Coquettish Rebirth

15-year-old Utada Hikaru came to Tokyo with his family.When she arrived in Tokyo, she felt that everything was still amazing—in the school here, the Walkmans used by the students were not 8% music pods, but Panasonic and Sony Walkmans, or Sony’s m Walkmans , which made her feel amazing, because she originally thought that music pods should be sold all over the world.

She was curious, and so were her classmates.Because this girl of American nationality named Hikaru Utada speaks fluent English, and even uses the music pods that will be released in two days. This is too strong!Therefore, after the news about Utada's music pods came out, the students in the school formed a group to brush up the dungeons, and after class, people from various classes came to watch if Utada's music pods were available!

"Wow, this thing is so small" "Wow, this looks so kawaii" "Wow, this feels good..." These are obviously the compliments of girls, and the compliments of boys are like this-"Well, This thing is so handsome." "Well, this can directly download music from the Internet?" "I heard that this can be downloaded to form an album according to your own preferences?"

Utada still enjoys this kind of being surrounded by people.However, she will not tell her new classmates that she actually produced an album in January this year, and it was almost put on the music pod system for sale!

It turns out that Utada Hikaru's parents are both musicians living in New York. Although both parents are Japanese, both of them speak good English--father is a well-known Japanese music producer and songwriter, And my mother was a big star who was once a smash hit in the 70s.Their family lives in New York, and Dad is the behind-the-scenes producer of em music company.So when she was in New York, she saw her parents busy and quarreling over music every day, and then her parents got divorced, remarried and divorced...[

Coming from a musical family, her talent was noticed by em company people very early on.So in '97. Em proposed to let her go to the company for an interview, and soon, she got a chance to debut as a newcomer and recorded an album.This album is of course in English, but when the album was about to be released, that is, in January 98, it happened to coincide with the internal reorganization of em company.So the matter of her as a newcomer was put on hold for the time being, and later the family moved back to Japan, and I didn't have the time to keep an eye on it, so the album was simply left in a corner of the em company.

After returning home from school, at dinner time, my mother went out to gamble again.Utada is in charge of cooking.Having dinner with Dad, Utada heard Dad make a request, "Xiaoguang, it seems that music pods are going to be sold in Japan, so you can buy one for Dad when the time comes."

"Okay... But Dad, didn't you want to use this thing before? Didn't it mean that the sound quality of this thing is not good, why not?" Utada asked curiously. "It's not as good, but it's not much worse than the Walkman. You don't know a good player. There are tens of thousands of dollars. To what extent this kind of Walkman can restore the sound quality, just look at the price. I didn't want to use it before. , because I listened to enough during the production. I have listened to all the music recordings in Japan in the 80s. Now, isn’t this coming back again? It’s time to make up lessons, and I heard this music When the pods were released, many record companies had discounts on old songs. So you can download some songs for me. Let me listen to how the trends in Japan have changed over the years..."

"Oh... But then you have to buy the latest large-capacity one. Now the maximum capacity is 256m, but it is more expensive. Give me the money! And a tip!" Hikaru Utada smiled and held out to his father hands.The music pod produced by Huaxia Hi-Tech in Japan is based on the new large-capacity music pod system that was released when they landed in the United States with the Eight Liang Gold.The music pod system with 4 pieces of 64m flash memory cards has been adopted, and the capacity has reached as high as 256m, that is, it can save [-] songs simply by storing songs!Of course, the price of this product is also expensive.

This is also thanks to SanDisk, this snsk company, after joining with such a rich man as Huaxia Hi-Tech, they lived a very happy life that day.After Huaxia Hi-Tech sold music pods in the United States, in order to closely connect with Huaxia Hi-Tech, they even moved their company headquarters to California, in order to be closer to Holmes Company!At the end of 96, they successfully developed a 64m flash memory chip. After a year of production, the price was successfully reduced by about half, and it was enough to provide Huaxia Hi-Tech as a product.Therefore, Huaxia Hi-Tech's 256m product is really not outrageously expensive, and it is still within the spending power of ordinary people.

Two days later, Hikaru Utada took the money from his father and came to Akihabara with his classmates.The location of Akihabara is outside the east gate of the old Tokyo city in Japan. "This Akihabara, that is the place where Japan sells the most electronic products. After the war, it became a black market selling rare high-quality electronic products, so after decades, everyone has developed a habit. , If you want to buy good electronic products, you must come to Akihabara..." Listening to the explanation of classmate Yuko, Utada nodded and understood.

After arriving in Akihabara, they went from store to store, in order to see if there were any stores that had promotional prices, but after shopping around, they found that there were huge crowds of people everywhere, queuing up to buy this product. Music pods.They were afraid that they would be sold out if it was too late, so they simply found a relatively low-priced store and started queuing up.After a full hour of filming, it was the turn of the two of them.After each of them bought a white music pod, it started to ask the clerk to help download music.

What Yuko downloaded was the so-called remx version of the old songs of pop stars like Namie Amuro. This remx version is a re-arrangement.But sometimes diehard fans just eat this way, what can I do?She bought the regular version of 64m, and after downloading about 20 songs, it was done.When Yuko turned her head to look at Hikaru Utada, she only found that Utada was standing behind the clerk with her arms folded, without saying anything, just silently watching the clerk help her play the song.Utada came to help his father buy it, and it was 256m. Of course Yuko knew it, but why did Utada not seem to ask the clerk to play any songs?

She leaned over to take a look and found that Utada had put a piece of paper in front of the clerk, and the clerk was downloading in batches according to her request! "Wow, so many downloads?" Yuko looked at the list of names on the paper and said in surprise. "Isn't that right? My dad is in this profession, so he listens to old songs over the years, and he also listens to new songs. He even gave me the names of the songs by name, and asked me to listen to them one by one. Get it for him... This is here, and there are shop assistants to help. When I get home, I will help him download it every day... Oh, yes, Mr. shop assistant, I have a music pod here, it is in the United States I bought it, can you download some of the latest music here for me?" Utada suddenly thought of something and asked hastily.

Why is she asking that?Because this store is doing an event today, I will help you download songs for free!So free labor is not in vain! "Ah? American? Well... I have to ask our store manager..." After saying that, the clerk got up and went to ask his superiors for instructions.After a while, I saw the clerk come back, "It's fine, but it's better not to have too much, or it will cause trouble for us."

After taking Utada's music pod, the clerk put a small label on the music pod with Utada's name on it, and then began to help her find songs.When I was looking for it, I suddenly heard Utada ask, "By the way, I see there has been an advertisement for a song called... Ayumi Hamasaki... How about her song? She is a big star." Is it?"

"She? She's not! She's just an egomaniac. You know, she actually said that she wants to sell over a million singles within a year, to enter the Budokan in two years, and to hold concerts at the Big Four Dome in three years." Yes...you really are a rookie with no modesty at all!" The clerk hadn't answered yet, but Yuko replied with a bit of disdain.Hearing Yuko's words, Hikaru Utada, who grew up in the United States, became interested, "Oh, this person is so confident? Mr. Clerk, please help me download her song, I can pay for it!"

That's right, for Utada Hikaru who grew up in the United States, even if there are some East Asians who are cautious and low-key, relatively speaking, she has also been contaminated with the habits of many American young people. After all, her friends and classmates are all American. man!For this kind of tone, she was really curious about how awesome the other party was at the first moment! "Why do you buy all the songs of this kind of megalomaniac? I have heard her songs. Although they are not bad, they are still far from being excellent!" Yuko asked incomprehensibly.

"Hehe, I haven't heard it, so listen to it, I'm very curious." Utada Hikaru said with a smile, "And this song is [-]% off, it looks very cheap, even if it doesn't sound good, it's not a waste money."

In fact, there are still many people at this time, just like Hikaru Utada. After seeing the [-]% discount on Ayumi Hamasaki's single, many people think that buying a song by Ayumi Hamasaki is actually okay.Although they will still choose to download the songs of their favorite stars in the first place, but in the music pod platform, they can pay for the purchase first without downloading. If they get tired of listening to the downloaded songs later, they can change them again.If you don't buy it now when there is a discount, and buy it later without the discount, wouldn't you lose money? (To be continued. If you like this work, you are welcome to vote, monthly pass, your support is my biggest motivation. Mobile phone users, please go to m to read.)