1990: Starting from Baojia Street

"Little Hands Holding Big Hands" and "First Dream" are two different styles of songs. This song is completely a sweet song.

Whether it's melody, lyrics, or arrangement, this song is very light.

After the girl listened to "First Dream" just now, she thought that Shizuka Kudo originally had an inspirational and independent style, so Zhou Yan wrote such a song for her.

But after listening to "Little Hands Holding Big Hands", the girl discovered that Shizuka Kudo's interpretation of this song was even better than "Original Dream".

Listening to this song, you can really feel the sweetness emanating from the song, as if every word Shizuka Kudo sings is full of sweet love.

It seems that Shizuka Kudo is very good at controlling such light and sweet songs.

Moreover, the lyrics of the song "Little Hands Holding Big Hands" are more simple and the image is stronger. After listening to it, it feels like watching a short film.

Concerts, fireworks, small hands, big hands, amusement parks, such real-life images can easily weave pictures in the listener's mind.

After listening to it, the girl couldn't help but rewind the tape and listened to "Little Hands Holding Big Hands" again. She really liked this song.

There are actually very few sweet songs by Chinese bands. Most of the love songs are of a bitter nature, especially the songs by female singers, each one is more bitter than the last.

It seems that it will not stop until it makes the listener cry.

Even some relatively cheerful love songs are similar to the style of dance music, such as "Little Hand Holding Big Hand", which can't be found at all.

So when the girl heard "Little Hand Holding Big Hand", she was surprised and happy.

Sure enough, when Zhou Yan took action, it was different. The songs he wrote were completely different from the current popular songs.

The boy and the girl just stood like this and listened to "Little Hands Holding Big Hands" and "First Dream" twice. Then the girl walked to the new product shelf and picked up the CD on it.

"Just for these two songs, I have to buy a CD to listen to them."

At this time, a little girl next to her asked her, "Sister, is this album good?"

"It's nice, very nice. Zhou Yan wrote two songs for Kudo Shizuka, both of which are very nice. I haven't listened to the other eight songs yet, but with Zhou Yan's two songs, I've already made money. Little sister, don't hesitate, just go ahead and Let’s get it.”

Hearing what she said, the little girl made up her mind and nodded, "Yeah, I'll buy it too."

In just a short while, all three copies of "First Dream" on the shelf were sold out.

When the girl saw that there was no "First Dream" on the shelf, she kindly shouted to the boss, "Boss, it's time to replenish the stock."

……

Zhou Yan originally wanted to take Kudo Shizuka out for a big meal, but she had to eat mixed noodles.

Kudo Shizuka’s favorite thing to eat here is miso noodles, followed by dumplings.

Dumplings here are usually eaten as a staple food, but Shizuka Kudo likes to eat dumplings as a dish and eat them with rice.

Shizuka Kudo had done it once before in the studio cafeteria, which greatly reduced Zhou Yan's appetite. The last time he felt this way was when he went to Xicheng and saw locals pouring sugar into noodle bowls.

Now if Shizuka Kudo wants to eat mixed noodles, Zhou Yan will be satisfied, but if she wants to eat dumplings, Zhou Yan will not do it.

After eating, Shizuka Kudo wanted to go to the Audio and Video World again to see if anyone would buy her new album.

But Zhou Yan took her arm and said, "Don't go to the Audio Video World. I'll take you to another video store."

Kudo Shizuka blinked and asked doubtfully, "Is there a video store bigger than that one?"

Zhou Yan shook his head, "No, that video store is much smaller than the Great Video World."

Shizuka Kudo had a look of doubt on her face, "No one buys it in the big video stores. Will there be one in the small video stores?"

Zhou Yuan said with a smile, "Believe me."

Seeing that Zhou Yan was so confident, Kudo Shizuka didn't ask any more questions and allowed Zhou Yan to hold her hand and move forward.

Zhou Yan’s destination is the north gate of Yan Normal University.

Xidan is not close to Yan Normal University, it is several kilometers away, but the transportation is convenient. There is a big straight road in the middle, and you can get there in a short drive.

Yan Normal University has many gates, seven or eight large and small. There is a small street next to the north gate, where you can find food, drinks and entertainment. Students usually like to go shopping here.

Zhou Yan, Wang Xiaoshuai and the others met people from the support club at the north gate.

The original "Sixth Sense" crew office, which is now the Yanjing station of Zhou's company, was right next to that street. Zhou Yan often wandered around in the area before, so he knew it quite well.

There is a video store called "Feihong" next to the north gate, which usually gathers many music lovers, including Zhou Yan's fans.

Normally, it's hard to say who has the most fans in the store, but today is the day when "Initial Dream" is released, so Zhou Yan undoubtedly has the most fans in the store today.

Because of the existence of Yan Normal University Zhou Yan's support club, news about Zhou Yan always spreads very quickly here.

The fact that Zhou Yan wrote songs for Shizuka Kudo has been widely known in Yan Normal University since early on, and they also know the exact time when the album will be released.

Therefore, early this morning, a large number of Zhou Yan's music fans gathered at Feihong Audio and Video Store, just to check out the album "Initial Dream".

The boss, Wu Daoyou, had long expected this to happen, so as soon as the album arrived in the store, he made a new product information board specifically for "The First Dream". The entire information board only contained news about the album "The First Dream" .

At the same time, there were twenty "First Dream" tapes and five CDs placed on the best-selling rack near the door. There was a lot of cards.

This is not over yet. Since the morning, Feihong Video Store has been playing the entire album of "Initial Dream" on a loop.

In just one morning, Feihong sold more than 30 "First Dream" tapes and six CDs. For a video store of this size, the results are already very impressive.

When Zhou Yan and Shizuka Kudo arrived at the video store, there was no one in the store. The first wave of people had passed in the morning. In fact, it was just lunch time and many people were eating.

The boss, Wu Daoyou, was stocking the new product shelves. When he saw the two of them coming in, he greeted them with a smile, "What do you two need?"

Zhou Yan lowered his voice and asked, "Boss, do you still have "The Original Dream"?"

"Yes, this is a good deal. Are you also a member of the fan club?"

"I'm from the support club." Zhou Yan nodded, then pointed at Kudo Shizuka and said, "She hasn't joined the club yet."

"Your president and vice president have been here this morning."

After the boss put the album on the shelf, he smiled and said, "You can take it by yourself. If you are not sure whether to buy it or not, I have a walkman and a demo set. You can listen to it first and then make a decision. I just had dinner , the speaker was turned off for a while, it had been on all morning."

Kudo Shizuka asked from the side, "Boss, does the album sound good?"

The boss glanced at Shizuka Kudo. He felt that the girl's pronunciation was a bit strange, but he did not recognize that she was a neon person. After all, she only said these few words.

"It sounds good. I'm not just saying this to sell your album. All the guests here today said it sounds good."

After saying that, in order to increase the persuasiveness of his words, Wu Daoyou shouted to a customer in the store, "Fang Zhou, do you think so?"

Fang Zhou was a young man wearing glasses and should be a student from a nearby school. Hearing Wu Daoyou ask him, he pushed up his glasses and nodded with a smile, "Boss Wu is right, this album is indeed good, mainly written by Zhou Yan The two songs are very nice. One is "First Dream" and the other is "Little Hand Holds Big Hand". Both of the main songs are very nice."

"Did it sell well?"

"Okay, I sold thirty or forty copies in the morning, and I put the rest on the shelves. I have to call to replenish the goods right away. The goods in my store can only last until tomorrow at most." Wu Daoyou smiled. , without saying much to Zhou Yan and the others, he walked into the counter and said, "See for yourselves. If you need anything, call me."

Zhou Yan nodded, "Boss, you're busy, let's see for ourselves."

After the boss returned behind the counter, he turned on the speakers in the store and played the album "First Dream".

It should have been played before, so the album is played from the middle.

Kudo Shizuka looked at the dozens of albums on the shelves and was a little curious, "Why is it different here? Is it related to the support club?"

"It's not only related to the fan club, but right next to it is Yanjing Normal University. The market for college students is different. They receive information faster. For example, the scandal between the two of us is usually of concern to college students. More."

Nowadays, there are more college students chasing stars, because generally only college students have this channel and time.

Unlike twenty or thirty years later, middle school students are the main force chasing stars on the Internet.

"Oh, I see."

Zhou Yan picked up a tape from the shelf, looked at it, and said with a smile, "Actually, you don't have much reference value in this kind of video store to see whether the album is popular or not, unless you can cover most of the video stores in Yanjing. Run it once, otherwise the data you get will be inaccurate."

"I know, we can wait for the sales data to come out."

"That's not necessary. The data here in China is slower and less accurate. If you want to know whether an album is popular or not, just go to those small stalls and look. If eight out of ten vendors have it in their bags, The pirated version of this album proves that the album is popular.”

Shizuka Kudo showed a surprised expression, "You mean, piracy?" Zhou Yan nodded, "It's piracy. The sales volume of "Piano Boy" in the mainland is actually less than one million copies. I'm talking about tapes and CDs combined. But if it’s pirated, at least 10 million tapes have been sold.”

"One million, ten million? Such an exaggeration?"

Zhou Yan smiled, this is not an exaggeration. It is said that the sales of pirated tapes of "Black Panther 1" exceeded million.

Although the figure of over 1 million may not be true, the number of pirated tapes of "Black Panther 1" is definitely far more than million, while the genuine sales of "Black Panther " have just exceeded million, which is a huge gap.

There is still some copyright awareness in big cities, and some people will spend money to buy genuine copies in order to support the music they like.

In some small cities or rural towns, there is basically no awareness of copyright, and you can’t even buy genuine copies.

If you want to buy genuine copies, the owner of the video store must be willing to buy genuine copies.

Sometimes it’s not that customers don’t want to buy genuine products, it’s that they simply can’t distinguish genuine products from pirated ones.

Conscientious bosses will sell genuine and pirated products together, but they will also tell customers which one is genuine and which one is pirated, allowing them to choose.

It is completely normal for people who have no conscience to sell pirated copies as genuine ones.

Pirated tapes come into the store for one or two yuan, are priced at eight or nine yuan, and then let customers cut the price down to four or five yuan.

While making money from customers, customers also need to say thank you.

The most outrageous pirated version Zhou Yan had seen before was that someone mixed his two albums together and made one album called "Mysterious Boy".

The shop owner also told him that the album was a collector's edition and would cost twelve yuan a copy.

What's even more outrageous is that Zhou Yan bought one for three yuan, and now he still has a copy of "The Mysterious Boy (Zhou Yan's Hardcover Album)" at home.

The Feihong audio and video store where they are now actually sells pirated copies, but they are all clearly priced at three or four yuan each.

Because "First Dream" just came out, it hasn't been pirated yet, but it won't be easy to say after a while.

Those who engage in piracy are very powerful. Sometimes pirated versions of albums are made before the original album comes out.

Of course, some of these pirated tapes that were leaked in advance were actually leaked, while others were compiled by pirates.

If a certain king or queen wants to release a album and announce the album name in advance, some pirates will make their own cover, put the singer's photo on it, and then print the album name and sell it for takeout.

After the customer bought it back, he found that it contained mostly old songs that had already been released, and some of them were not even songs by the singer himself.

Shizuka Kudo actually knew in advance that the copyright awareness in China was not very good, but she did not expect it to be so outrageous.

"Are you distressed?" Shizuka Kudo looked at Zhou Yan, "With so many pirated copies, you are making a lot of money."

Zhou Yan said with a smile, "Just get used to it."

Of course he would be lying if he said he didn't feel bad. If there were no piracy, he would definitely make a lot more money.

But piracy exists for a reason.

Most people in China now have a monthly salary of less than 200, so how can we expect them to spend too much money on entertainment activities? This is true for music, and so is literature.

At this stage, many people cannot afford to buy even pirated tapes, let alone genuine ones.

These people's right to enjoy spiritual entertainment has been invisibly exploited. It is too harsh to ask these people to pay for copyright.

When a certain right that should be enjoyed by most people becomes a privilege that can only be enjoyed by a small number of people, then it is not just a problem for a certain person or a group of people, but a problem for the entire social environment.

Putting aside the pros and cons of piracy, at this stage, China does not have the conditions to combat piracy.

Zhou Yan believes that everything will be fine, but it will still take time.

"Perhaps, you can take me there in the future to see those vendors' bags."

"No problem, I'll take you to see it later."

The two of them stood in front of the shelves and chatted for a while, when they suddenly heard the sound of a guitar coming from behind the counter.

Zhou Yan looked around and saw his boss wearing headphones and playing the guitar.

After listening to it twice, Zhou Yan probably understood that this boss was picking up the score of "The Original Dream".

This surprised Zhou Yan. It is not difficult for him to pick up music scores, but that does not mean that it is very simple. For ordinary music lovers, it is pretty good if they can pick up music scores. The key point is that "The First Dream" is not about guitar. The accompaniment cannot be picked out and played on the guitar just by listening to it, it may also involve some adaptation.

Looks like this boss has something, otherwise he wouldn't even try.

However, Zhou Yan listened for a while and found that the boss's level was not particularly high. He picked up the score very slowly, was not sure about some parts, and made mistakes in some places. It was obvious that he had not done much research on the harmony direction, and just relied on a pair of ears to listen hard.

Zhou Yan wanted to correct him, but he held back. This was a video store, not his classroom. Being a teacher might be annoying.

But after that, the boss became more and more messy, and Zhou Yan became more and more anxious.

In the end, Zhou Yan couldn't bear it anymore, so he took out a small notebook from his pocket and wrote a simple paragraph. He mainly wrote down the direction of several harmonies, so that the shop owner could understand it when he saw it.

Especially when converting the key of Ab to the key of F, the key is that the fifth-level dominant chord of Ab is the seventh-level leading chord corresponding to the minor key of F. Zhou Yan can't teach people the functions of family chords and leading chords, so he can only write this section directly. come out.

After finishing writing, Zhou Yan tore off two small pages of music scores, silently placed them on the counter, and then took Shizuka Kudo away.

Not long after Zhou Yan and the others left, Fellow Daoist Wu raised his head.

He was scratching his head just now, focusing on the score, and didn't notice someone putting the paper on the counter.

When I looked up, I noticed two pages of paper lying on the counter.

"what is this?"

Fellow Daoist Wu muttered, took two pages and looked at them, and then he was stunned. There were dense music scores drawn on them.

And the score above perfectly solved the problem he just encountered.

Who wrote this? When was it put here?

Fellow Daoist Wu was confused.

He thought of the suspicious man and woman who had just appeared in the store, and suddenly stood up and ran out the door.

But when he ran outside the door, Zhou Yan and the others were nowhere to be found.

Wu Daoyou rubbed his head and returned to the store. The young man from before, Fang Zhou, asked doubtfully, "Boss Wu, what's wrong with you?"

"I met an expert."

"Expert? What expert?"

"I don't know what an expert is, but he is an expert anyway." Wu Daoyou looked at the music score again, "This music score is so beautifully written."

Although the paper is very small and the score is very dense, it can be seen that the person who wrote the score is very skilled and almost did it in one go, which means that this person should write the score frequently.

Just when Wu Daoyou was looking at the music score and wondering, two students happened to walk in.

Seeing the person coming, Wu Daoyou's eyes lit up, "Huang Nian, you are here just in time. I want to ask you something."

"What's the matter?"

"Do you have any musical experts in your support club?"

"Music expert? Does Senior Sister Xiaoting count?"

"Forget it Shu Xiaoting, she is not as good as me."

Huang Nian tilted his head and thought for a while, then said, "Where is senior brother Qin Xu?"

Fellow Daoist Wu shook his head, "I know Qin Xu, but what I want to ask is someone I don't know."

"That's all gone. Our normal school doesn't have any musical experts. And you also know most of the people in our support club."

Fellow Daoist Wu patted his head: "That's weird."

That man clearly said that he was from the support club. (End of chapter)