Chapter Thirty-Fifth: Being Legendary

  When it comes to legendary status, just mentioning the name of one group under its umbrella is enough - that group being B'z. As mentioned earlier, on Japan's music sales charts, the two old men have held an absolute advantage for many years with over 80 million CDs sold, occupying the top spot year after year. And considering the trend of declining sales since entering the new century, this advantage will likely be maintained for a long time to come. This can be seen from AKB's trajectory - AKB48 has been a anomaly in Japan's music sales since 2010. In terms of musicality, the quality of AKB48 may only elicit scorn from professional singers and producers, but selling CDs has never been about selling musical quality. AKB is just following in the footsteps of its predecessors, who have all done the same thing before them.

  It's just that this group, relying on the whole member handshake events to boost sales, from 2010 to 2014, for three whole years, every single CD sold over a million copies, and DVDs of concerts and albums were released until they were exhausted, but their total sales only barely accumulated to around 30 million. At this rate, if they continue to be popular like the past three years for another six years, they might have a chance to catch up with B'z's two old men. Is that possible? As an AKB48 fan, maybe you really hope so, but things like this... we can just privately imagine it, because if other fans hear about it, they'll definitely curse us out...

  Being's subordinates are not just B'z, other member singers have names that are also intimidating to mention. Sakai Izumi is not mentioned for now, Nishiki Hide and WANDS may not be well-known to Chinese fans either. Komatsu Miwa and Aina Reika, who also sang Conan theme songs, must have some people who know their names. As for Kamiki Aya, Minakami Yui, and Saezaki Yuka, they are all quite good and can be considered first-line female singers.

  Moreover, there is also a female singer who has sung many Conan theme songs and is also a member of Being, that is Mai Kuraki, who along with Ayumi Hamasaki and Hikaru Utada became the Heisei Three Big Female Singers!

  Such a music company achieved sales of 45 billion yen in 1993, accounting for 7% of the entire industry! A music company's sales accounted for such a large share of the entire industry, it can be said that at that time, Being had already become a social phenomenon.

  But Zhou Xiao would not join the company just because of its current strength, because he was very clear that by 2000, Being had already been in decline.

  The decline of Being is actually caused by many reasons.

  The first reason is that a genius named Tetsuya Komuro appeared in the Japanese music scene.

  Although it is as obvious as the sun in the sky, if you carefully distinguish it, you can easily see that most of the music produced by this company is rock-based. Perhaps the type of rock may be slightly different, but overall, this company is indeed a company that has always adhered to the concept of rock.

  While Tetsuya Komuro represents a whole new genre of music, the Japanese people have been listening to Being's popular rock for many years and are already aesthetically tired. Entering the new century, Being found that their music was getting harder and harder to sell, unless it was a super hit with both singing and songwriting skills, otherwise it would be difficult to sell as well as before. At this time, Tetsuya Komuro appeared, after popularizing electronic dance music, his Little Room Family cultivated a large number of similar artists, from Namie Amuro to Tomomi Kahara, Ami Suzuki to Rina Chinen, Alisha to later returned to Hong Kong development of Vivian Yip all came from his camp!

  Outside of the small room, poor management and the massive departure of members under its umbrella were also reasons for Being's demise. Among them, the departure of Tsutomu ōtomo, who co-founded Being with Osamu Nagase, caused the greatest damage to Being. The name Tsutomu ōtomo may be familiar to some AKB48 fans, as he has written several high-quality songs for the group. However, in the 80s and 90s, he had already started composing music for TUBE, followed by other popular idols such as Hidetoshi Nishijima and Kōji Matsumoto.

  Oh, right, don't think he only does rock music, the theme song of Sakura Momoko was also done by him, no mistake, it's that one you're most familiar with.

  After the 1990s, his greatest work should be Yui Sakakibara.

  But he left Being in 1997. It can be said that his departure directly caused Being to lose half of its creative power!

  After Tsutomu Oda, members of the company began to leave one by one.

  WANDS is probably already dealing with the dissolution, at the end of 99, suddenly announced a suspension of activities to rest Daisuke Mori (there are also rumors that it was because the original singing route was too wild, and the unique voice was too damaging to the vocal cords, leading to vocal cord damage and forced rest). By 01, they would move to other companies, etc. The gradual departure of these company's backbone members made Being no longer glorious, finally reaching the historical moment in 07 when Izumi Sakai's sudden death and Mai Kuraki's transfer left Being able to barely survive with only B'z two old men!

  Such a company on the verge of decline, and more inclined to rock music, Zhou Xiao felt was not suitable for himself, because although "Little Love" was undoubtedly his first rock song, most of his later "works" did not have this style.

  Another point is that being with him is almost the best company for me.

  As a major rock label, they are extremely careless about promoting and advertising their songs, which is almost crucial in other companies! Not to mention Sakai Izumi not showing her face, even Komatsu Miwa, who is half-famous, can get away with not doing promotions or participating in lives.

  For Zhou Xiao, will there be other companies more free than Being?

  "Quan Shui Jie... it's like this..." Zhou Xiao Chang took a deep breath and finally said: "I know you may not believe me when I say this, but I haven't put all my attention and dreams on singing. Whether it's acting, writing books or even variety shows on TV, these are things I really enjoy and will definitely try out. Maybe now you'll think I'm being arrogant and talking nonsense, but this is my choice. I won't let any company block my path forward!"

  When he said these words, Zhou Xiao himself felt embarrassed, and he felt that saying this from his own mouth was really a bit shameless. But what surprised him was that Quan Shui Jie and Kawashima beside her seemed to have not paid much attention to this, the two people just looked at each other, exchanged an "as expected, it's this kind of guy" look and nothing more.

  Kawashima said, "Actually, you don't have to worry too much about this. I'm sure you've heard of our company, Being. We're a music production company and we weren't really concerned with these things from the start. The contracts for the singers under our company are actually signed with the management companies under us. If you want to make music freely, just talk it over with the management company and it's okay. Even if you don't sign a management contract and only sign a music production contract, that's fine too!"

  "This...this is okay?" Zhou Xiao was extremely surprised, he had seen too many unreasonable contracts before. Ten-year contracts that even if you terminate the contract, you are not allowed to participate in artist activities, not allowed to fall in love, not allowed to change companies, and even hairstyles and hair colors have to be specified... As a result, this company... actually doesn't even require signing a management contract?

  "We are professionals, what we want is your talent and strength, not your publicity skills." Kawashima said with a sense of pride.

  Zhou Xiao could only nod secretly in response to such a declaration, no wonder your company is about to decline. This approach might have worked in the 90s, but in the new century where the pace is getting faster and media demands are getting higher, even if Oda Tetsuro didn't leave, it's probably very difficult to save the company from its downward trend.

  "Then I'll consider it……” Such good conditions, what else could Zhou Xiao say? Without signing a brokerage contract, it's equivalent to him being free all the time, and only when making music would Being help with production and release. This kind of good thing is simply one-of-a-kind.

  "Alright then, leave your phone number with us, Little Brother Zhou Xiao, I'll be waiting for you!" said Sister Quan Shui.

  Zhou Xiao didn't know that Sakai Izumi's words made Kawashima's eyes burn with anger. Sakai Izumi's sister's phone number! He had been in the company for so long and hadn't dared to ask for it, but Zhou Xiao actually got her phone number from Sakai Izumi herself!?