HuaYu97: Starting as a Singer

Chapter 435 [435] Qi Yuan occupies eleven of the top fifteen spots on the list!
Xtep and Guangdong Radio and Television Station are not the only ones who have benefited from cooperating with Qi Yuan.

Liu Tao also reaped a huge windfall.

Zhang Dahuzi, who was preparing for "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils", originally intended to lower the actresses' salaries, which is in line with his usual style.

This tactic used to be very effective; just look at Xu Qing and Ning Jing in "The Smiling, Proud Wanderer" to see.

Like the dramas about poor Yao in the 2000s, Jin Yong's dramas were big IPs that could make people famous and had high ratings, so male and female actors were eager to star in them.

As long as you can land a decent role, it means you have a chance to become famous, or at the very least, you can become a familiar face to people all over the country.

Like many actresses who were swayed by Zhang Dahuzi, Liu Tao was willing to lower her fee.

During the struggle, Zhang Dahuzi was completely dumbfounded.

Qi Yuan's cameo appearance in "Foreign Drama" and his endorsement of Xtep came out just like that, catching him completely off guard!
Liu Tao rose to fame beyond Guangdong Province thanks to the popularity of the TV series "Foreign Language" and Xtep couple shoes, and now she is known to many people throughout mainland China.

Zhang Dahuzi couldn't help but swear!
Qi Yuan is really a scoundrel; he made the actress he liked raise her price.

Zhang Dahuzi started to panic and hurriedly told his assistant, "Quickly notify Liu Tao, Chen Hao, and Qin Lan to come for the audition."

If there are no problems with the roles played by these actors, he needs to finalize the casting immediately, without any delay.

Qi Yuan is so popular that actresses who are associated with him tend to see their market value increase.

Having witnessed Qi Yuan's current influence, Zhang Dahuzi felt deeply regretful.

If we could invite Qi Yuan to play Duan Yu, wouldn't the ratings for "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" skyrocket?

However, Zhang Dahuzi only dared to think about it. He made a begging request, and the total investment in his "Tianlong" was only about 3400 million.

Qi Yuan was paid $400 million for starring in "Hero," which was the price Zhang Yingmou offered him at the beginning of the year; the price must be even higher now.

Even if he poured all his investment in "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils" into it, it wouldn't be enough to pay Qi Yuan.

Looking back on the past, Zhang Dahuzi felt incredibly conflicted.

Qi Yuan's progress is truly astounding.

Zhang Dahuzi sometimes thinks he's pretty awesome. Starting with "Swordsman," he has firmly held the throne of a top producer in the mainland television industry, with many investors vying to invest in him and many TV stations eager to buy his dramas.

Back then, his status was barely enough to overshadow Qi Yuan by a tiny bit, but now... he doesn't even dare to think about it.

From now on, whenever he sees Qi Yuan, Qi Yuan will call him Old Zhang, and he'll have to grin and joke around.

If Qi Yuan agrees to help him act in a play, calling him Xiao Zhang wouldn't be unacceptable.

……

A few days later.

Liu Tao, Chen Hao, and Qin Lan successively called or sent messages to Qi Yuan to express their gratitude.

They passed the audition with Zhang Dahuzi and each got a role in "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils".

They all knew very well that without Qi Yuan's music video, it wouldn't have been so easy for them to get the roles.

Especially Qin Lan, who is practically unknown in the television industry, it's quite impressive that she was able to get a role with a significant amount of screen time in a big IP like "Demi-Gods and Semi-Devils".

Zhang Hao couldn't help but joke, "If you recruit female leads for your music videos in the future, actresses in the industry might be scrambling to get them."

Qi Yuan smiled and said, "There's nothing I can do, they're too famous. But they won't have a chance for now, because my next album is an English album."

English albums definitely need to find some foreign beauties to shoot music videos, since the main audience for English music videos is foreigners from English-speaking countries.

Qi Yuan's English albums don't sell well in China, not even as well as in Japan. This is unavoidable; English songs are a niche genre in China, especially since Qi Yuan's English albums are expensive there.

This is why Qi Yuan insists on releasing Chinese albums. His fans know how amazing his English albums are abroad, but most casual viewers who don't use the internet have no idea.

He needs to keep releasing new Chinese albums to maintain his popularity in China.

The current Chinese music scene is not the stagnant scene it will be in a decade or two from now. Every year, strong new singers emerge in the Chinese music scene.

With a beaming smile, Zhang Hao reported the good news to Qi Yuan: "The sales statistics for the first month of 'Wish for Rain in the Empty Mountains' are in, with approximately 3.8 million copies sold worldwide."

Qi Yuan calmly commented, "It doesn't seem that impressive."

"grass!"

Zhang Hao couldn't hold back any longer.

Isn't that amazing? In the entire Chinese music scene now, there are almost no albums that can sell three million copies during their entire sales life.

Chou Chieh Lun's "Ye Huimei" was so popular that industry insiders and media outlets only dared to predict this number.

Wang Lihong's "The Only One" is still approaching 100,000 copies in the Taiwan market, and it is estimated that it has only sold a few hundred thousand copies in all markets across Asia combined.

Sony didn't even release a sales report to boast about the sales of "The Only One".

One very important reason is that Wang Lihong's album sales are far inferior to those of Qi Yuan and Jay Chou.

This is also related to the fact that Wang Lihong started his career late. His album "The Only One" didn't have many hit songs, and his first acclaimed album "Incredible" hadn't been released yet.

Qi Yuan sighed: "There's nothing I can do. After graduating from English major, I found that my threshold has been raised."

With English EP sales exceeding 10 million copies, English major sales exceeding 20 million copies are a foregone conclusion.

Compared to English albums, the sales of Chinese albums are indeed not very impressive.

Zhang Hao didn't say anything; he acknowledged this.

Warner Music (USA) is now advising Qi Yuan to stop releasing Chinese albums and instead go to the US to focus on the Western music scene.

Releasing a Chinese album takes a lot of effort, but the returns are far less lucrative than those of an English album, and the market is not as large as in Europe and America.

Warner Music believes that Qi Yuan's insistence on releasing Chinese albums is truly a way of giving back to his domestic fans.

From a business perspective, Warner was not wrong, but Qi Yuan's vision was not solely based on business.

His base is in China, and he can't afford to lose it. If he loses his base, will he still be so assertive in the US?
Only by having no worries about the future and always having a way out can he truly earn money with dignity in the United States.

Qi Yuan knows exactly where his roots are, and he will continue to release Chinese albums next year.

"Piration and MP3s are too rampant. Your album should sell between 550 and 600 million copies, which is already a precipitous lead over the second place."

Sales were affected, but your ranking data remained unaffected. Guess what happened in Taiwan? A lot of people were devastated.

Zhang Hao showed Qi Yuan the data from the Taiwan music charts.

First place: "Blue and White Porcelain"; second place: "Meteor Shower"; third place: "Sunny Day".

Starting from third place, the rankings became somewhat absurd, with Qi Yuan's new songs such as "Those Years," "Young and Promising," "Special Person," "Ordinary Road," and "Stubborn" dominating the entire chart.

Besides Zhang Huimei's "Remember" which held onto seventh place, Wang Lihong's "The Only One" held onto ninth place.

Qi Yuan occupied eleven of the top fifteen spots on the chart, leaving the entire Taiwanese music scene in complete silence!
Qi Yuan accomplished something that no one in the history of Taiwanese pop music had ever done before.

(End of this chapter)