Chapter Forty-Four: Self-Made Single

  However, although Zhou Xiao is a genius, Chang Hu Da Xing does not intend to give him too many opportunities for publicity and hype. On the one hand, Being indeed lacks experience and promotional power in this aspect. On the other hand, he also has some small thoughts.

  Zhou Xiao is only 18 years old, at this age it's normal to be impulsive and simple, not to mention arrogant? What else can he do? Only a genius would think that Zhou Xiao really has the ability to sell millions of singles on one hand and release books, TV dramas and movies on the other. After all, in these aspects, Zhou Xiao hasn't shown any talent yet, what he has shown is only his singing skills.

  What would this young man, who has almost arrogant confidence in himself, think if his single didn't sell at all after its release? Would he think that the company didn't promote him enough or would he realize his own level?

  I suppose anyone would first blame others, blame the company, this is a person's instinct.

  When the time comes, he will make a comeback and boost the sales of this single, and take complete control of him...

  This is the true purpose of Chang Hu Da Xing.

  After several days of high-density learning, Zhou Xiao finally confirmed the final melody of two songs with various gods in the company. The overall melody is basically the same as the two songs in Zhou Xiao's memory, only a bit more rock-like in details. If ordinary outsiders listen to it, they may not be able to hear any difference at all.

  But the final melody is still far from being determined for the single, and what needs to be settled next is the music arrangement. Zhou Xiao doesn't understand this aspect at all, but he didn't directly hand over all the arrangement work either. He asked the company to teach him about music theory while also teaching him various things about arrangement, which are equally important to him. Because he can't always find others to help with arrangement, almost all the music in his mind is the result of modern arrangement. If he only gives away the melody and tune, it's likely that the arranger will arrange the song into something completely different from what he has in mind. Zhou Xiao isn't doubting the abilities of the internal composers, but he doesn't want the music in his mind to easily lose its original shape and never appear in the world again.

  While the composition work is in full swing, the whole Being company is eagerly awaiting the complete version of the two songs. At the same time, several pieces of news about Being company signing a new singer-songwriter have been faxed to major media outlets.

  It's just this kind of thing... nobody really cares...

  In May and June 2000, who dominated the entertainment circle?

  On this side, apart from Sakai Izumi and B'z's two old men, the most popular person is Kuraki Mai. The third single "Seyheart" released on April 26 continued the advantage of the previous two singles, taking second place in the Ori sales chart. Don't think that getting second place is easy! In 2014, the second place in the Ori chart sold around 10,000 copies per week, and it was occasionally possible to reach this position, but going back 14 years, this second place was not easily obtained. What was the first single of the week on April 26? The first single of the week is a classic that can be passed down through generations, and in various Japanese surveys, it has always been ranked high as a " Cherry Blossom Song" or "Graduation Song", Fukuyama Masaharu's "Sakurazaka"! Kuraki Mai lost to this song, but it's not unjust.

  Fukuyama Masaharu's "Sakurazaka" ultimately sold 2.28 million copies, and even after more than a decade, AKB48 went all out with multiple versions for sale, held handshake events, and included voting tickets for that year's general election, but despite all these extras, the highest-selling single by AKB48 still didn't exceed 2 million copies, which shows just how powerful Fukuyama Masaharu's song is.

  But this incredibly powerful song did not win the championship in single sales that year, because above him was an even more powerful figure, Southern All-Stars, with Tsunamai selling 2.88 million CDs, leading Fukuyama Masaharu by 600,000 copies and dominating the year 2000.

  In addition, Ayumi Hamasaki was also an unbeatable year in this year. Although her single "SEASONS" ranked fifth in the highest sales of a single song in this year, she couldn't help but release many songs. In 2000, she released seven singles throughout the year! Except for the last day of the year, "_M" will be counted in 2001, and the six singles that sold well, plus other sales, will eventually earn her over 21.7 billion yen in sales in this year, far surpassing second-place Mai Kuraki by 5 billion yen.

  In preparation for the song, the company's high-level officials have also started making intense and secretive preparations for the release of the single.

  The release of a single originally requires a lot of preparation, first notifying the pressing plant and record company to schedule a release time, signing contracts, shooting an MV, choosing a director, assembling a crew, preparing an MV script, discussing each shot... countless trivial but necessary things are arranged during this period and completed one by one.

  But for Zhou Xiao's single, everything was compressed to the simplest state. In the end, the sales time of this first single was set at around June 7th, about half a month later. In such a short period of time, just the pre-preparation alone would take too much time, let alone promotion? Ayumi Hamasaki, who will also release her single on June 7th, has already started promoting it now, but as for Zhou Xiao's side, not to mention the promotion before the single went on sale, even after the single went on sale, the company didn't come up with any promotional strategy that was worth mentioning!

  Zhou Xiaoke is not a big-name singer like ZARD, with dozens of TV and newspaper media outlets keeping an eye on her every day, and as soon as there's any news, they'll swarm in. Not doing any promotion at all, even if she's a signed artist, usually only happens after she's gained fame. Of course, not everyone does this, but for those who don't, their songs are often used as theme songs for TV dramas or animations, and have a fixed promotional channel every week. It can be said that if it were another singer, they might already have thoughts of quitting by now.

  But Zhou Xiao wouldn't do that, on the contrary, he was very comfortable with the company's arrangement. The several books he had planned to write at the beginning of his journey were about to be completed, and as for Zhou Xiao's small love affair, he had enough confidence in it. Even if no publicity was done, as long as there was a complete layout, the Karaoke data would also be available, so this song would definitely become popular, let alone the C/W song that started with ZONE's divine song! It can be said that the small thoughts of Long Hua Da Xing were just to Zhou Xiao's taste.

  After finally completing the composition work, it's time to start recording and shooting MV.

  Because both songs were band tunes, Izumi Sakai called in her own ZARD band members to help with the filming. The composition of ZARD's members was not actually fixed, and Izumi Sakai only had a cooperative relationship with most of them, without being particularly close, but as the only fixed member, she gathered the members together, so how could they not show up?

  The final recording took a total of three days, during which the band members spent one day completing the instrumental tracks, and Zhou Xiao spent two more days on his vocals. When the song was finally completed, Zhou Xiao let out a sigh of relief - this was the first single he had ever released in his past life or present life, and for a moment, he felt overwhelmed with emotion.

  After the recording, it was time to shoot the MV. Originally, Zhou Xiao's single only had two songs, and there was no DVD attached when it was released, so shooting an MV wasn't really necessary. However, with a limited budget from the company, a simple MV wouldn't cost much money either. The band members were gathered again, and along with Zhou Xiao and a few others, they found a small stage in a theater to shoot on.

  The small theater was arranged by Uncle Inoue, and it took up the 20 minutes after the performance ended. The audience who had just watched the comedian's performance in the theater were stopped by the person in charge to help, and then Zhou Xiao brought three band members on stage.

  It's just four cameras, three fixed cameras plus one handheld roaming camera, that's all for today. As for multi-angle shots? Re-recording? Supplementing the footage? None of these things exist, the entire MV is actually just Zhou Xiao and the band performing two songs live!

  Cut corners to the extreme.

  But does anyone care about this? In fact, no one cares. It was originally just a simple single without any promotion. Being able to film an MV is already a blessing, and other things are not necessary at all.