Why bother writing songs? Fast forward to the "Don't Laugh Challenge"

Just like many veteran musicians and singers who have made a comeback in recent years.

Just when everyone thought their era had passed and they were no longer popular, they proved to the world with a series of record-breaking concerts. Perhaps they are mentioned less and less now, but their era has not truly passed or faded away. They can still inspire fans to follow and go crazy for them.

Hou Li-hsieh is one of them. He is considered to have experienced a significant resurgence in popularity in the past two years and has gained considerable fame.

As a well-known singer and a senior figure in the industry, holding a pivotal position, Xia Shen naturally tried to contact him.

However, he didn't even get to see Hou Lixie. In fact, Hou Lixie didn't communicate with him at all. Instead, he sent an assistant to tell Xia Shen that he didn't have an appointment and that Hou Lixie's schedule was full.

Xia Shen has naturally emphasized his name to show that he is Xia Shen, not someone else.

But it was no use. On the contrary, he saw disdain in the assistant's eyes.

At this moment, how could Xia Shen not understand that it wasn't actually the assistant who made the decision to refuse him?
If Hou Lixie, the boss, hadn't authorized this, would the assistant have dared to do this or say such things?
This left Xia Shen feeling helpless and somewhat puzzled.

It seems that this teacher, Hou Lixie, harbors some inexplicable hostility towards him.

He had no idea where this hostility came from. He had never met this Teacher Hou before, and they were not familiar with each other, nor did they have any business dealings or conflicts.

Now that their attitude has been made so clear, Xia Shen, who is not one to argue or lack tact, naturally doesn't intend to say anything more.

If the collaboration doesn't work out, so be it; it just means one less person to choose from, and it won't have a significant impact on his vision for the song.

So he bypassed this teacher, Hou Lixie.

What is Hou Lixie doing right now? Does he know about this?
The answer was obvious; in fact, just as Xia Shen had thought, he knew.

But why didn't he respond to Xia Shen, nor did he agree to cooperate with Xia Shen?

The reason is simple: he really looks down on Xia Shen.

Doesn't he know that Xia Shen's songs sell well both at home and abroad? Doesn't he know that Xia Shen is now in high demand and difficult to collaborate with?
He knows it.

However, some things are just that—things. Just because someone has achieved great results doesn't mean they will receive his praise and favor.

First of all, Xia Shen is too focused on money.

In his view, a musician must first and foremost be true to their original aspirations, which should be to create better works.

What was Xia Shen's background?

Can his previous works even be called songs?

Many things don't even deserve to be called songs!
They'd do anything for money.

Unfortunately, their grades were excellent, which really made the other party incredibly lucky, allowing them to make a lot of money.

Who the hell can I go to for justice?
In his view, this behavior is a blatant attempt to disrupt the market, lowering the audience's aesthetic standards, and then claiming that the audience likes these things now, and that these are all the audience's own choices.

Hou Lixie naturally disagreed with these claims. In his view, weren't these people the ones who ruined the aesthetic sense of the current market audience? Where did they get the confidence to shift all the blame onto the market?

As a result, no one listens to truly high-quality music anymore. Whenever he thinks about how his meticulously crafted albums, filled with all his thoughts on music and art, didn't even achieve the same sales figures as a single catchy, upbeat song by Xia Shen, he feels a burning resentment.

Of course, in addition to that, another reason is his status as an OG from Taiwan Province.

He always believed that the inland areas simply couldn't compare to Taiwan; compared to Taiwan, they were just a bunch of country bumpkins.

Even if we want to cooperate with him, it's not impossible, but we need to be sincere enough, right? We need to gradually work things out with him.

The best thing to do first is to get the attitude right and recognize who is the junior and who is the senior.

He was a veteran who made a name for himself during the heyday of the music scene in Taiwan. Shouldn't the younger generation of musicians be more polite to him?

If they don't agree the first time, then we'll do it the second time.

If Xia Shen's perseverance moves him, he might consider helping the other party out.

Just when he thought he had Xia Shen, this frivolous junior, firmly in his grasp and was certain that the other party couldn't do without him and would soon come knocking again,

He did not receive a second request from the other party.

Instead, the other party went elsewhere and found another sworn enemy with whom he had a feud since his youth to join him.

And surprisingly, the other party agreed.

This further fueled his resentment.

And coincidentally, he happened to be recording an interview program during that time.

Originally, this interview program was intended by the company to be a promotional event for the next stop of his second tour.

The questions were mostly about his recent activities, such as whether he had a new album.

A new album is definitely coming.

However, during this process, he did not follow the pre-arranged script and did not engage in the rehearsed Q&A with the host.

Instead, in full view of everyone and in front of the camera, he said: "Recently, I received a collaboration invitation. The other party is very powerful. They have been touted as the only uncrowned king in the current Chinese music scene. But I think that sometimes you shouldn't put titles and names that don't match your status on yourself. It can easily cause some bad things."

For example, the music that someone made made me feel extremely angry.

Is this music? No, it isn't. Some so-called music, I feel, not only does it not benefit the development of the Chinese music scene, but it actually sets it back 15 years! That's right! 15 years!

Although Hou Li-hsieh did not name names during the interview, his words immediately caused a huge uproar.

Because there's no need to name names, people can vaguely tell who he's referring to.

In the current Chinese music scene, who else but Xia Shen could deserve such praise? Who else could it be?
There's no one else here!
It's quite a surprise that Hou Lixie and Xia Shen have started a feud. Didn't Xia Shen just recently express online that there might be a chance to cooperate with Hou Lixie in the future?
What's going on now? Did the two sides fail to reach an agreement on cooperation? Or did the negotiations break down?

But the most crucial part was Hou Lixie's words; the amount of information they contained was truly explosive. (End of Chapter)