Conquer America, Start with a Boxing Champion

"Hey, Link, you are really amazing. First you are the world boxing champion, the pop king, and now you are the Berlin Film Emperor. You are so versatile."

"Link, you seem to be able to do everything to the extreme. You are so amazing."

"Yes, he is amazing. He even wants to be a scumbag to the extreme."

Hahaha~

At the Grammy Awards ceremony at the Staples Center, Katy Perry, Miley Cyrus, Lady Gaga, and Kesha saw him and joked about him.

Link shrugged helplessly. Compared with last year and the year before, he has corrected a lot in terms of men and women. In addition to the original few female companions, he has not added any other women. At least in Europe and the United States.

But even if he is willing to correct himself, he is still regarded as a scumbag, which makes him speechless.

"Hey, everyone, it's been a while since we last met. Are you sure you want to tease me like this? Be careful or I'll call you a scumbag."

Link smiled lightly, his eyes swept from Katy Perry and Lady Gaga to Kesha and the others. Among these women, except for Miley Cyrus who is a little younger, each has a rich love history.

Last year, Lady Gaga publicly admitted in a celebrity interview program that she had played sports with more than three people.

Katy Perry got married to British comedian and 2009 MTV Tape Awards host Russell Brand two years ago, and announced their divorce in December last year. She turned to date Italian male model Baptiste, but they broke up after less than a month of dating.

Kesha is also a famous big player in the circle.

Compared with them, Link felt that he was quite pure.

"Okay, let you go first, Link, you came at the right time, we have something serious to discuss with you."

Lady Gaga and the others asked him to sit down and talked about their serious matters.

The things they asked were related to Spotify.

Now Spotify has entered North America, and many musicians upload songs to the platform for release.

Including Link and several other singers, Spotify has also acquired copyrights and bought the right to play tens of millions of songs. The current Spotify platform has more than 30 million tracks, which is no less than Amazon Music Store and iTunes Music Store.

Unlike the two, Spotify currently offers free music. Many songs that require money to listen to on other platforms can be listened to for free on Spotify, including new songs by popular singers, advocating small profits but quick turnover.

Spotify provides both free and paid services. Free users will be inserted with certain advertisements when using Spotify's services, while paid users will not have advertisements and have better sound quality, at $9.99 per month.

Free users cannot switch songs at will on their mobile phones, nor can they play offline, but paid users can.

Spotify mainly makes profits through traffic and advertising, as well as some paid users.

After the singer uploads the song to the Spotify platform, he will receive a share of the royalties.

For each song played each time, the copyright holder of the song can get about $0.008 in share.

Assuming that all copyrights of a song are under the name of the singer, the singer will receive all $0.008, but in fact, except for independent singers, most song copyrights are under record companies.

In this respect, the singer's income will become less.

This is also the reason why Katy Perry and others are reluctant to put songs on the Spotify platform.

But the record company has a positive attitude towards this matter, because in addition to Link Music, the other five major record companies also own a lot of shares in Spotify.

In this form, the record company can not only get a share of the song royalties, but also a share of Spotify's profits.

This situation also leads to conflicts between the record company and its singers.

For strong singers such as Lady Gaga and Katy Perry, the company will consult with them when putting their songs on the Spotify platform, and upload them after they agree.

For musicians who don't have much copyright, it is inevitable for songs to go through streaming channels, such as Kesha, whose song copyrights are all in the hands of the company.

Lady Gaga and others consulted with him and asked him whether it was cost-effective for new songs to go through free channels.

Link did not say whether it was cost-effective, but just told them that it is now the Internet age, and it is a trend to release songs through streaming channels.

In 2009, the total revenue of the music market was 14 billion, and streaming media was only 600 million. This year, the total revenue of the music market is 16.4 billion US dollars, and the global digital music sales are 4.8 billion US dollars, accounting for 30% of the total sales, which is nearly eight times higher than in 2009.

In the past, many musicians rejected online streaming music, believing that digital music is killing music, but from the current situation, streaming media is also saving the music market, among which iTunes, Spotify, online streaming, radio and other platforms play a significant role.

"Will putting songs on free platforms make our music cheaper?"

Katy Perry asked.

The others nodded. Musicians are artists, and songs are works of art. No one wants the works of art they create to become cheap.

Link smiled lightly and said that doing so would indeed make the songs cheaper, but it was also inevitable.

In the Internet age, with the explosion of information, there are more entertainment methods that can replace music, such as movies, music, online games, novels, news, etc. In the past, watching movies and listening to music was a luxury that ordinary people could not afford. Now, they can be consumed anytime and anywhere through mobile phones and computers.

In addition, things are precious because they are rare. In the past, when communication was not well developed, you could not hear a new song for several months. Now there are tens of millions of songs on the Internet. Too many songs will inevitably lead to songs becoming cheap. Not only songs, but also movies, games, novels, etc. are becoming cheap.

If you still regard music as a work of art at this time and are unwilling to lower your posture, you will be at risk of being eliminated.

"Link, listen to what you say, you are becoming more and more like a capitalist, and you think about problems from the perspective of capital, not a singer."

Carrie Underwood pointed at him and joked, and bumped into Taylor Swift next to her.

Link shook his head, glanced at Taylor and said, "The main function of music is to entertain the public. It is more valuable when more people hear it. Before the Internet, it was difficult for local singers' songs to spread around the world, and our fans were limited to Europe and the United States. The same is true for movies. In the past, only relatively wealthy people were willing to spend money to buy albums and watch movies. With free platforms, poor people can also enjoy wonderful popular music. Is this a kind of human rights equality?"

"."

Hearing him say this, no one could refute it. He said that free music was too noble, and those who wanted to make money through music seemed a bit vulgar.

Only Taylor wrinkled his nose and disdained his statement, "If everyone listens to free songs, musicians cannot realize their own value, nor get the respect they deserve. They will lose the passion and motivation for creation, and the quality of music works will seriously decline. Now there is such a trend on the Internet, and there are more and more bad songs. Do you think this will be better?"

"Taylor is right!"

Everyone nodded and stood on Taylor's side.

Link smiled lightly, "Not necessarily. Here's a number. Currently, Spotify has 32 million registered users worldwide. After my new album was launched on Spotify, in just one month, about 22 million users have listened to all the songs in my album, including 4 million paying users. The royalty income on the free platform has now reached 25% of the income from physical records. In the future, this number will grow and the profit will not be less."

"That's because you are a shareholder of Spotify. Others can't enjoy so many special treatments."

Katy Perry said.

"No, the promotion resource allocation of the Spotify platform mainly depends on the quality of the song. It is allocated based on big data. The higher the quality of the song, the more promotion resources the singer will get.

I think it's not bad for competitive singers, such as you guys, to use Spotify as a promotion channel. If you can eat up most of the promotion resources, the profit will not be less than selling physical records. If you are interested, you can try it with a few songs."

Link suggested.

Katy Perry and others nodded.

In fact, Link really wanted to persuade them to join Link Music. Link Music is a major shareholder of Spotify. After joining Link Music, they will get corresponding shares.

For example, Mars and Lana Del Rey hold more than 1% of Link Music shares, with a market value of more than 10 million, while Wiz Khalifa holds less than 1%. The shares will gradually increase in the future. Even if they stop being singers, they can still get a large amount of royalties and company profit shares every year.

With Link Music shares, singers can not only get royalties from Spotify, but also get Spotify profit shares, killing two birds with one stone.

But if you recruit people in public, you will be regarded as a capitalist and think you want to exploit them. Link decided to slow down and leave these matters to his agents.

——

After a few words, the Grammy Awards ceremony began.

Several new singers who debuted last year were invited to perform on stage, including Ariana Grande and Charlie Puth. Ariana Grande sang her original song "Put Your Hearts Up", and Charlie Puth and Selena sang "We don't talk anymore".

Seeing Selena twisting around on the stage in a sexy dress and mature makeup, Link wanted to laugh. He felt that she seemed to have grown up, but not too old. She still had the visual sense of stealing adult clothes.

Turning back, he noticed that Taylor had glanced at him, and he put away his smile and asked, "When will the new album be released?"

"Why are you asking this?"

Taylor looked at the performance at the front desk and asked with his lips moving slightly.

"You will be busy releasing the album and will not have time to look after the children at home. During that time, I can take care of Alexander and Cynthia temporarily."

Link said.

"No, based on your previous performance, I don't think you can take good care of them."

Taylor said lightly.

"Before? I didn't do anything dangerous with them. Well, even if I did, I would correct it and ensure that they eat happily and play happily, like happy little angels, how about it?"

Link asked softly.

Taylor did not answer him and continued to watch the performance on the stage.

After the opening performance, the award ceremony chairman Neil Burton came on stage to recall Whitney Houston, saying that when Whitney Houston debuted at the age of 19, she had "a big hair, a beautiful face, and a beautiful voice."

This caused a sigh at the scene.

After the memorial service, the awards were presented on stage.

This year's Grammy Awards have undergone major changes, with the number of awards reduced from 109 last year to 78.

The previous Best Pop, Best R\u0026B, and Best Country Vocals are no longer classified, but are all grouped together as the Best Pop Vocal Album of the Year. In terms of singer gender, there is no distinction between male and female singers, and only one Best Pop Vocal Award remains.

The reduction in awards has also led to more intense competition.

That night, Adele became the biggest winner of this year's Grammy Awards, winning 5 out of 6 nominations, and won several of the most valuable awards, including Record of the Year, Album of the Year, Song of the Year, Best Pop Vocal Award, and Best Short Video.

The Foo Fighters won 4 out of 6 nominations, and with their new album "Walk", they won the four most important rock awards: Best Metal Performance, Best Heavy Metal Performance, Best Rock Song, and Best Rock Album.

Kanye West won 2 out of 7 nominations, and won Best Rap Album and Best Rap Song.

Taylor successfully won Best Children's Music Album.

Bruno Mars won 1 out of 6 nominations, and won Best Pop Vocal Album.

Justin Vernon, a famous American folk singer, became the biggest dark horse of this year's Grammy Awards, winning the Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album awards.

Link had announced in advance that he would not take any awards, so he only attended as an award presenter.

Overall, this year's Grammy Awards had some surprises, but they were generally not bad.

Without Link's participation, Taylor and Katy Perry did not release official albums last year, and the new albums of Lady Gaga and Beyonce received mediocre responses, which also led to Adele's popularity this year, and her new album does have this strength.

After the Grammy Awards, Taylor and her two children also moved from Nashville to Los Angeles. Link arranged a special plane to pick them up in person, and stayed in Taylor's new mansion to play with the children for two days.

By mid-February, "Buried" will be released in North America, and the boxing match is not far away, so he has to get busy again.