Rock and Roll: Glorious Years

After confirming that Huang Kai wasn't joking, Bian Lang immediately agreed. Then, Chen Shuting began to analyze for him how to terminate his contract with Magic Disc in the most advantageous way for him.

After listening for a few minutes, Huang Kai directly refused: "Forget it, I'll stick to my own way. We've been playing together in Magic City for three years, and I don't want things to get too tense in the end."

Bian Lang agreed with Huang Kai's opinion, and the two arranged a time to contact each other again before going out for a farewell dinner.

After careful consideration, Pan Jianhu still felt that this matter was a bit difficult. After all, Magic Disc held a certain status in the industry, and once Huang Kai's impulsiveness subsided, he might not think that way anymore.

The farewell dinner was still held at Dadonghai Night Market. To thank Xiaomonu for promoting him on Bilibili, Bianlang agreed to take her along, but they couldn't stream it.

Back at the night market, Bian Lang and the Beyond band were already considered celebrities, so they didn't have to pay anything; their tables were piled high with all sorts of barbecue snacks.

When he returned to the hotel, Pan Jianhu came to him again and arranged to meet in Chuncheng to talk. As for how his talk with Chen Shuting went, he didn't say and Bian Lang didn't ask either.

The next day, since all five of them had similar flight times, they went to the airport together. There was no sadness like when parting, only excitement about reuniting.

After boarding the plane, Bian Lang discovered that his fellow passengers were actually a group of retired cadres from Chuncheng on a sanatorium. As soon as the older women saw his handsome face, they all came up to him asking for his contact information, saying they wanted to introduce him to potential partners.

However, once Bian Lang let his hair down, no more old ladies bothered him.

It wasn't until he got off the plane that an older man approached him and tried to strike up a conversation in Yunnan dialect: "Hey kid, you play rock music? I used to listen to rock when I was young, and my daughter is the one I brought up, but now she likes your type. Let me show you a picture of my daughter..."

"Oh my, is that right? Which band did you listen to before?" It was rare to meet an old rock music fan, so Bian Lang chatted with him all the way out of the airport. In the end, the old man completely forgot about his daughter, took a photo with Bian Lang, got an autograph, and left happily.

It was past 1 p.m. when Bian Lang returned to Chuncheng. After putting his things away at home, he went straight to the rehearsal room. When he handed the sheet music for the two new songs to Dayong, Dayong stared at Bian Lang for a long time as if he were a monster.

After seeing the lyrics and music for "Cold Rainy Night," Da Yong became excited again: "Did you secretly date a pretty girl from the Greater Bay Area?"

Bian Lang retorted earnestly, "I don't know, I'd like to find one too!"

"This sentence has some flavor to it. It's not wrong. I'll read it and practice it."

After rehearsing "Those Without Ideals Don't Get Hurt" with Dayong several more times, he instructed Dayong to practice "No Place to Hide" first before going downstairs to the record store to get the songs.

Driven by a strong sense of mission to spread the classic songs from Earth as quickly as possible, Bian Lang wanted to memorize all the songs in his mind as fast as he could. After all, being away from the musical environment of Earth, he had no idea how long he could remember these songs or how many he could ultimately recall.

Paradise Records was still operating at half capacity. After opening the door, Bian Lang glanced at the shelves and found that there were far fewer CDs, which brought him some relief.

In the middle of the afternoon, Bian Lang uploaded 12 rock songs and 4 classic folk songs to the copyright website in one go. Just as he was about to stroll to the hillside to have dinner, Zhu Yan suddenly appeared.

"Hey, when did you get back? You didn't even tell me beforehand. By the way, have you finished recording 'Those Without Ideals Don't Get Hurt'? I didn't urge you because I saw you hadn't uploaded it to the music platform yet. My new job is all about getting off to a good start, I've already written the script and given it to Hong Ke, I'm just waiting for the music and you to be here."

Speaking of this, Bian Lang suddenly remembered that he hadn't uploaded his song yet. At the time, Li Yiliang was handling the accounts on several music platforms. His newly registered Rolling Stone band was offered a 2/8 split slave contract by the three major platforms, so he hadn't uploaded it. He thought he'd wait until he gained some fame before uploading it; it couldn't be lower than the Masked Band's 4/6 split.

But now he doesn't want to wait any longer; making a breakthrough as soon as possible is the right thing to do.

Thinking of this, he said to Zhu Yan, "Brother Yan, I'll give you the audio file right away. Arrange a time this week and let me know, then I'll bring Dayong to report to you! I'll upload it to the music platform by tomorrow at the latest."

Zhu Yan glanced at his watch, considered for a moment, and then said, "It's already the 25th, and there are only five days left in this month. Releasing it now would be a waste of the song's quality. It clearly has the potential to climb the monthly music charts; releasing it now is a complete squandering. Listen to me, release it on the 1st of next month, which is next Tuesday. Hong Ke and I have discussed inviting you guys to record a live stream on Tuesday. What do you think?"

Only then did Bian Lang realize that there was such a thing as a music chart.

The various music charts and awards in China have lost their credibility and become battlegrounds for idols to satisfy their self-satisfaction and for fans to unleash their superpowers. Therefore, Bianlang instinctively ignored them.

However, things are different on Earth. The Huaxia Music Chart that Zhu Yan mentioned is a formal chart led by the Ministry of Culture. The chart's data is collected from sales data of all formal music platforms across the entire network, so its credibility and professionalism are beyond doubt.

While it's impossible to completely eliminate organized fan manipulation of chart rankings, it's highly unlikely that data manipulation will occur behind closed doors. After all, sales data involves far too many factors, and the penalties imposed by the authorities would be far more severe than on Earth. No entertainment company or music platform would be willing to take that risk unless absolutely necessary.

"Okay, I'll do as Brother Yan says. I'll prepare properly these next couple of days. By the way, I noticed there are so many fewer DVDs on the shelves, and you haven't been opening the shop much. Business should be picking up by now!"

"Don't even mention it, I was the one who took it to the radio station. The property management has already been urging me, saying that if they keep closing the door like this, it will affect the image of the whole first floor. If it really comes to that, they'll refund the rent for the remaining two months after July. I think they've found another tenant."

"I guess the next buyer doesn't want to pay you the transfer fee, so they went directly to the property management... Let's go eat first."

Zhu Yan also wanted to ask him about music variety shows, so the two of them skipped dinner at Banshan and found a roadside stall to chat.

When Zhu Yan heard that he had two new songs, she practically wanted to become sworn brothers on the spot: "Brother, whether my new job can be a huge success depends entirely on you!"

After Zhu Yan left with a few discs, Bian Lang called Pan Jianhu. Even though he was in a hurry to upload, he still couldn't accept the 2/8 revenue split.

Upon hearing this, Pan Jianhu jokingly asked, "What, have you decided to sign Nanyin?"

"How did your talk with Sister Chen go? Do you agree with the plan?"

Pan Jianhu paused before continuing, "We discussed the plan quite well, but she has a lot of concerns. Before going solo, she had partnered with someone to run an artist management company. Just like you, she misjudged people and was badly ripped off by her partner. So now she's very cautious about partnerships."

Also, her family lives in Beijing and her child is about to start elementary school. I think it's highly unlikely she'd be willing to come to Kunming. I absolutely support your idea of ​​opening your own studio, but Lao Tan has probably already told you about my situation. The current agents are all inexperienced and can't handle your workload. How about I find you someone else?

When Bian Lang heard that she had been cheated by her partner and had a family and children, he felt a headache coming on. If he were Chen Shuting, he probably wouldn't agree to this either. But the original owner's connections were there, and if Pan Jianhu had a suitable candidate, he would have poached them for his company long ago, so he still wanted to try.

"Okay, I'll talk to her again myself. As for the music platform revenue sharing, I'll trouble Tiger to handle that for me first!"

"It's a small matter, but let's make it clear first, this means you've agreed to join Nanyin!"

"Okay, we'll go over the contract when you get back."

The next day, Pan Jianhu gave him a reply: the three top music platforms, Goose Egg, Cloud Village, and Shrimp Seed, offered a 5/5 revenue split, while other second-tier platforms offered a 6/4 split, with a one-year contract period.

Bian Lang is satisfied with the result. Price is secondary; this one-year short-term contract is undoubtedly the best option for him right now.

It seems that Pan Jianhu invested a lot of effort and favors into this contract, and Bian Lang remembered those favors.

Given the original owner's experience, Bian Lang must now take this contract matter seriously, after all, these copyrights represent the hard work of countless musicians from the original Earth!

After logging into several platforms to review the contracts and realizing he was powerless to do anything, Bian Lang went directly to his brother-in-law.