Chinese entertainment, from radio love songs to superstars

Chapter 180: Taking advantage of the opportunity
Compared to the last time I saw her, Anita Mui looked much thinner and more haggard, and was in very bad condition.

Moreover, her emotions were not very stable. While lying on the hospital bed and chatting with Shen Lang and Zhang Guorong, sometimes she would say confidently, "I'm fine," and sometimes she would sigh depressedly, "It doesn't matter."

This couldn't go on any longer, so Shen Lang and Zhang Guorong began to seriously discuss with her about switching to Western medicine for treatment, and she finally agreed.

On July 7, she received her first radiotherapy. But in fact her condition was already very serious at that time. The tumor was bleeding severely and her body was getting thinner and thinner. However, she gritted her teeth and endured it, and survived the radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

After staying with Anita Mui in the hospital for a week, Shen Lang returned to Yanjing, and Zhang Guorong stayed in Hong Kong.

"How is Sister Mei?" As soon as she came back, Gao Yuanyuan asked Shen Lang about Mei Yanfang's situation.

"The situation is not very optimistic. When you go to Hong Kong, please take the time to spend more time with her." Shen Lang was really helpless about this matter. This was also the time when he felt the most powerless since he traveled through time.

"Yes, I will." Gao Yuanyuan nodded heavily and went there to film "New Police Story" in a few days.

After being in a daze for the whole morning and adjusting his mood, Shen Lang went to the study, turned on the computer and logged into his email.

After deleting a few advertising emails, the remaining ones were from Chen Yaochuan and Ning Hao, reporting on the latest developments of Jingtao Music and Julang Films.

Knowing that he had something to do in Hong Kong, I didn't call him.

Shen Lang moved the mouse and clicked on the email to read it.

This is Julang Film and Television.

The crew of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" has arrived in Hengdian and held a start-up ceremony on the morning of the 18th.

The crew of "The Lotus Lantern" also gathered in Hengdian and held a start-up ceremony on the morning of the 19th.

The casting for "Crazy Stone" has been successfully completed and filming is scheduled to start on August 8 in Chongqing.

"Full House" has also completed its casting and is scheduled to start filming in Incheon on August 8.

At the same time, he obtained an investment share of 400 million from "A World Without Thieves" and recommended Wang Baoqiang to Feng Xiaogang. Wang Baoqiang was nominated for the "Best Newcomer Award" at the th Golden Horse Film Awards and the "Best Actor Award" at the nd Bangkok International Film Festival for his role as Yuan Fengming in "Blind Shaft".

Finally, the script of "Painted Skin" has been completed, while the scripts of "Lost on Journey" and "Kung Fu Panda" are progressing slowly and are expected to be completed by the end of the year.

On Jingtao's side, Liu Yifei and Shu Chang's EP "Persian Cat" sold 58 copies across Asia in one month. It is worth mentioning that it sold 27 copies in Formosa Province, surpassing SHE's album "Together+New Songs+Selected" of 26 copies. It also had good sales in Hong Kong. The song "Next Stop Queen" even made it to the top three on radio demand.

The sales of Huang Bo's single "Ten Thousand Reasons" are still lukewarm, just over 10 copies, but the number of ringtone downloads has exceeded 100 million, making it the best-selling ringtone at the moment.

At the end of June, Angela Chang released her first solo album, "Shocking Waves·Elle Chang", which was led by the title song "Aurora" customized by Shen Lang and "Fable", a song in the 1 of 2 excellent + 7 good + 2 average mode. The sales in half a month were 16 copies, which is a good result, also at the level of 50 copies.

Fiona Sit’s debut album “Shocking Waves·Fiona Sit” has been completed, the title song “Zhong Wuyan” has been submitted for charts, and will be officially released on July 7.

The only ones left were Shen Lang’s, and he left them to read last.

Another month has passed, and with the support of various popularity, the album "Love Transfer" released on April 4 has sold 1 million copies, a sharp increase of 305 copies.

The album before this, "2002 Shen Lang Selection", was released a long time ago because of the many activities and film and television songs. It has been pirated and sold more than 30 copies in more than half a year.

Next is ringtones, which still top the list in terms of total downloads thanks to the large number of high-quality songs.

Then came the English album "Towering Waves" that I had been longing for. Because Anita Mui was seriously ill and hospitalized, I went to Hong Kong, but I haven't seen the result until now.

Looking up is the sales data for the first week. 86 copies were sold in Asia, including 21 copies in the mainland, 7 copies in Hong Kong, 17 copies in Formosa Province, 35 copies in South Korea, and 9 copies in Japan. 167 million copies were sold outside of Asia, including 91 copies in European countries and 30 copies in the United States.

With global sales of 7 million copies in 253 days, it can be said to be the best in Asia.

According to this trend, domestic sales due to piracy and English albums should be around 150 million copies. Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Australia can sell about 100 million copies in total. Copyrights in Europe and the United States are relatively complete and piracy is relatively rare, so we can go for a long-term plan. Selling 600 million copies will not be a problem. The remaining countries can make up 50 copies, so there is only 1000 million copies short of the expected 100 million copies, which can be considered to be on target.

Looking at the charts again, this time the album was released in 45 countries, and all 10 songs in the album entered the top 100 of the most authoritative music charts in all countries, with most of them ranking between 20th and 60th.

The two songs "We Are Young" and "Viva La Vida" were the most popular in Europe, topping the music charts in nine countries including the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Austria, France, the Czech Republic, Portugal, Iceland and Poland.

The song "Uptown Funk" is the most popular in America, topping the music charts in Canada and Mexico.

As for the US Billboard singles chart, ten songs entered the top 30 and four songs entered the top 10, namely "Uptown Funk" at second, "You're Beautiful" at third, "We Are Young" at fifth, and "Viva La Vida" at eighth.

The weekly champion in the first week of July was "Crazy in Love", a song from Beyoncé's first solo album "Dangerously in Love" released last month.

Her album also won the championship of another Billboard album chart, and Shen Lang's "Shen Lang·Towering Waves" also ranked second.

He is only one step away from winning the championship, but Shen Lang is not in a hurry at all. Based on the popularity, he will win it sooner or later.

He also breathed a sigh of relief, as his efforts on this English album finally paid off.

Making money and reaching the top are done, and the only thing left is to get the prize.

This time, Shen Lang dominated the billboard charts with great performance.

There is no need to worry about sales. As long as the estimated sales are achieved, I cannot say that this data will be the world's number one in 2003, but it will definitely not fall out of the top five.

Moreover, the 10 songs cover a variety of music styles, so there are more awards that can be nominated.

He remembered that the biggest winner of the 2003 Grammy Awards was Beyonce. Her song "Crazy in Love" was one of the most influential songs of the year and won two awards: Best R&B Single and Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. She also won Best R&B Female Vocalist, Best Contemporary R&B Album and Best R&B Group Performance.

From this perspective, there is no conflict with him, it is just that he cannot be nominated for the award.

In other words, he will at least get a trophy at the next Grammy Awards.

“Everything is going well.”

Shen Lang leaned back leisurely, a satisfied smile on his face.

This "everything" also includes investment.

He hoarded gold, bought houses in several first-tier cities, and purchased Moutai stocks, but these are just small things.

The focus is on the number of Internet companies that were invested in. The ones that were still able to make a splash during the SARS period were Alibaba, Penguin and JD.

Before the outbreak of SARS, Dongzi's business was going smoothly. JD Multimedia was established in 1998, mainly engaged in the agency of optical and magnetic products such as CDs and burners. Within a few years, they became the largest agent in this field in the country. Dongzi planned to set up 500 counters with the goal of becoming the "Gome" of the electronics industry.

SARS changed everything. In just 21 days, JD Multimedia lost more than 800 million yuan, while the company had less than 3000 million yuan in its account. Dongzi was a focused person. Apart from his own business, he didn't care much about or understand many things.

Therefore, when Shen Lang invested another 1000 million, he proposed the idea of ​​"Internet transactions" to Dongzi. However, Dongzi was an "Internet blind" who had never used QQ, so he did not have any sense of enlightenment, because he had never thought that he would have anything to do with the Internet.

Forced by the SARS situation, Dongzi had no choice but to accept Shen Lang's suggestion and mobilize employees to post advertisements on forums of major portals and vertical websites, and then promote products to interested customers through QQ. This is how the prototype of JD Mall began.

The impact of SARS on Alibaba was almost catastrophic. It originated from a decision made by Jack Ma in the spring of 2003. After the outbreak of SARS, the 4rd Canton Fair was held as scheduled in Yangcheng in mid-April.

Due to contact with the source of the disease, all employees had to work from home. As a result, things turned around. Alibaba maintained normal operations, and its performance came in like snowflakes. During the SARS period, many companies that sneered at e-commerce suffered heavy losses, but more than half of Alibaba's 140 million member companies in China achieved leapfrog and explosive growth. During this period, Alibaba added 3500 new members every day, the daily supply and demand information volume increased fivefold, and the daily revenue was 5 million yuan.

Another significant event was the launch of Taobao on May 2003, 5. On that day, Jack Ma was still in quarantine at home and unable to celebrate with the team. He got a call from the team at 10 o'clock in the evening, raised his glass in the air, and said, "May Taobao have a smooth journey."

On the day of the launch, Taobao posted a message: "In memory of those who worked hard during the SARS period."

Pony Ma was much less affected by SARS. As people stayed at home, products suitable for staying at home - such as social networking, e-commerce, games, and film and television - were more or less driven by this situation.

In June 2003, the number of registered QQ users rose to 6 million. It is not surprising that Penguin, which is mainly based on QQ, has been able to develop rapidly.

Pony Ma did two big things: launching QQ Show and Q Coins, which brought Penguin into the era of profitability. This also helped Penguin find a way to "money out" Internet value-added services, launch the QQ game platform, enter the game field for the first time, and start the journey of Penguin to build a game empire.

In fact, the SARS period in 2003 was also the first spring for China's Internet after the bubble crisis at the turn of the century.

Countless people transmitted information through mobile services, expanding the total business volume of operators such as China Mobile. Under the threat of SARS, people spent more time at home, turned on their computers, and started shopping, playing games, browsing news, reading novels, and submitting resumes...

The three major portals, Sina, Sohu and NetEase, all achieved their first full-year profit since their listing this year; Qidian launched a paid reading model; countless people chose to submit resumes online to find jobs, and 166job's online recruitment service revenue increased by %, and it completed its listing in the United States.

The investment market has begun to regain confidence in China's Internet. According to statistics from the first half of the year, China has a total of 3089 million Internet-connected computers and 7950 million Internet users, both of which have increased by about 50% over the previous year. The Internet era is about to arrive.

Shen Lang's focus is not just on the domestic market. While he is trying to impact the foreign music market, he is also opening accounts and purchasing stocks and real estate.

The thing that made him happiest was that he emptied his own wallet and took advantage of the opportunity to become Nvidia's largest shareholder.

In 1999, NVIDIA was listed on the NASDAQ with a market value of approximately US$2 million. That year, the company launched the world's first full-featured GPU that truly replaced CPU rendering - GeForce 3.

Then the road became wider and wider. In 2000, it acquired the former graphics card leader 3dfx, won the order for Sony PS, and reached a cross-licensing agreement with Intel.

But last year, due to the failure of its cooperation with Microsoft Xbox, Nvidia's operating revenue was cut in half and its stock price fell from US$70 to US$7, a staggering 90% drop in one year. Its market value is less than a fraction of its previous value.

Who would have thought that a dying company would have a share price of $120 and a market value of over $3 trillion years later.

In fact, you can also buy Microsoft stock.

After the tech stock market bubble burst in 1999, Microsoft's stock price reached an all-time high of $58.38, but this year, Microsoft's stock price has fallen back to $23.

Twenty years later, the stock price exceeded US$400 and the market value also exceeded US$3 trillion.

However, Shen Lang didn’t have that much money at the moment.

But there is still a chance. Once the money from the album "Shen Lang·Towering Waves" is recovered, I can get a hand in companies like Google, which has not yet gone public and is still unknown, Facebook, which is still in its infancy, and Apple, whose stock price plummeted to $7 due to Steve Jobs selling it.

"Shen Lang, it's time to eat!"

Gao Yuanyuan's voice coming from outside the study interrupted Shen Lang's sweet dream. He turned off the computer, got up and went out to eat.

"Are you playing games? You haven't come out for hours." Gao Yuanyuan asked while serving him food.

"No, I'm reading the company's report." Shen Lang took the dishes from her and replied.

"Oh, then I didn't disturb you, did I?" Gao Yuanyuan looked worried. She didn't know much about the two companies, Julang and Jingtao, whether they were music or film and television. Although Shen Lang always said that she was the boss's wife, she knew her position clearly and understood her position, so she never participated or even asked about it.

"Don't disturb me. How does the saying go? Eating is the most important thing in the world." Shen Lang said with a smile.

"That's fine. Let's eat. You've been running around this month and must be very tired. I'll cook all your favorite dishes." Gao Yuanyuan said caringly.

In this warm atmosphere, the two enjoyed the sumptuous meal together.

Shen Lang went from Yanjing to Tiaobei, then to New York, Washington, Boston, Los Angeles, then back to Tiaobei, and then to Hong Kong. After a round trip back to Yanjing, he was either on the plane or on the way to the plane. Not to mention resting, he was all about adjusting to the jet lag. As for eating, he had no time to think about it.

Now I finally got a short rest in the land of peace and tranquility.

The next day, Gao Yuanyuan set off for Hong Kong, and her bodyguard Chen Cui went with her.

After recruiting Ma Qi and Yu Chuan, two more female bodyguards were recruited. They were Yang Junyi's senior sisters in the martial arts school and practiced Sanda. They could easily beat up two or three ordinary people. They were enough to prevent some extreme fans from doing extreme things and to deal with some tasteless paparazzi who took close-up photos.

Shen Lang stayed at home for two days to catch up on his sleep, and then came to Hengdian to attend the opening ceremony of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy" and "The Lotus Lantern".

"Brother Lang, you are here!"

"Brother Lang~"

The two crews lived next door to each other, and whenever Liu Yifei and Shu Chang met, they were inseparable.

When they learned that Shen Lang had arrived, they all ran to find him.

As for Liu Xiaoli, as before, she joined the crew as an assistant along with her daughter.

"It's almost time to start filming, so everyone should concentrate, you haven't been serious all day."

"We are very focused and serious."

"Yes, we have been studying the script and roles together recently, and practicing our voices."

Shen Lang smiled with satisfaction and said, "Very good, it's worth my time writing songs for you guys."

Hearing this, Liu Yifei's eyes lit up, and she sat next to him and asked happily, "New song?"

Shu Chang sat down opposite them, looking at Shen Lang with complicated and expectant eyes.

Shen Lang nodded, stood up and took out the music scores from his bag, handed them to them and said, "These are songs from The Legend of Sword and Fairy and The Lotus Lantern. You have three songs. Practice them when you have free time, and record them when you come back after the filming is finished."

Liu Yifei's eyes curved into crescents and she cheered, "Great!"

Shu Chang's eyes were filled with joy, and he smiled and said, "Brother Lang is awesome!"

After flattering, his attention immediately turned to the music score.

[——"Flower and Sword", episode of "Chinese Paladin"]

……

[——"Finally Understand", the ending song of "The Legend of Sword and Fairy"]

……

[——"Thousand Years of Tears", the ending song of "The Lotus Lantern"]

……

These two TV series are very classic. Shen Lang watched them several times in his previous life, and fragments of the songs and soundtracks were preserved in his memory. After the time travel, he was able to write down all of them.

"The Legend of Sword and Fairy" continues to use the original songs and soundtracks.

"The Lotus Lantern" retains the soundtrack, but all the songs are changed. The theme song is "A Kiss for the End of Time" and the interlude is "Liang Liang".

Actors singing songs from film and television dramas can not only increase the popularity and attention of the TV series, but also enhance the emotional connection between the audience and the film and television dramas and actors. It is an effective marketing strategy and a way to show the versatility of actors.

Liu Yifei and Shu Chang are the heroines of the two dramas, and they are also going to release EPs, so that's perfect. So I picked three songs for them. The pattern is the same as before: 1 excellent + 2 good. "Thousand Years of Tears" was excellent, and the other two were good.

After a period of hard study, they are now proficient in both five-line and six-line notations, and can easily interpret complex combinations of notes and changing rhythms.

After watching for a while, he started singing.

It just so happens that after listening to them, Shen Lang can tell them about the problems that may arise during singing and the points that need to be paid attention to.

Liu Yifei and Shu Chang waited there until midnight before returning to their room.

(End of this chapter)