HuaYu97: Starting as a Singer

Chapter 395 [395] Qi Yuan's combination punches broke the Golden Melody Awards' defenses!
Singers in the industry are secretly cursing the Golden Melody Awards.

Qi Yuan's fans were happier than during the Lunar New Year.

"You finally remembered your fans in China! It's been almost a year since we've seen your Chinese album. Do you know how we've been doing this past year? Don't just focus on making dollars; you have to take care of your fans in China too. Two albums a year, catering to both domestic and international fans—that's the right way to do it."

"Where's our Cantonese EP? Qi Yuan, have you forgotten about our Hong Kong fans? I strongly suggest adding another Cantonese EP."

"That's really impressive! Didn't those magazines say that Americans never flatter? Why is that foreigner so obsequious to Qi Yuan? I heard he's the vice president of Warner Music's US headquarters."

"Vice president is nothing! I work at a foreign company, and there are 12 vice presidents in total. There are very few singers like Qi Yuan who can make a lot of money in the entire Warner Music Group. They are much rarer than vice presidents. Do you know how much revenue '23' brought Warner Music in the first month after its release? Close to $2 million."

"Holy crap! Jealousy has made me unrecognizable. 2 million a month, and it's in US dollars, that's outrageous."

……

The Golden Melody Awards originally intended to pressure Chi Yuan into withdrawing from accepting the award by creating public pressure.

Qi Yuan's fans are quite unhappy.

Awards are a shared honor for singers and fans. Qi Yuan wants to win as many awards as possible. When they have online conflicts with fans of other artists, awards can be a powerful tool to easily suppress the other side.

In later generations, fans of Zhou Wang Tao Lin engaged in constant flame wars, with each fan able to find a multitude of merits for their idol.

Jay Chou's fans can always win easily because Jay Chou has won a ton of awards. His fans just post a picture of the number of awards he has won, and the battle is over.

From the fans' perspective, Qi Yuan absolutely has to win awards, and win big! Retiring in ten years is too early for them; he should be winning awards until he's 60.

The reaction from mainland state media was equally interesting. They published articles praising Qi Yuan for retiring from accepting awards at the age of 32, saying that such a thing is rare in the world music scene and that Qi Yuan is a true industry benchmark and social role model.

The Golden Melody Awards and certain people in Taiwan who wanted to suppress Qi Yuan were instantly dumbfounded. Things had already escalated to this point; if they forced Qi Yuan to withdraw, it would truly make them seem completely inhuman.

They were seething with anger, but Qi Yuan managed to defuse it. Now that Qi Yuan was going to continue receiving the 10th Anniversary Golden Melody Award, they couldn't swallow the fact that they had given him so many trophies this year for nothing.

On May 17th, the Taiwanese news scene was quiet, but Zhou Jianhui and other bigwigs in the industry received some new information: restrictions on mainland artists were being tightened.

"Damn it, a bunch of idiots! They've got no shame, aren't they blatantly trying to suppress our A-Yuan?"

Zhou Jianhui couldn't help but curse.

The new rules he learned include the following: mainland artists are not allowed to perform commercially here, their promotional activities are strictly limited, they are not allowed to give media interviews, participate in seminars, or make any statements...

Of course, there are no such restrictions on the surface, but when you apply, there will be all sorts of reasons to prevent you from being approved.

These new rules mean that Qi Yuan can no longer hold concerts in Taiwan. Albums can still be sold, but they can no longer be promoted, which means she has no exposure and can only rely on word of mouth from fans.

Even the best wine needs advertising; marketing is crucial. The inability to promote will definitely impact Qi Yuan's future album sales.

It seems like spring has come for artists like Zhou Jielun, Wang Lihong, and Tao Ze; their promotion here is completely unrestricted.

These hidden rules came into effect in June.

This is how some Taiwanese people responded to Qi Yuan.

You think you're so great? We'll stop you from getting exposure and promotion. Let's see how you sell records in Taiwan from now on.

Qi Yuan's reaction was much calmer than Zhou Jianhui's and Zhang Hao's. The same thing had happened in his previous life. Zhang Guoli was a top-tier figure in the mainland television industry, and his application to come to Taiwan to promote his TV series was rejected, which shows how strict the requirements were.

When Super Girl champion Chun Ge came to Taiwan to participate in an event, she was only allowed to sing and not to say anything.

These restrictions are not specifically targeted at Qi Yuan; it's just that with Qi Yuan as a butterfly, the restrictions are stricter than in the previous life.

Do these new rules affect Qi Yuan? Some, but not much.

Taiwan's physical record market continues to decline and is no longer the largest record market in China.

After 2000, an album that sold 300,000 to 400,000 copies in Taiwan in a year could compete for the annual crown.

For Qi Yuan, the unease caused by the new rules outweighed the actual harm.

Zhou Jianhui and other Warner executives gave a piece of their minds about those stupid and wicked guys from Taiwan, and then took out ten million NT dollars, which is more than two million RMB.

A grand celebration banquet of unprecedented scale is planned for Qi on May 25th to celebrate in advance that Qi Yuan's English album "23" has surpassed 5 million copies sold worldwide.

Anyway, the number of ten million will be broken sooner or later, so celebrating in advance won't be a problem for outsiders.

Zhou Jianhui was trying to make Qi Yuan show off in front of all the Taiwanese people before the new rules were implemented.

Zhou Jian patted Qi Yuan on the shoulder and said earnestly, "A Yuan, don't get angry with those people. They don't deserve it. Within Asia, your other markets won't be affected. We can explore the Japanese or South Korean markets to make up for the sales you lost in the Taiwanese market."

"You've succeeded in entering the European and American markets. To put it bluntly, even abandoning the Taiwanese market wouldn't have any impact on you."

In fact, Zhou Jianhui was being conservative; abandoning the entire Chinese market would have no impact on Qi Yuan.

Even someone as capable as Qi Yuan could only sell a few million copies of a Chinese album at most, how could he earn as much as someone with an English album?

However, you can't look at it that way. The reason he dares to be arrogant in the United States, not afraid of anyone, and even dares to offend the Grammys is because he has a huge market worth over a billion dollars behind him.

He doesn't have to follow the rules of the American music scene and grovel to make money because he has the confidence that even if he can't make it in the American music scene, he can still live comfortably back in China.

Therefore, it is essential to continuously release Chinese albums to solidify his popularity; this is the foundation of Qi Yuan's career.

He's not like some people who change their nationality to fit into international circles, only to find that people still discriminate against them and look down on them, which is really embarrassing.

"By the way, what kind of music are you planning for this new album?"

Zhou Jianhui asked a question out of curiosity.

I hope that every Chinese album will have something new, and my fifth album should be no exception.

"Based on pop rock, it blends folk and electronic elements."

Qi Yuan gave the answer without hesitation; he already had a plan in mind for how to produce the fifth album.

Zhou Jianhui raised his eyebrows with a hint of excitement. Interesting. If someone else told him they wanted to play rock music, he would advise that person to calm down. But with a top-notch musical genius like Qi Yuan, he had nothing to say. He was really looking forward to Qi Yuan's work.

Qi Yuan's English album "23" includes songs with rock elements. The song "Viva La Vida" plays rock very well and is loved by European and American audiences.

(End of this chapter)