Rock and Roll: Glorious Years

At 8 PM, without any prior warning or preparation, two major music platforms and Bilibili simultaneously uploaded the audio and video of a song titled "Dyeing the Night Black." The pop-up ads and homepage scrolling on Xiami Music, along with the homepage recommendations on NetEase Cloud Music and Bilibili, instantly ignited this otherwise ordinary night with the song, performed by Huaxia Rock 29.

Having already received the invitation, Bai Dao glanced at the crescent moon shrouded in mist outside the window, put on his headphones, took a sip of freshly brewed green tea, spat the tea leaves that had gotten onto his lips back into the cup, and then eagerly started watching the video.

The opening featured no music, only a dimly lit, almost black-and-white, empty stage. Several beams of light from behind did not shine directly into the air, but were swallowed up in the darkness.

A man whose face was obscured, wearing a black leather jacket and large black-framed sunglasses, was behind the microphone stand. In the lower left corner of the camera, a hairdryer at an upward angle was blowing his long hair into a mess. The other three musicians were also far away from him.

No need to guess, the person behind the microphone stand is Bian Lang.

This single shot evoked an overwhelming sense of loneliness and desolation in Bai Dao's mind.

Immediately afterward, the sound of an electric guitar filled the air, and a pristine intro solo made Bai Dao's pupils dilate instantly. Just as he was about to wait for a close-up of the performance, the camera suddenly switched, but the music didn't stop again. The electric guitar's tone shifted from the previous American dry guitar sound to a British crunchy sound, and the scene changed from the previously empty stage to a rather cramped-looking rehearsal room.

The shift from grunge to punk style was a bit hard for Bai Dao to get used to, but the image of a tall, thin man wearing a cowboy hat and sunglasses playing guitar in the near-black and white setting made Bai Dao feel that there was something different about the design.

After recognizing the person as Tian Yuan, the lead singer and guitarist of the band Control Stick, Bai Dao began to speculate about the meaning of the inscription "China Rock 29": "Could there be 29 bands?"

Just as he was about to dismiss his unrealistic conjecture, the camera switched again, and the electric guitar's tone began to sharpen, but not harshly. The scene remained in a small rehearsal room, with the band members all wearing sunglasses.

"Thrash metal, strong winds..." Bai Dao can now basically verify his guess, and he is now looking forward to seeing which bands will appear next.

Sure enough, when Lao Zhao, who was also wearing sunglasses, appeared on camera, the steady bass drum sound, as steady as a sewing machine, completely captivated him.

The 48-second, 24-bar intro featured eight bands, then the camera switched back to the Rolling Stones, where Bian Lang, with his long, flowing hair, finally began to sing:

"I opened this window that hadn't been opened for so long, and dust scattered on the ground from both sides. I completely forgot how long I had been standing here, completely forgot which way was which..."

Bian Lang's voice was devoid of any emotion, and his expressionless face made Bai Dao's heart clench. A strange palpitation made him feel uneasy.

The scene then changes again, but instead of showing the lever band that was previously behind the Rolling Stones, it shows a skinny young man with a mohawk who has never appeared before, still wearing sunglasses. Bian Lang's image does not disappear completely, but is shrunk to the upper right corner of the screen in the form of a small frame.

The young man with the mohawk sang in a somewhat hoarse voice: "What power can push down the gray wall, what soil can nurture love? This scene before me has appeared in my deepest memory, reality and dream, I have no doubt, reality and dream, I have no doubt..."

The scene shifts again, the young man in the mohawk shrinks to follow behind Rolling Stone, and a burly man with long hair appears, growling in a deep, dark voice, expressing his resentment and anger: "Why does the ink stain the night black, arbitrarily smearing, arbitrarily smearing, around the moonlight..."

The scene changed again, and this time the lead singer was a very pretty young lady, but the moment she opened her mouth, her strong old-fashioned Florida death metal style left Bai Dao completely bewildered: "Why does the ink stain the night black, arbitrarily smearing, arbitrarily smearing around the moonlight... Oh... Oh... Oh oh..."

Bai Dao couldn't help but exclaim softly, "Zao'er? Wow, she still remembers she has a band?"

From the beginning to now, the video has featured eight different rock bands of various styles, including Grunge, psychedelic, Britpop, thrash rock, punk, hard rock, heavy metal, black metal, and death metal. This design has completely overturned Bai Dao's worldview.

Although this arrangement creates a significant disconnect in the auditory experience, he was genuinely shocked by this entirely new form of creation!

Moreover, the lyrics, which were clearly pointed at something, made him feel the true power of rock and roll: irony and resilience!

Having already received the news, Pan Xiulong was sitting at his computer desk in the study. The lyrics coming from the HiFi speakers were like a bucket of ice water, soaking him completely. He didn't even know if he was awake or not.

But the chorus line, "Why does the thick ink dye the night black..." resonated with him deeply: "Will this thick ink of capital leave the music scene with the last bit of moonlight? Alas, moonlight can never become the sun that illuminates the darkness..."

Qi Hongtu also received the news that Nanyin and Rolling Stone were going to make a big move, and he had been waiting in front of his computer with great curiosity. However, upon hearing this, he laughed dismissively: "That's just how rock musicians are. What's the use of writing a song to satirize them? You're nothing but shrimps in front of Goose Egg!" Thinking about the promise from Magic Disc regarding the copyright of all their songs, he opened Weibo and posted the sentence he had just uttered, along with a photo of the drafted contract cover.

However, Ma Yuan, another senior executive at Goose Egg Music, had a different perspective. As the platform's music director, his opinions on the song were naturally polarized. From the company's standpoint, he would have loved to completely ban "Chinese Rock 29" from the internet. Releasing it at this time, the irony in the lyrics was practically a matter of replacing "thick ink" with "goose egg."

But as a musician, he was amazed by the song's quality, the imagery it conveyed, and its unprecedented presentation: "Those idiots at the Rhythm Masters are utterly useless and more likely to ruin things than accomplish anything!"

The song continues, and after a 30-second interlude, the main shot of a guitar solo is introduced, bringing out 10 more bands.

When the chorus resumes, Magpie, who previously guest-played guitar for Rolling Stones, is now in the rehearsal room setting, singing in his operatic style: "Why does thick ink stain the night black, arbitrarily smearing, arbitrarily smearing, around the moonlight..."

The camera then cuts to another band: "Why does thick ink stain the night black, arbitrarily smearing, arbitrarily smearing, around the moonlight..."

After the chorus played twice, all the bands had made their appearances, and the Rolling Stones were once again brought to the main screen, with the remaining 28 bands flanking them in small windows.

At that moment, the almost black and white image began to take on a slightly yellowish hue, just like an old, yellowed photograph.

29 different bands, 109 musicians singing simultaneously:

"Why does thick ink stain the night black, arbitrarily smearing, arbitrarily smearing, around the moonlight..."

"Why does thick ink stain the night black, smearing it arbitrarily, smearing it arbitrarily, around the moonlight... Oh... Oh... Oh oh..."

Then the 1 minute and 48 second outro began, and at this point, the small frames of the other 28 bands had disappeared, leaving only the Rolling Stones in the frame. A moment later, against a background focused on Bian Lang, subtitles began to scroll:

Dye the Night Black

Lyrics by: Hua Le

Composer: Hua Yue

Participating bands: The Rolling Stones, The Pastoral Band...

Performing musicians: Bian Lang, Huang Kai, Chen Shaoyong, Xi Que, Li Hao, Tian Yuan... Zhao Muge... Tang Dafeng...

Production Companies: Rock Records Studio X Nanyin Records

Special thanks to: Cloud Village………………