Yan as a time traveler and others.

From the perspective of big record companies like the Rolling Stones and Sony, they are neither doing charity nor pursuing art. Since they have set up a company, they want to make money.

Although Tao Zhe has shown some talent and his potential is visible, who could have known that Tao Zhe would become one of the leaders in the pop music scene in the future?

If they agreed to Tao Zhe's conditions, the uncontrollable factors would be too great.

Not to mention the degree of freedom, the speed of releasing albums is really intolerable for those big companies.

For today’s singers, as soon as they gain some fame, the company will quickly arrange for them to release a large number of albums.

It is normal to issue one card a year, but there are many people who issue two or three cards a year.

For example, Jeff Chang spent five or six years with Rolling Stone, during which time he released nine solo albums.

If it weren't for his military service and the fact that he didn't release any albums in 90 and 91, this number would have to be increased.

Xu Xiangjie smiled and said, "In fact, if you know the situation of the band No. 43 Baojia Street, you will understand that Mr. Zhou gives his singers a lot of space and never urges them to release an album. Mr. Zhou has signed them for several years, and they have only released one album."

"Is that so?" Tao Zhe looked at Zhou Yan.

Zhou Yan nodded and said, "That's true. I never interfere with their creations. All the songs in their first album were written by themselves, and I didn't even get involved in the arrangement. If you are interested, you can find that album and listen to it."

"We have it in our company. If you are interested, I'll give it to you later." Xu Xiangjie said.

"Thank you, Mr. Xu."

After hearing what they said, Tao Zhe was indeed relieved. Since there was a ready-made example, it proved that Zhou Yan and the others could indeed do what they promised.

"In that case, I'll have someone draft a contract right away. If there's no problem, we'll sign it as soon as possible."

"it is good."

After the matter was confirmed, the three of them relaxed, and Tao Zhe said, "Actually, this is not the first time I have met Mr. Zhou."

"Oh, really?" Zhou Yan said in surprise.

"Well, yes, I was lucky enough to attend one of your concerts in LA. I originally wanted to attend two more, but I couldn't buy tickets for the last two. That concert was a big hit in LA, especially in the Chinese community. There was already discussion about Mr. Zhou in the LA music community before, but after that concert, there was even more."

At this point, Tao Zhe laughed again, "Of course, there are more discussions about Mr. Zhou in the United States now than before, and the pop songs that Mr. Zhou wrote for American singers have contributed greatly to this." (End of this chapter)