Rock and Roll: Glorious Years

Bai Dao was still reeling from the chorus that defied description. That section had given him an immense shock and enjoyment, both visually and aurally. As a professional music critic, he now felt unable to use technical terms or a fair perspective to evaluate the piece.

In his view, lyrics, composition, and arrangement are no longer important. The creative approach of these 29 bands and 109 musicians alone has already elevated this song to a milestone in Chinese rock.

As he looked at Bian Lang, who was crouching down and playing the guitar on the screen, and at the familiar and unfamiliar names scrolling through the subtitles, he suddenly felt that in this music market that had been stained black by thick ink, rock music might be the last ray of moonlight in the dark night, and Bian Lang was the hand that parted the clouds before the moon, or rather, the brightest ray of light among them.

The outro ends with a tremolo on Bian Lang's electric guitar, and a striking line of cursive script appears on the video: "If the ink eventually stains the moonlight black, we are willing to be a sunflower, guiding Chinese independent music to seek freedom and light."

Upon reading this last paragraph, Bai Dao was already moved to tears.

Taking off his glasses, wiping away his tears, Bai Dao pressed the key to delete the press release he had prepared and polished before sending it out. He then solemnly typed a line in the Word document:

To all music professionals in China, please remember this day. 29 bands and 109 rock musicians awakened us in their most proficient way. Let us pay tribute to these warriors who braved the darkness…

Pan Xiulong stared at the last line of text, finding it incredibly jarring. This shouldn't be something their Magic Disc team should have said but couldn't do. He took out his phone, opened WeChat, and hovered his finger over the name "Nanyin Records - Pan Jianhu" for a long time before finally giving up.

Ma Yuan logged onto Weibo, using a private account whose identity no one else knew, and typed without hesitation: "A tribute to Chinese Rock 29! This is the heroism and romance unique to rock musicians! @Rolling Stone Music Studio..."

Just as he was about to switch back to his main account to see the netizens' reactions, a WeChat notification popped up. He saw that it was from the company's planning director, so he clicked on it immediately: "Old Ma, according to the instructions from above, all of us must remain silent about the Huaxia Rock 29 incident."

As for Qi Hongtu's Weibo post, he deleted it immediately after receiving the notification. However, during this sensitive period, every executive of Goose Egg has at least one team of entertainment reporters stationed under their social media accounts. His Weibo post was screenshotted and circulated among the entertainment reporters within a minute of being posted.

The first rock music fans to watch the video are now spreading the word online:

"Wow... this is the kind of music I can listen to for just one dollar? 29 bands! Unbelievable..."

"This song is amazing! It insults people without using a single swear word, clearly alluding to 'goose eggs,' but who is the songwriter, Hua Yue? Is he among these 29 bands?"

"Who else could it be! It must be Bian Lang! Who else could have this ability?" This was posted by the Little Witch, who was summoned by Chen Shuting specifically for this purpose. From now on, Bian Lang, the new stage name used for songwriting, is going to leave a deep impression on music fans.

"Who else? I'm just asking, who else? Once this song comes out, all those idols will have to come over and kneel down to listen!"

"I'm moved to tears. I never imagined that a rock song could be performed in this way, especially considering it was created so quickly under the pressure of capital. This is definitely a classic that will be recorded in the history of Chinese rock!"

"Uninstall the app, goodbye forever, Goose Egg Music!"

"Enough said, I'm going to buy goose eggs tomorrow and smash the sign at Goose Egg Music's headquarters!"

If music fans were this emotional, then those working in the rock industry were even more so. The fact that 29 bands and 109 musicians simultaneously shared the post on their social media accounts completely blew up the rock scene.

Those bands that hadn't paid much attention to this before are now starting to feel a sense of crisis, like the saying "if one of us is gone, we'll be left with nothing."

Those who had been following the story but hadn't spoken out before, after watching the video and listening to the song, some of them immediately stepped forward:

"Support Huaxia Rock 29 and Goose Egg Music! No need for you to block them, we'll remove them ourselves!"

"We've voluntarily removed Goose Egg Music from our platform, folks, let's keep the party going elsewhere!"

"I wasn't even on Goose Egg (a Chinese music streaming platform), but I'm supporting Huaxia Rock 29. I'll download all the songs by these bands from both NetEase Cloud Music and Xiaomi (another Chinese music streaming platform)!"

From the moment Liu Yao received Pan Jianhu's message at noon, she had her assistant keep an eye on Weibo to notify her. Now, she had just finished recording an interview program when her assistant handed her her phone and said, "Sister Yao, the matter you've been following has blown up quite a bit."

Hearing this, and seeing the assistant's bewildered expression, she laughed and asked, "How big of a fuss can it get?" She then took the phone and put on her earphones...

Seeing this, the assistant reminded her, "Sister Yao, listen to the video together."

During the song, Liu Yao's expression kept changing. At first, she was excited, then she was a little confused, and finally she felt relieved.

"The last time the rock scene was so united was probably when they all called me a traitor, right? Bian Lang did a great job this time." After saying that, Liu Yao dialed his agent's number and, once connected, immediately said, "Agree to the exclusive copyright contract with Cloud Village according to their terms. Sign it quickly and then take everything down from Edan. Ideally, Cloud Village should release the announcement tonight while it's still hot!"

The agent, somewhat taken aback, asked, "Sister Yao, why did you suddenly make this decision? Is it because of what happened online?"

"Yes, the company has other collaborations with Goose Egg, so I can't say anything directly. Since Yun Village is willing to pay such a large copyright fee, I'll just go along with it and support Bian Lang and the others. I'd like to see how far this matter will escalate before it ends."

Liu Yao was genuinely curious. Things had escalated to this point, and Bian Lang and his group were acting like they had nothing to lose, so E Dan was unlikely to let it go. It all depended on how they handled it in the end.

After receiving the call from Liu Yao's agent, the director of the copyright department of Yuncun was stunned for a moment before reacting, and then said with great joy: "Okay, we will arrange the official announcement immediately."

After hanging up the phone, the director immediately notified his colleagues who were still working overtime to officially announce the news on Weibo.

"Today is truly a double celebration! Huaxia Rock 29 has brought in tens of thousands of new users and activated many existing customers, and the copyright cooperation with Liu Yao has been finalized..."

Shrimp Roe was also immersed in the excitement of being fed. They had also gained a lot from this round, and they even had the idea of ​​exclusive copyright, except that they set their sights on Bian Lang and his rock band.

At this moment, the Si Gu Bar was a scene of singing and dancing. Among the bands that participated in the recording of "Dye the Night Black", apart from the 13 bands from Nanyin, the most were from BJ. After the recording, they all gathered at Si Gu.

Having just finished watching the video on the projector, and still feeling excited, Tian Yuan led a few musicians to form a temporary team and continue playing.

As a group of musicians below the stage were belting out, "Why does the thick ink dye the night black, smearing it arbitrarily, smearing it arbitrarily, around the moonlight..." Ding Tong complained with great dissatisfaction, "Zhao, you didn't even invite me to such an exciting event. What, do you think I'm too old, or that I'm too incapable of handling things?"

Old Zhao smiled awkwardly and said, "How could that be, Master Tong? I thought Brother Hu had informed you, and I was busy with rehearsals so I didn't tell you."

"Tiger, too. He just said he wanted me to come over and support him tonight, but he didn't say anything specific. It's a pity that such a big thing happened right here, and I just ended up being a spectator. Was this song written by that kid Bianlang?"

"Yeah, that's incredibly fast. I'm not exaggerating, I was just complaining to him on the phone for a bit, and he already had the song. The key is, he even provided the full score with the orchestral arrangement. Just how many songs do you think he has in reserve?"

Hearing this, Ding Tong went through the lyrics in her mind, then shook her head and said, "I don't think it's that much of a coincidence. He didn't experience those tough years at his age, and without this opportunity, he couldn't have written such satirical lyrics. He might have had the melody planned beforehand, but his talent is simply incomparable."

At this point, Ding Tong paused and then said, "This time, Magic Disc has gone a bit too far. It's one thing to not support it, but it's even trying to take advantage of us. I reckon it was Zhu Wen who came up with this terrible idea. If Xiu Long were in charge, at most he would just not take sides."

"Who can argue with that? Although the copyright department of Goose Egg deleted the Weibo post, claiming it was hacked, screenshots of that post have already been circulating everywhere in the industry. I reckon Magic Disc will come out to refute the rumors by tomorrow morning at the latest. Anyway, they did have a collaboration, and only they know exactly how many songs they collaborated on copyrights for."

"I still have the copyrights to two albums in their hands. Thinking about it now, I really regret it. I should have bought the copyrights back when Tiger separated from them..."

Meanwhile, the atmosphere at Nanyin was even more lively than at Sigu. A group of people were already quite drunk, and Pan Jianhu, speaking from the stage, even had a slurred speech: "It's been a long time since everyone has been with me for the past three years. This time, things were really done well. I'll raise a glass, let's all thank Bian Lang!"

After drinking, Bian Lang, who was clearly quite drunk, stopped holding back and started rambling: "Thank you all for your support. Without you guys, this wouldn't have gone on such a big scale. But I don't think the other side will just let it go like that. But we can't back down... Those big shots in the capital market who only look at the data don't have faith in us, but that doesn't matter!"

We rock musicians have never followed the rules. What we have no shortage of is hormones, imagination, and talent. Just wait, it won't be long before we all see the light of day together...

Tiger's wife, standing in the crowd, held her Hasselblad X5 and captured these precious moments.

Just as Bian Lang had predicted, many rock music fans discovered early the next morning that Goose Egg Music had completely blacklisted all the rock bands and independent musicians who had stood up to support Bian Lang the day before.

As for announcements, not a single one was released. Even though the official Weibo account was flooded with comments from rock music fans, Goose Egg Music didn't make a single related comment.

The situation was even worse for Magic Disc; their pinned message was flooded with various insults, and they eventually had to close the comment section.