Respawn Entertainment: Days of Glory

When Bian Lang and Chen Shuting arrived at the dinner place, Guo Sichu and Liang Kuan, who had arrived earlier, looked at Bian Lang with a silly smile.

"Bian Lang, you are awesome this time. Liu Fang, who has never bowed her head to anyone, has deleted her Weibo, but Jason is still stubborn and refuses to admit anything..."

"Huh? What's going on?" Bian Lang, who had been listening to Chen Shuting telling him about the itinerary all the way, had no idea what Guo Sichu was talking about.

Hu Wenyuan happened to arrive at this time, and after a warm greeting, the few of them entered this private restaurant located on the East Third Ring Road.

The place was chosen by Hu Wenyuan. It was not big and the decoration inside was not exquisite, and even looked a bit shabby, which really did not fit the current definition of the word "private house".

But seeing that the waiters here were all elderly and well-spoken, Bian Lang felt that this place must be no ordinary place.

As soon as they entered the private room, Hu Wenyuan began to introduce it: "Don't be fooled by this shabby place. If you are not a gourmet in the imperial city, you will definitely not be able to find the way in. It specializes in making braised dishes, and it is called authentic..."

Bian Lang's interest increased when he heard this. He was well-known for Shandong cuisine, but he only knew about it and had never eaten it properly. He really wanted to see the unique skill of removing the bones from a whole chicken.

However, after the introduction, Hu Wenyuan immediately brought the topic back to what happened last night: "Bian Lang, I think you are too polite today! I have been doing this for so many years, and I grew up listening to the songs of the commander and others. Now I am just doing those boring and crappy evening parties every day. It's really sad to think about it. Fortunately, you came out. How can those of us who are still useful not stand up and support you!"

If these words were spoken by the two parties involved, Bian Lang would definitely just laugh it off. But Hu Wenyuan is different. Rolling Stone has two great people, Liu Ziyang and Olaf. The next cooperation will probably be at an event organized by a third party.

So Bian Lang’s reply was quite thoughtful: “Teacher Hu, your words are too polite. There are many people who think Chinese music is good, but there are not many pure people. You are definitely one of them. I have a very twisted personality sometimes. If I didn’t have capable people like you to help me, I would have been taken advantage of by those people a long time ago!”

Bian Lang said this without feeling embarrassed at all. Although he had lived two lives as a rock musician, he had seen enough and knew how to compromise. But he could never get rid of that rebellious nature.

Moreover, without the help of these people, he would never have been in this situation in the past year. Take what happened last night for example. If no one helped behind the scenes, he would have the time and mood to accompany Hu Wenyuan for this meal.

"You, don't be so modest. You should be a bit rebellious to be like a rock musician. If you had held back until the very end yesterday, I, Old Hu, would have looked down on you... Let's not talk about this. Do you know why Liu Fang deleted her Weibo post and admitted defeat?"

Not to mention Bian Lang, even Liang Kuan could only guess about this matter.

So he was very curious, why did this female host who never gave in retreat directly before he, the main character, even made a move: "Teacher Hu, please speak!"

"Lao Jiang called me personally this morning to apologize, saying that Liu Fang did not control her fans' words and deeds in time, and the station has temporarily given her a holiday!"

When Liang Kuan heard the result, she felt something was wrong. According to her understanding of the fruit station, it was not something that violated the bottom line, so the punishment would not be so severe.

"Old Hu, this is impossible, right?"

Hu Wenyuan knew what was meant, and he continued to explain: "How could Fruit TV bow down just for my sake? Lao Jiang told me that it was because several people who had a good relationship with the Rolling Stones told them that they would postpone their future activities. The leader was Silva from abroad..."

"Silva alone is not enough, who are the others? We can't forget their kindness. No, there must be other things involved..." Liang Kuan spoke so frankly, and he didn't mean to look down on anyone. It was because Fruit Channel was the best among domestic satellite TV stations in the field of entertainment.

Under normal circumstances, they will not accept provocation from anyone, even from an international star like Silva. Because with so many ace planners competing against them, the fame and traffic bonus of star artists are really not indispensable to them.

For example, if you, Guo Sichu, are unwilling to come, there will always be someone who is just one step behind you and is willing to take your place at any time!

"I don't know about that. I guess even if Lao Jiang knew, he wouldn't tell anyone. Let's leave it at that. Bian Lang, I want to ask you something. I went back last night and studied the song 'The Imperfect Comedy' for a long time. I found that the song 'One Hundred Thousand Hippies' that you sang at the music festival should be in the same style. Are you planning to release an album?"

When asked this, Bian Lang answered confidently: "Well, I plan to polish it carefully and release it by the end of the year."

"My goodness, judging from the speed at which you wrote songs in the past year, it will take you half a year to prepare an album. By then, you will be a legend. Tell me, how did you come up with the idea for this arrangement..."

To talk about this, Bian Lang feels that he cannot finish in a day and a night. The reason is that Wan Qing is indeed another peak of arrangement in the Hua Xia band after Lao Cui and Tang Chao.

They release an album every 10 years, and there are really not many rivals in China in terms of music arrangement.

According to a more common saying, Wan Qing's works have a jazz flavor. Whether it is a random creation or a jazz flavor that has been tainted by grunge rock, this may be an aspect that is easily overlooked when people talk about Wan Qing's style elements and teachers.

This is not only reflected in the local processing, such as the phrases of the trumpet in the interlude before the last chorus of "Kill That Shijiazhuang Man", and the timbre and playing method of the drums in "Heart-wrenching Jokes and Almighty Daydreams", but also in the band's musical attitude and arrangement awareness.

The structure of Wan Qing's songs is more bizarre and complex than most domestic pop music works. He intentionally breaks the common repetitive paragraph organization of the main chorus and AB sections. The interludes are varied and the boundaries between them and the coda are also vague. The fun of instrumental performance itself and the expression of singing complement each other.

Take last night's song "The Imperfect Comedy" for example, the lyrics have profound meanings, which are expressed in just a few words, and the rest is left to the competition and chorus of the various instruments.

Thinking of the original Earth's interpretation of Wan Qing, Bian Lang wanted to ask Hu Wenyuan, an outsider, how he understood Wan Qing's arrangement: "Teacher Hu, why don't you tell me your opinion first?"

When he said this, the waiter came with the dishes. Hu Wenyuan said, "Eat first, eat first..." and then started talking about the dishes on the table.

After showing off the Shandong cuisine, seeing that everyone had a base in their stomachs and feeling that he had thought about it, Hu Wenyuan said seriously: "Then let me talk about the song last night!"

Hearing the change of topic, Bian Lang immediately put down his chopsticks, took a sip of cucumber juice to suppress it, and listened carefully.

"The guitar solo has a fusion flavor, the drums and bass stand out when the whole piece slows down, the band cuts in unison from slow to fast, the large space rendering of wind instruments and electronic sound effects, the rhythm guitar sets off the ending phrase of the trumpet... The arrangement is very sophisticated, and each section is handed over to each instrument in an orderly manner, each with its own home and away fields. It is this kind of layered sense of each instrument being in its proper place and coming in and out of the handover that I personally think shows the jazz gene in you.

I feel that the jazz gene in you is quite different from others. To sum it up, I feel it is: serious play, exquisiteness from the roots of the times and complexity of the form towards the inner self..."

This last sentence really confused Bian Lang. In his previous life, whether he was listening to other people's comments or thinking about it himself, he had put a lot of effort into Wan Qing's words, but he felt that although what Hu Wenyuan said was confusing, it really made sense.

Usually before we answer a question, we will first clarify some concepts. For example, if we are discussing "arrangement" now, then the normal way of thinking would be to think about what "arrangement" is. According to Bian Lang, the arrangement he understands is the band's instrumentation ability.

Take Wan Qing's famous song "S Kill That SJZ Person" for example. The types of musical instruments used in it are richer than those in most rock music, including acoustic guitar, mandolin, ten-hole harmonica, cello, trumpet, saxophone, electric guitar, bass, and drum set.

The arrangement of musical instruments is layered, closely following the lyrics and gradually enhancing the emotional expression.

There are two semantic designs that left a particularly deep impression on Bian Lang. One of them is that after the first paragraph of the lyrics is sung, the cello solo enters. At 1 minute and 47 seconds, the rapid vibrato of the bow rubbing against the strings perfectly expresses the sense of collapse and destruction of a collapsing building.

Another is that after the third verse is sung, at 3:27, the sound of the electric guitar pick is like a horse neighing, bringing the song to a climax, and the trumpet, saxophone, electric guitar, drums, and saxophone play together, which strongly expresses the scene of "ten thousand unbridled horses running in his mind".

This is just a typical example. There are many more details in the songs that can show the instrumentation ability of Wan Qing's band. Almost every song has reached the level of "Let Me Go Wild on the Snow". Bian Lang thinks that Wan Qing's seriousness and refinement in arranging music can be said to be the leader of rock music after Lao Cui.

Thinking about this, and facing Hu Wenyuan's evaluation, Bian Lang accepted it without any modesty: "Teacher Hu, when the album comes out, I will send you one of the first copies from this batch!"

"Then it's settled..."

Knowing that Bian Lang and the others had important things to do later, the meal ended in a somewhat unsatisfactory atmosphere.

When Bian Lang and his team arrived at the Edan headquarters, they were half an hour ahead of schedule. Liu Chenglong, who came to pick them up, trotted over as soon as he saw Bian Lang: "Teacher Bian, we've been waiting for you..." Then he pulled Bian Lang to the side of the office building.

"Teacher Bian Lang, I'll take you to the lounge in the annex building for a while. The friends from the media are waiting to ask about what happened yesterday. I want to check with you first..."

The Rolling Stone team had already discussed this on the way here, so when Bian Lang heard this, he immediately agreed and said, "Then please let Director Liu lead the way."

I had just arrived in the lounge and hadn't even sat down yet when Ma Yuan arrived.

Judging from the frequency of his breathing, he definitely didn't come here leisurely. Seeing Bian Lang, he adjusted himself before speaking: "Old Liu, the inside story of this matter has come out."

"Hmm?" Almost everyone present knew what Lao Liu was talking about without asking. So at this time, many people looked towards Ma Yuan with concern.

Ma Yuan didn't let everyone wait too long and quickly explained the details!

After that, Liang Kuan was not calm anymore: "Tax issue, she dared to cross this red line, then suspension may be just the first step, there will be more troubles waiting for her later! The key is who has such great magical powers, and this time he hit so accurately!"

"It was reported jointly by several netizens, including 100,000 hippies..."

At this moment, Bian Lang’s thought was: “Wow, there are so many talented people among these rock fans!” As for blaming others or something, Bian Lang was too lazy to think about it in the direction of conspiracy theories.

After all, according to what he knew about Liu Fang, she must have as many haters as she had loyal fans, and there must be many people in the circle who disliked her behind her back. And everyone in the circle knew all about these things, and if you pull out the carrot, you will find the mud. She might be the abandoned pawn thrown out by those people behind the scenes.

But based on what happened last night, there will definitely be a lot of negative comments thrown at the Rolling Stones. However, on the issue of taxes, the attitude of the Rolling Stones, starting with Bian Lang, is very clear: they are determined not to do such things.

So if it is dirty water in this area, the Rolling Stones are not afraid at all.

After figuring this out, Bian Lang finally spoke up: "It's okay, I'll refuse anything other than music later!"

Hearing this, Liu Chenglong and Ma Yuan were a little surprised, because they knew too well what the bottom line of media people is.

Even if they accepted your red envelopes, when faced with such heavy news that could be revealed based on their feelings, how could they miss the opportunity to anger Bian Lang in person? This matter is simply out of control!

But Bian Lang is not the kind of person who would swallow his anger, so...

Seeing that the two still had concerns, Bian Lang smiled and said, "After this, I finally figured it out. The glamorous entertainment industry is not something that someone like me can handle. In the future, I will not participate in activities that have too much overlap with the entire entertainment industry..."

When these words came out, Ma Yuan and Liu Chenglong were stunned at first. This was mainly because they couldn't judge the scope of the activities that Bian Lang mentioned...

But think about it from another perspective. No matter what is included, this signing ceremony will probably be a swan song, which is definitely a good thing for them.

Bian Lang really did what he said. After the signing ceremony, he said, "I hope Chinese rock will go global!"

Then he just left without giving the media friends even a second for an interview.

The next day, all kinds of baseless slander and sarcasm were directed at Rolling Stone:

"Chinese rock has gone global. Does Bian Lang really think he has the ability to say such things?"

"Don't think that being a guest at someone's show in Europe counts as going abroad. They are just giving you face for the sake of money..."

"What a crap music! Boycott rock music! Boycott the Rolling Stones!"

As for Bian Lang, a single photo silenced the media who were waiting for his response.

After Bian Lang and Yiwo reunited, they took a group photo on the stage of the island country's performance venue.

A Japanese man from Japan replied: "EMMM, this is a dome, it can accommodate 5.5 people! The Rolling Stones are going to be the guest performer at Panama, MD, why didn't you tell me earlier..."