Riding the wind of rebirth

These were the paths Zhou Zhi had paved for Jiang Shuyi. The last news Zhou Zhi knew about her was that she went to England to study at the business school there.

Zhou Zhi didn’t even know whether the summer practice materials he prepared for her were useful.

"Brother Elbow, have you chosen my new song? And Sister Fang's." Seeing that Zhou Zhi was distracted, Guan Tingting quickly interrupted: "Have you listened to the DEMOs?"

Today's record companies receive a lot of "submissions" and collect many songs. As long as they feel a song is somewhat popular, except for a few top creators, they can usually buy the copyright from the author for very little money.

Of course, there are many ways to buy it. If it is a profit-sharing agreement, the creator can get some profits when the song becomes popular. But if the company keeps the song and does not publish it, or signs a buyout agreement, the creator will not get any extra money.

An album usually contains ten songs. If one song becomes popular, the record company will not lose money. If two or three songs become popular, a new star singer will be created. If four songs become popular, the album can easily break through platinum sales and create a top-tier singer.

The Dabaozi Band belongs to the first type, Guan Tingting belongs to the second type, and Su Fang belongs to the third type.

This was all achieved by Zhou Zhi helping them select songs and participating in part of the creation.

In other words, so far, all the songs that Zhou Zhi has pointed out to several people for participation have become very popular, which is extremely impressive.

The Big Baozi Band is now a regular at major concerts thanks to its two passionate rock songs, "Singing the Motherland" and "Mountain Songs Are Like Spring River Water". The two songs are important tracks that light up the venue.

Guan Tingting's "Hasayaqi", "Homeland" and "Spinning Wood" have completely established her status as a campus sweetheart.

Su Fang is even more amazing. Brother Xiaopeng produced "Accompany Me to the End of the World". In addition to the already popular "What a Big Tree" and "Persistence", the ten songs also include "Accompany Me to the End of the World", "The Day Does Not Understand the Darkness of the Night", "Conquer", "Love Puppet", "Absolutely Infatuated", "Crazy for Love" and "Love of My Life".

Nine out of ten songs were popular, creating a miracle of "nine out of ten songs going platinum" for the Rolling Stones and a huge star.

Fortunately, that year was the peak year of Chinese music. Jacky Cheung's "Fatal Fury" album was also a huge success, with nine out of ten songs being hits. It also included a song called "Extreme Summer" in collaboration with Faye Wong. PolyGram and the Rolling Stones were on equal footing, which made Su Fang not so conspicuous.

With this album, Jacky Cheung has consolidated his status as a singing god in the hearts of his fans, and now the media and fans also refer to Su Fang as the "female singing god".

There is a mysterious "Golden Melody Judge" in the mainland, and this saying even made the Rolling Stone board of directors superstitious. Therefore, when Su Fang and Guan Tingting both mentioned that they wanted Zhou Zhi to help them choose songs, the boss did not hesitate and sent Zhou Zhi the preliminary DEMO compressed into MP3.

Zhou Zhi was also a novice in the past two years and didn’t know the various ins and outs of the record industry. Now he understands that an album only needs four or five hit songs at most. Too many is really a bit scary.

In fact, he was not a judge of golden songs, but just a karaoke enthusiast of later generations. Zhou Zhi could find many familiar songs in the Rolling Stones' music library, including those that were not accepted.

"Tingting, are you going to release an album?" Feng Xueshan was very surprised. "Yes." Guan Tingting said as a matter of course: "Sister Fang and Master said that we can try it out."

"I have actually been preparing for it, but I didn't expect the song 'Persistence' that I sang at the Hung Hom concert would do so well. Everyone said we should strike while the iron is hot, so we moved up the release date of the album by half a year."

Zhou Zhi was somewhat touched when Guan Tingting interrupted him by throwing out the news that she was going to release an album. Although his thoughts were clear in this life, he was still grateful for the little girl's protection of him, and he also felt relieved that his naughty sister had finally grown up and become sensible.

In fact, the songs for her have already been selected, and they are particularly suitable for her voice and performance style. The album has to take into account the three places of mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan, so Zhou Zhi chose "Water Town in Dreams", "Moonlight in the City", "Laughing at the Wind and Clouds", "Legend of Love" and "My Heart is Too Confused" respectively.

"Water Town in Dreams" is actually a continuation of the style of "Homeland", targeting the mainland market; "Moonlight in the City" continues to ride on the lingering echoes of campus sweethearts and maintain the market brought by "Spinning Wood". "Smiling in the Wind and Clouds" is a test work in Cantonese, and it just so happens that Adam Cheng is also testing the waters, and singing with this uncle-level actor, no matter the age difference or the content of the song, can't form a sense of IP, and can't ruin the fans.

The remaining songs, "Legend of Love" and "My Heart is Too Messy", are mainly aimed at the Taiwan market and are both hits. In particular, the two songs were originally sung by male voices, but now have been changed to female voices. Zhou Zhi himself is very much looking forward to how Tingting will interpret these two songs.

If nothing unexpected happens, all five songs will be on the Golden Melody Chart. It would be quite impressive for a first album to have such a result.

"But Tingting herself was not satisfied. She wanted to challenge herself and try Mariah Carey's singing style."

"Try soul music?" Zhou Zhi couldn't help but frowned. "It's a bit difficult, especially if you perform it in Chinese. Few creators nowadays lean towards that direction."

In fact, what Zhou Zhi was thinking was that Guan Tingting had a sweet appearance, a proud figure, and a voice that was the result of both natural talent and acquired through learning since childhood. She also met a famous teacher who honed her skills and was able to handle everything from sweetness and tenderness to generosity and passion. Whether she follows the path of Wang Xinling or Jolin Tsai in the future, she will be able to make a fortune.

Now the little girl actually proposed to challenge herself. Such an attitude must be encouraged. Finally, a song came to my mind: "How about slowing down the tempo of Teacher Tu's "Listening to the Sea" a little bit, and let's try it someday?"

Tu Huiyuan is not yet a gold medal producer in the future. He was born in 1966, only eight years older than Zhou Zhi. He is not yet 30 years old and has only graduated from the Department of Music at Shih Chien University in Taiwan a few years ago.

However, his talent was still recognized by everyone and he had good opportunities. Before he was 20 years old, he participated in many orchestras as a keyboardist, thus starting his musical journey.

For example, Xue Yue's Fantasy Eyes Choir, Harlem Yu's ADA Choir, and Chyi Chin's Rainbow Band, all of them became famous at a young age.

Especially in arranging and album production, he showed his talent very early. Since the 1980s, he has participated in the arrangement of many popular songs.

For example, Qi Yu's "September High Heels" released in 1988, Harlem Yu's "Let Me Love You Enough Once" in 1989, Zhao Chuan's "I Finally Lost You", Qi Qin's "Ruthless Rain, Ruthless You" in 1990, Zhang Yu's "Good Intentions" the year before last, Qi Qin's "Don't Let My Tears Accompany Me Overnight" last year, Tai Zhengxiao's "Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine Roses", "Thousand Paper Cranes" and so on.

The term "young genius" is not an exaggeration at all. (End of this chapter)