Huayu 1992, my entertainment era

Chapter 62 New Album Songs

After returning from the Pacific Ocean, Zhou Ziheng immediately devoted himself to the production of the new album.

Regarding the songs for the new album, Zhou Ziheng copied out ten songs from his mind after careful consideration.

Five of the songs selected are of above-average quality, but not very popular.

The most important ones are the five title songs.

The five songs are:
"Sad Pacific Ocean", "The Moon's Trouble", "How Much Love Can Come Back" and two Cantonese songs "Second Hand" and "The Edge of Love and Pain".

The reason for adding two Cantonese songs is mainly due to the consideration of the local market in Guangdong and the Hong Kong market.

At present, Zhou Ziheng has already made a name for himself in the mainland and is one of the top singers in the mainland.

Although the domestic market is enough for him.

But Zhou Ziheng still covets the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets.

Just like future domestic singers will have their status greatly increased when they return to China after achieving success abroad.

In this era, if a mainland singer can go around Hong Kong and Taiwan to gain some experience and then return to the mainland, his status and influence will be completely different.

Just like Cui Jian and Black Panther, why are they so respected in mainland China today?
Isn’t it because they have stepped out of the mainland and achieved remarkable results in Hong Kong and Taiwan?

Not to mention Zhou Ziheng, even Mao Amin, the current number one pop music star in mainland China.

She is still coveting the Hong Kong and Taiwan markets.

Zhou Ziheng heard the news that Mao Amin had reached an agreement with Huaxing Records and was about to go to Hong Kong and Taiwan to develop.

There is also Na Ying. Just after the Spring Festival, she signed a contract with Formosa Fumao Records, which means she officially entered Hong Kong and Taiwan.

For Zhou Ziheng, "Wandering Song" was both his success and his failure.

This tape is indeed very popular in the mainland.

But it also solidified Zhou Ziheng's style somewhat, although it was broken by several songs in "Golden Boy and Jade Girl".

But people in Hong Kong and Taiwan don't seem to be very interested in him.

No record company contacted him.

Of course, it may also be because the Hong Kong and Taiwan companies thought that Zhou Ziheng had signed a long-term contract with Pacific and could not cooperate with other companies.

Zhou Ziheng was not discouraged even though no Hong Kong or Taiwan companies noticed him.

Since no company came to me, I would use songs to open up the market.

"Sad Pacific" and "The Moon's Trouble" are the songs he sang while taking care of the mainland market and hoping to open up the Taiwan market.

"Second Hand" and "The Edge of Love and Pain" are the songs that opened up the Hong Kong and Macau markets.

Zhou Ziheng has great ambitions for this album.

Not only does he need to continue to consolidate his popularity in the mainland, he also needs to pry open the door to Hong Kong and Taiwan.

In fact, Zhou Ziheng has thought about making all the songs in an album into hits.

But after thinking about it carefully, he gave up the idea.

If you want an album to sell well, having many hit songs is indeed a good thing, as it can make the album a classic.

But it is not cost-effective at the moment.

No matter how good the sales of an album consisting of all golden songs are, the market is saturated and the maximum sales volume is a few million copies.

But if all the hit songs were separated and made into several albums, even if the sales were lower, they would not be much lower because of the one hit song.

In this way, the sales of several records added together will definitely be higher.

This has been successfully demonstrated by Pacific and New Era's "Golden Boy and Jade Girl".

This tape includes "The Waves Still Remain", "Late Autumn", "Heart Rain", and "Tell You Quietly".

Although they are mostly covers, they are all considered hits in mainland China.

This tape, which contains many golden songs, has sold very well in mainland China.

The current order volume has exceeded two million.

It sold more than 500,000 copies more than "Xiao Fang" from China Records.

But what album is this tape called "Xiao Fang"?
This is an album with only one popular song, "Xiao Fang".

The album, which had four or five hit songs, only sold more than half a million copies of "Xiao Fang".

It certainly won. But it also lost.

Because if all the songs on the tape "Golden Boy and Jade Girl" were split up, like "Xiao Fang" with one song as the main theme, four tapes could be released.

Given the quality of these songs, the sales of each tape would not exceed hundreds of thousands, or even millions.

Even if one copy only sold for 500,000, the figures would still be on par with "Golden Boy and Jade Girl".

Moreover, this is just a conservative estimate.

If each ticket costs one million, that would be four million, which is directly half of "The Golden Boy and the Jade Girl".

As far as Zhou Ziheng knew, New Era regretted putting together so many hits.

There is another very important factor to consider.

That is resource differentiation.

During this period, there was generally a rule for major radio stations to promote their songs, which was that when record companies sent tapes for promotion, they would ask which song to promote.

As for pushing it all, that is actually not very realistic.

The radio station does not belong to you alone.

The record industry is booming now, and there are countless record companies, most of which have close ties with these radio stations.

There are only a dozen or twenty places on a list. If you take up several places with just one tape, what will happen to other companies?
It’s impossible that they won’t make the list!

So, no matter how good the songs in your tape are, promoting one or two songs is the current mainstream.

Of course, it’s not impossible to promote more, just pay for it.

A large sum of money is invested, the publicity is in place, and the audience hears the song, they will naturally help to push it to the charts.

But that's not small money.

Anyway, Zhou Ziheng can't do it.

Although his tape will receive great support from Pacific, they will definitely not spend as much money as they did on promoting "Golden Boy and Jade Girl".

Therefore, Zhou Ziheng gave up the idea of ​​making all ten songs into hits.

Instead, they settled for second best, with the Mandarin market focusing on "Sad Pacific" and "The Moon's Trouble", while the Cantonese market focused on "Second Hand" and "The Edge of Love and Pain".

This will not only prevent the promotional resources from being too dispersed, but also make the songs on the tape diverse and include many good songs.

……

After deciding on the songs for the tape, the next step is naturally production.

The first is accompaniment production.

This step is very important.

Whether a song is good or not, the melody plays an important role in it.

A good song can be ruined if it’s not produced well.

In order to make the accompaniment as close to the original song as possible, Zhou Ziheng personally worked with the studio's accompanist Liang Yan to arrange the song over and over again.

Even, to ensure the quality of the music.

He also spent 20,000 yuan to invite a professional orchestra from Zhonglu Records to perform.

In fact, he could also continue to look for ordinary bands on the market to play his songs.

This kind of band will be much cheaper.

But, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for.

What a better orchestra plays is different.

The previous album "Wandering Song" had explosive sales.

But it is also inevitable to receive some criticism.

For example, the quality of the accompaniment is not very good.

Everyone, including Zhou Ziheng himself, knew this.

Therefore, in order to prevent this tape from being criticized again, Zhou Ziheng did not save money, but instead hired the most professional team.

(End of this chapter)