Perfect Superstar

Chapter 160 - Your Circle is Really Messy

September 5.Lu Chen’s debut album “You Who Sat Next To Me” was pre-publicized at QQMusic.

This album,which took more than two months to complete, was undoubtedly the real focus of businessof Lu Chen Studio since its establishment. Its sales success or failure has agreat impact on Lu Chen’s position in the pop music scene.

Noindependent artist has released his debut solo album so soon after his debut.

As a newlyacclaimed singer-songwriter, Lu Chen’s talent was beyond doubt. Many of hissongs have made it to the original music list, and the live version of hisoriginal works in “Singing China” has also been frequently listed inQQ Music.

Therefore,there were many people in the circle who secretly pay close attention to theonline release of this album, but not everyone was optimistic about the salesof “You Who Sat Next To Me”. There was no lack of negative voices in Inspurblog.

First ofall, Lu Chen didn’t make great efforts to promote and hype the album. He only advertisedit in his blog, and the promotion position in QQ music website was also veryordinary, giving people the impression that they don’t have enough money andreluctant to spend money.

Today’sartists want to become popular without packaging promotion, which is basicallya foolish dream. If new singers don’t spend a lot of effort on publicity andhype on their album, the sales are often very poor.

Relevant stakeholders,such as QQ Music’s websites and portal media, will also ignored themintentionally or unintentionally, and free publicity resources will not begiven easily. This is a hidden rule in the industry.

For example,Lu Chen’s original works in “Singing China”, many of his songs have appearedon the hit list and download list of QQ Music, but they all quickly fell offthe list and disappeared with the end of “Singing China”.

The reason wasvery simple. Lu Chen didn’t spend money on advertising in QQ Music. How can theyallow him occupy this important promotion resource for nothing, and being ableto appear on the list is already giving him face.

If QQ Music wasn’ta partner of Beijing Satellite TV’s “Singing China”, it was estimatedthat his songs will not have a chance to be on the list at all!

This time,Lu Chen and QQ Music officially cooperated. The latter took away the exclusivesales rights, and a small advertising space still had to be paid for 100,000 yuan.

Under normalcircumstances, with Lu Chen’s title as the champion of "Singing China", LuChen’s album was still promising.

But hebumped into several strong opponents!

The firstopponent, Cui Zhengzhi. In 2014, he was the runner-up in Xiangnan SatelliteTV’s “Super Male Voice”, and signed with Orange Field Entertainment.On September 1, he pre-publicized his debut album “Provocation” in QQMusic.

This Chinese-Koreanmixed idol singer is the leading new artist of the industry giant Orange FieldEntertainment.

His albumhas been brewing for nearly a year. It is definitely an excellent work, and itstitle song “Provocation” is currently rank first on the hit list of QQMusic Website, which can be described to be threatening!

The second opponent,Zou Bei, winner of the 2015 Shenhai Satellite TV’s trump variety show "NationalIdol", and signed with Starlight Media. And Starlight Media is precisely theholding company of [StarryLive] Show. (TN: Shenhai is translated as Deep Sea,I’m not sure if it’s a real place.)

Zou Bei, whograduated from Huyin, is truly a talented woman. She also brought her debutalbum "Blooming Flower", which began to be pre-publicized on QQ Music onSeptember 2. (TN: Huyin is Shanghai Conservatory of Music.)

As for the third opponent, it is undoubtedly Lu Chen’s old acquaintance - Ling Xiaoxiao.

LingXiaoxiao performed badly in the finals of “Super Singer”, onlyfinishing fifth place.

His defeatwas strictly related to Lu Chen. Fans of both sides fought to the death in Inspurblog, and Lu Chen won the victory in the end.

This time,Ling Xiaoxiao’s debut album “True Love is Invincible” landed on QQMusic, which undoubtedly has a strong sense of vengeance for Lu Chen.

LingXiaoxiao’s signing company is Jin Hongwei’s Juxing company!

Theproduction time of his solo album should be about the same as that of Lu Chen,and the pre-promotion began on September 3.

Four newartists and singers debuted their solo albums at QQ Music at the same time, andhave carry out intensive pre-promotion. Such a situation has never happened inthe history of QQ music website.

Usually, thereis a tacit understanding between entertainment records and agencies. Unless itis a sworn enemy, or deliberate hype, they will often stagger the promotionperiod of their artist’s debut album to avoid confrontation.

Thecompetition in pop music is also very fierce. Every year, a large number of newcomersemerge, and those who are qualified to release albums are all characterspromoted by various companies, and no one wants to face off with the opponentat critical moments.

Killing athousand enemies, losing 800 of your own!

(TN: FromSun Tzu’s military strategy which means that if you fight against each other,it is not only the enemy that suffers heavy losses, it is actually a loss ofboth sides."

And OrangeField Entertainment, Starlight Media and Juxing are all top or first-classcompanies in the industry.

One canimagine how fierce the scene will be when they fight in the same place.

In fact, themain advertising space of QQ Music website has basically been divided up by thethree companies. And in blogs, forums, post bars and other places, theirpropaganda campaign is very fierce!

In contrast,Lu Chen was simply much weaker!

To put itsimply, Lu Chen made his debut in "Singing China". After winning thechampionship, he didn’t participate in any notice, nor did he make advertisementsto hold a fan meeting to promote himself. He was so low-key that he simply didn’tlook like an artist.

CuiZhengzhi, Zou Bei and Ling Xiaoxiao, which one of them isn’t promotingthemselves everywhere. In today’s fast-paced era, the rise and fall of staridols are very frequent. It is very easy for fans to like the new and hate theold. Artists who don’t often appear on entertainment news will soon beforgotten.

Lu Chen hasthe strength, but he doesn’t receive notices or hype. And popularity he hasaccumulated will be exhausted soon.

It’s not the80’s and 90’s anymore, where a hit song lasts for more than a decade or two!

“Ourbiggest problem is that people can get most of the songs on the album fromother sources on the Internet...”

Lu Chen Studio.Lu Xi’s manager’s office temporarily served as a small meeting.

Except Chen Xiaomei,the receptionist, all the other members of the studio were present, plus LiMubai.

Big sister rubbedher knitted brows and said helplessly, “So fans don’t have a strong desireto buy.” (TN: Big sister is probably Lu Xi.)

Comparedwith the albums of his three competitors, Cui Zhengzhi, Zou Bei and LingXiaoxiao, Lu Chen’s “You Who Sat Next To Me” has a high transparency.All 10 songs can be found on the Internet for free. Without a sense of mysteryand expectation, the desire to purchase it was naturally greatly reduced.

Especiallyin the face of strong competition, many pop music lovers are likely to searchthe Internet for pirated content after Lu Chen’s album is on the shelves, andare more willing to spend money on the other three new albums.

Now Lu Xihas become more and more involved in the role of studio manager and agent. Shespends a lot of time every day to understand the news trends on the Internetand in the circle, and tries her best to give advice to Lu Chen.

She said, “Ijust received a call from the business director of QQ Music, asking if we needto postpone the album’s release time to avoid a collision with Cui Zhengzhi.”

According tothe agreement reached between the studio and QQ Music, “You Who Sat NextTo Me” will be pre-publicized on September 5 and will officially be onsale on September 8.

CuiZhengzhi’s “Provocation” was unexpectedly put on the shelves on thesame day!

This newgeneration idol in the entertainment industry is no ordinary character. Hisfather is a famous actor in China and his mother is a well-known Korean artist.Therefore, he has a wide range of contacts and many supporters in the industry.

Orange FieldEntertainment that he signed with is a big company in the industry. It has manystar idols and has very close cooperation with Xiangnan Satellite TV, which almosthave the same interest.

With contactsand background, support from top companies, and Cui Zhengzhi’s handsome andfashionable appearance, he is a model of a Korean style small fresh meat, whichis very popular among young people. His Inspur blog has nearly 10 million fans!(TN: Small fresh meat - young handsome man. So, Korean style - just think ofthose in K-pop band.)

No matterhow many true fans or zombie fans are in it, it absolutely crushes Lu Chen interms of popularity alone!

CuiZhengzhi’s debut album has attracted a lot of attention.

However, it wasvery intriguing that, coincidentally, he has a collision with Lu Chen.

It should beknown that, usually, the time between pre-promotion and going on sale on QQMusic website will not be too long. Three or four days is the best, and fivedays is also fine, but Cui Zhengzhi’s promotion started on the 1st!

Zou Bei’salbum went on sale yesterday, and Ling Xiaoxiao’s album went on sale today.

Everyone presentsmelled a strong smell of conspiracy. Li Feiyu, Chen Xin and the others couldn’thelp showing a worried look, and even Li Mubai, who had always been carefree,straightened up and sat up straight.

This ThirdYoung Master Li was originally here to get acquainted with them, but Lu Chen’s debutalbum has something to do with him.

Because heis the core figure of Lu Chen’s fan group, he is an indispensable existence.

It’s justthat Li Mubai had no idea how troublesome it was to release an album, whichinvolved so many problems.

He couldn’t help muttering, “Your circle is really messy.”

Well, LuChen also told him this sentence.

Everyone isnot a fool. No one has forgotten the feud between Lu Chen and XiangnanSatellite TV. To say that it was purely a coincidence, that would be a bit ofan insult to their IQ.

Of course, abehemoth like Xiangnan Satellite TV may disdain to argue with Lu Chen at all,but Orange Field Entertainment, as a partner, may not. They must be happy tolet Cui Zhengzhi step on Lu Chen.

On thecontrary, Ling Xiaoxiao, who had a direct conflict with Lu Chen, didn’t posemuch threat, because everyone knew what he was like, and the quality of hisalbum was unlikely to be very high.

Lu Xi’sanalysis of Ling Xiaoxiao involvement was that he most likely wanted to takeadvantage of the hype.

The debut albumof four new singers in QQ Music is undoubtedly a good hot spot for hype.

Jin Hongweiis a famous hype king in the industry.

There arewolves in front and tigers behind, so how should Lu Chen face their challenges?

All eyeswere on him.

Lu Chen wassurprisingly calm and said with a smile, “in fact, everyone is taking thisproblem too seriously.”

His smile wasstill full of confidence.

______________________

TN: Ling Xiaoxiao first appeared on Chapter 111.

TN: Lu Chen said “Your circle is a bit messy” on Chapter 155

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