1990: Starting from Baojia Street

Zhou Yan had just finished shopping for clothes with Joey Wong and had just come out of the mall when he received a call from Xu Xiangjie.

The annual holiday at Huanyin Company has ended, and work has resumed today. Xu Xiangjie should be here to report on his work.

Although Huanyin is a branch of Zhou Entertainment, and the general manager of Zhou Entertainment is Xu Junrong and the boss is Zhou Hong, Xu Xiangjie now reports directly to Zhou Yan on most business matters. Everyone has gotten used to it and does not think he is overstepping his authority.

The main reason is that Xu Xiangjie has a lot of things to communicate directly with Zhou Yan.

After the annual leave, Xu Xiangjie started working. He was in a good mood and said with a smile, "Boss, good luck to the new work."

Xu Xiangjie is not very old, and Huanyin is developing rapidly, so he is very motivated.

If the company hadn't stipulated that work should start on New Year's Day, he would have wanted to start work right after the New Year.

"Have you distributed the red envelopes for the start of work to everyone?" Zhou Yan asked with a smile.

Xu Xiangjie is not only in charge of the Arts Department now, he is basically in charge of the entire Huanyin. Although he is not the general manager yet, he does the work that a general manager should do, and it is natural that he is in charge of distributing bonus envelopes for the start of work.

And according to the current situation, he will become the general manager sooner or later.

"It has been distributed. Everyone is very happy to receive the red envelopes."

The bonus envelope for the start of work is not much, only a few hundred yuan in RMB, but everyone is very happy to get it.

"You called me just to say good luck on the new project. Is there anything else?" Zhou Yan asked.

"Nothing special, mainly reporting on the progress of several tasks. Zhou Chuanxiong's new album is being adjusted, and his personal image has also been transformed."

After signing Zhou Chuanxiong last year, Xu Xiangjie reported to Zhou Yan that Zhou Chuanxiong was working on a new album called "My Heart is Too Confused".

After Zhou Chuanxiong was "sold" to Huanyin, he ran to find Xu Xiangjie in a hurry, hoping that Xu Xiangjie could support him in completing this album.

However, after Xu Xiangjie reported to Zhou Yan, Zhou Yan told them not to be anxious.

Zhou Yan told him not to worry, but this made Zhou Chuanxiong very anxious, because he had almost prepared the new album, and if Huanyin didn't help him, all his previous efforts would be in vain.

After telling them not to be anxious, Zhou Yan first took out the songs from Zhou Chuanxiong's new album and took a look at them.

In fact, there is no big problem overall. It is just Zhou Chuanxiong's old style, which is not particularly eye-catching. But there are also popular elements, such as "My Heart is Too Messy" and "Warm Wind", which are actually in line with the public taste nowadays.

However, Zhou Yan feels that the entire album is too homogeneous. After listening to several songs, it feels like just one song.

There are only ten songs in the album, which is a relatively small number. If the songs are more homogeneous, it will give fans a very bad feeling.

In addition, Zhou Chuanxiong's current image also has some problems. Regardless of whether he is ugly or not, he has no special features and is difficult to remember.

Therefore, Zhou Yan gave them two suggestions.

First, start with the songs in the album themselves, either reducing the homogeneity of the songs or increasing the number of songs.

The former is actually a little more difficult, because Zhou Chuanxiong is not a contestant with a diverse musical style, and his homogeneity is difficult to change.

Zhou Yan also knew that it would be difficult for him to change, so he gave him another option, which was to increase the number of songs, changing the original ten songs to twelve or even thirteen songs.

Although homogeneity cannot be changed, having two or three more songs in an album will give fans a very different feeling. Winning by quantity is sometimes very effective.

Second, change Zhou Chuanxiong's image, such as growing a beard, cutting his hair short, etc. Zhou Yan did not elaborate on this and asked them to contact a stylist to take care of it.

Regarding the first suggestion, Zhou Chuanxiong was very happy to hear it, mainly because Zhou Yan was willing to let him increase the number of songs in the album.

Although Zhou Chuanxiong's songwriting is highly homogeneous, he is very fast and his output is extremely high. It is too easy for him to write a few more songs for the album.

Normally, singers are willing to add more songs to their albums, but companies may not be willing to do so, because adding one more song will increase the cost of the album a lot, and this money is the resources that the company invests in the singer.

Regarding the second point, Zhou Chuanxiong was very distressed when he first heard it. He had no idea how to change his hairstyle. Especially when he heard that he might have to cut his hair short, his scalp went numb because he knew he would not look good with short hair.

But since the boss had spoken, he could only cooperate with the stylist to make the adjustments.

"What's his current look?" Zhou Yan first asked about his look.

"I've grown a little beard, and I feel better than before."

Zhou Yan smiled and found that he still grew a beard.

"What about the songs?"

"We made some adjustments. We reduced the previous playlist by two songs and added four more. Now we have twelve songs."

"Well, send me these twelve songs later." Zhou Yan thought for a moment and said, "Also, don't use his stage name Xiaogang when you release the new album this time."

"Want to change your stage name?" Xu Xiangjie asked curiously, "What would be a good choice?"

"No need to change it, just use your real name."

Xu Xiangjie smiled and said, "Indeed, his real name is quite nice, and he has the same surname as you, the boss."

Since Zhou Chuanxiong officially debuted, he has always used the stage name "Xiaogang".

The reason why he chose such a stage name at that time was also related to Zhou Chuanxiong's own experience. When he was 18 years old, he participated in an inter-school music creation competition and had the hope of joining the Little Tigers, but he eventually gave up and did not join.

The name "Xiaogang" sounds quite youthful.

But so many years have passed, and Zhou Chuanxiong is already 27 years old. He is no longer the young man he was back then. If he still wants to follow the same path as before, it will definitely not work.

Originally, Xu Xiangjie wanted to give Zhou Chuanxiong a more mature stage name with a bit of idol drama feel, but after hearing what Zhou Yan said, he also felt that the real name was fine.

"Is there anything else?" Zhou Yan asked.

"Well, and Mayday is preparing their own album."

"What are the prospects?"

"not yet."

In fact, the members of Mayday had been clamoring to make their own album before. Zhou Yan certainly had no objection to this. He just told them that they could make an album, but they had to write the songs first and then send them to him.

As a producer, he will help them choose songs.

If the quality of the songs is not up to par, the album should not be released.

Ever since Zhou Yan said this, they have been under a lot of pressure because Zhou Yan's level is too high and they are afraid that Zhou Yan will not approve of what they write.

Therefore, after such a long time, they still haven't shown Zhou Yan the songs they want to use in the album. Zhou Yan doesn't care about this. The guys in Mayday are still young, and there is no need to release an album for them too early. It is better to let them practice and accumulate experience.

"What about the others? How's Wang Lihong's single release going?"

"I was just about to report this matter. Wang Lihong's single will be released on the 15th of next month."

The single they are referring to is "How Long Will I Love You", which will be released in North America soon.

Zhou Yan counted the days and realized that there was still nearly a month until the first of next month.

“How’s the publicity going?”

"We have just started. The popularity of "All of Me" is very high this time, so the promotion work should be easy."

"You still have to be more careful. Now that you have decided to do it, don't worry about spending money. This song is very important to Wang Lihong's future development in the European and American music scene."

Originally Xu Xiangjie was quite relaxed, but after hearing what Zhou Yan said, he felt stressed again, fearing that he would not do well and would disappoint Zhou Yan.

"Boss, rest assured, we will not take it lightly. We will leave the publicity to professionals, and Tomson will be of great help to us."

Tomson started developing in Europe and America earlier, so he can help Huanyin in some areas.

If nothing else, at least it can help them contact professional companies and prevent them from being ripped off.

Tang Chen has cooperated with Sony Music, Columbia Records and Warner Music, but he doesn't care much about these cooperative relationships. After all, their music industry basically depends on Zhou Yan alone.

Therefore, these relationships can all be shared with Huanyin.

……

Zhou Yan hung up the phone with Xu Xiangjie. Wang Zuxian beside him smiled and said, "The song you sang for Wang Lihong is going to be released in the United States?"

"Yes." Zhou Yan nodded. "In the middle of next month, North American fans will be able to hear the theme song of "Time Traveler"."

"I hope this single will be liked by fans and lay the foundation for the release of the movie later."

"In recent days, 'All of Me' has been very popular in the United States, so the foundation has been laid."

"I know that 'All of Me' will definitely be very popular with European and American fans."

Zhou Yan gave a thumbs up, "Student Wang is indeed a man of great insight."

Wang Zuxian was amused by Zhou Yan's strange behavior, "Hui, you are so stupid."

……

These days, when the European and American pop music scene was bustling with the hit song "All of Me" and Mariah Carey's upcoming "Bleeding Love", a piece of news related to another song suddenly popped up.

At first, when this news came out, no one paid too much attention to it, but people soon discovered that this song, like the other two songs, was from the movie "About Time".

"What, another song is coming out?"

At Jive Company, Jeff Brown couldn't help but raise his eyebrows when he heard his assistant's report. He had just called Zhang Youan, and he didn't expect that another episode from a movie would come out.

"What's the name of the song? Who sings it?"

"The song is called "How Long Will I Love You" and the singer is someone I've never heard of, his name is Leehom Wang."

"You can tell from the name that he is Chinese."

"It should be. I haven't seen any information about this singer yet, but I believe there will be information soon. Once I get the information about this singer, I will report to you as soon as possible."

Jeff Brown waved his hand. "Don't rush to report. This is not a very important matter. For us, what's important now is to know how many songs are left in the movie and whether there are any songs that can be used by the Backstreet Boys."

The assistant licked his lips and said, "We don't have to insist on inviting songs from Backstreet Boys. Maybe we can also invite songs from other singers in our company. This way, we can have a wider range."

Brown curled his lips and said, "Of course I want to, but Y may not be willing. He has a good impression of the guys from Backstreet Boys and is willing to give them songs, but others may not be willing."

"Y's personality is too difficult to figure out." The assistant couldn't help but mutter.

Jeff Brown narrowed his eyes. He understood that it was not that Y's temperament was difficult to understand, but that too many people wanted Y's songs. In addition, Y himself did not make money by writing songs for others, so he seemed more casual.

Everyone wants Y to write songs for them, but Y writes songs on a casual basis. Most of the time, he writes music for film and television works, and then makes them into songs.

So this time when Y's new movie came out and several songs were released in it, Jeff Brown took it so seriously. If you miss this opportunity, you don't know when you will have the chance to get Y's songs next time.

But he had already called Zhang Youan, so it was not a good time to call again to ask for a song.

After a moment's silence, Jeff Brown asked, "When will this new song be released?"

"The fifteenth of next month."

"On the 15th of next month..." Jeff Brown's eyes lit up, "Are Nick and his friends going to have a show in Los Angeles on the 16th?"

The assistant nodded, "Yes, on the evening of the 16th."

"Go contact the singer's company and see if he's willing to attend the performance on the evening of the 16th as a guest," said Jeff Brown.

The assistant knew that Jeff Brown wanted to show his goodwill to Y through this singer, but the assistant felt that there was little point in doing so.

In his opinion, the relationship between that singer and Y is just an ordinary cooperative relationship, just like the Backstreet Boys and Y. What's the point of letting that singer be a guest of the Backstreet Boys?

Seeing the assistant hesitate, Jeff Brown urged, "Go now, and if the other party is willing, arrange things."

Since Jeff Brown said so, the assistant didn't say anything else. He nodded and walked out.

After the assistant walked out, Jeff Brown shook his head, thinking that his assistant was not smart enough.

That Leehom Wang is obviously Chinese. Y's previous songs were either given to Mariah Carey or Celine Dion, but now he gave them to a Chinese singer and asked him to release the single in the United States. It can be seen that Y has special feelings for this singer.

Besides, even if Leehom and Y just have an ordinary cooperative relationship, it would not be a loss at all if he could be hired.

It seems that inviting them to participate in the performance is to let them take advantage of the Backstreet Boys' fame, but in fact, because of "All of Me" and the unreleased "Bleeding Love", Leehom's song must have been very popular after it came out.

This heat will last at least for a few days.

It can even be said that that day might be the first time Leehom performed his new song in Europe and the United States.

Therefore, the other party may not be able to accept this invitation. (End of this chapter)