Chapter 82

After receiving the sincere thanks and tears of the five girls and the uncertain sincerity of Li Jinlong's gratitude, Li Qian bid farewell to the group from Huachang Records, marking the official end of his first production work.

The girls from Wu Xing Wu Su and producer Li Jinlong, after they left, still had a series of tasks to complete. First, they needed to take the photos required for the album cover, inner pages, and promotional posters. Moreover, it was said that Huachang Records insisted on shooting two music videos for Wu Xing Wu Su's album before its release, which would certainly be a significant workload.

Then, considering that they were still pursuing a youthful style, bright and sexy dances would certainly add points. Although the new album of Wu Xing Wu Su had undergone a significant change in style, there were still two obvious dance tracks, "The Alliance of Heartbreak" and "Charge! Charge! Charge!" The latter already had a dance routine, but the former still needed a choreographer. Additionally, considering the change in style, Huachang Records would need to have image designers redesign the girls' looks, including their hairstyles and clothing, according to the new album's style.

Furthermore, although Li Qian had strived for perfection during the recording phase, the post-production processing of an album was still indispensable, and this was clearly something Li Jinlong needed to oversee... In short, there was still a lot of work to be done before the album's official release. According to Li Jinlong's estimate, the album's promotional activities would not start until around mid-December.

Therefore, they would certainly not be idle and would still have a lot of work to do.

But Li Qian could now take a break.

Over the past two months, although his free time was entirely occupied by Wu Xing Wu Su's new album, fortunately, his academic performance did not decline too much. In fact, his Russian scores were gradually improving, so although his total score slightly dropped in the September monthly exam, it was quickly pulled back up in October... In short, it was still within the range acceptable to his parents.

After completing the production work for Wu Xing Wu Su's new album, Li Qian had more time to study. Therefore, although his classmates were all working hard, Li Qian believed that his ranking and scores in the November monthly exam would not drop significantly.

This was enough.

Since he was an art student, as long as he passed the art exam and received the admission offer from an art college, with his current academic foundation, he would not likely fail as long as he did not completely neglect his studies.

Therefore, besides attending classes, although Li Qian strictly required himself to spend a certain amount of time each day reviewing his lessons, he did not impose the same strict requirements on himself as he did in his previous life during his final year of high school. Thus, he still had a lot of time to listen to music, watch movies, and view videotapes.

Of course, this also included hanging out and chatting with Cao Zhan, Yu Bojun, and Wang Huaiyu.

By mid-October, Yu Bojun's new movie had been approved. This time, he was still shooting an urban romance film, which required minimal investment, almost no additional props, no special set design, and no need to leave Jinan for filming. You can imagine that for Yu Bojun, who was shooting movies purely to fill the gaps in his chain of cinemas, this type of urban romance film was the best choice.

Moreover, this type of film allowed him to freely choose and promote the female lead, and then date her!

Therefore, when discussing the script, Cao Zhan and Li Qian consistently referred to Yu Bojun's new movie plan as a "girl-chasing plan."

When the new movie was approved, Yu Bojun only had a story outline. Following the usual procedure, Cao Zhan was responsible for writing the script. However, this time was different from previous years. When Cao Zhan's script was halfway done, Li Qian had already finished his work and joined in. Although he was only responsible for providing ideas and suggestions, with his new perspectives, Cao Zhan's script writing progressed exceptionally fast. Even though the already written parts were revised and rewritten, the entire script was finalized in just over ten days.

Since the new script heavily referenced Li Qian's suggestions, when the three of them were brainstorming the title, Cao Zian and Yu Bojun unanimously agreed to adopt Li Qian's suggestion, naming the new film "The Great Girl-Chasing Operation"!

Of course, Li Qian declined to be credited as a co-writer, although he provided many suggestions and even determined the theme and overall direction of the film to some extent, the script was undoubtedly Cao Zhan's work. The theme had a touch of black humor, but upon closer inspection, the lines were filled with Cao Zhan's characteristic literary flair!

Li Qian called this "Uncomfortable Without Being a Hipster"!

By late November, the script was finalized, and Yu Bojun was busy preparing the cast and production team. Li Qian, under Cao Zhan's guidance, formally bought some gifts and visited Wang Huaiyu's home.

Although there was no formal apprenticeship ceremony, and Li Qian did not even call Wang Huaiyu "teacher," they were all mature and experienced, and the mutual understanding was clear.

Thus, Li Qian began to set aside every Saturday to learn to play the suona from Wang Huaiyu. Although he did not call him "teacher," he still treated him with the respect due to a teacher in subtle ways.

Then, on the last day of November, November 30th, He Runqing's latest single, "Half a Pot of Tea," was released.

A week before the single's official release, Li Qian had already received several CDs and cassettes of the single through Cao Zhan and had listened to them carefully.

To be honest, Li Qian was quite appreciative of the original singer's performance, which conveyed the song's theme in a light and clear manner, describing a love affair in the mundane world in a beautiful way. Although it had a slight touch of sadness, it also carried a Zen-like calmness... which was quite beautiful.

Clearly, the singing skills, understanding, and grasp of the song by He Runqing, the queen of sweet songs who stood at the pinnacle of the domestic music scene, far surpassed the original singer.

When he initially provided the song, Li Qian had included a new arrangement, which, while maintaining the original theme and style, still primarily used classical instruments. However, his arrangement did not emphasize the "calmness" as much, thus reducing the "Zen" feel and making it more pop-oriented. Although the way the song was requested was somewhat unpleasant, once the song was given, with his name on it, as his work, Li Qian naturally hoped it would achieve better results.

He Runqing was clearly very satisfied with the arrangement. The final version released was almost entirely the one Li Qian had done for her, with no significant changes.

Thus, under this more pop-oriented and less Zen-like new arrangement, He Runqing performed with great ease. Her sweet and clear voice, with a touch of playful charm, brought out the full flavor of the originally light and delicate song. In Li Qian's subjective experience, this song alone could make at least seven or eight out of ten men melt!

Yes, melt!

He Runqing's voice, singing skills, and charm, combined with this very Chinese and Zen-like song, and Li Qian's deliberately more pop-oriented new arrangement, created a work that, when you listened to it, was purely an enjoyment! It could make you feel tingly all over, making you want to replay it over and over again, sinking into the sofa, lazily not wanting to move, and just thinking about those beautiful, wonderful, and calm emotions.

Li Qian gave He Runqing twelve thumbs up for her singing skills!

Therefore, he was very interested in how well the song would perform after its release.

Through his observations over the past six months in this timeline, including the songs he had heard, the sales data of many albums he had collected, and his understanding of media such as radio, television, newspapers, and magazines, as well as the data on the film industry he had obtained through Yu Bojun, Li Qian had begun to have a preliminary understanding and judgment of the current domestic entertainment market.

In terms of the music and record market, since the mid-1970s when the domestic market began to be liberalized, the country had experienced several significant market booms. However, if you studied it carefully, you would find that over the past few years, whether it was the boom of rock, folk, or folk songs, it always came in waves.

Of course, this was partly due to the fact that each small genre of music needed a certain amount of accumulation before it could burst. After all, for contemporary music in China, every step forward was an exploration, and without the efforts and accumulation of a large number of musicians, no brilliance could be achieved. However, after careful analysis, Li Qian believed that there was another, more important reason: the overall lack of economic strength!

In short, due to the underdeveloped economy and the lack of money in people's pockets, the demand for music, a special commodity, was not particularly strong.

Carefully analyzing the domestic record market over the past few years, whether it was the great success of the Flying Band, the sudden rise of Liu Mingliang, or the overnight fame of Zhen Zhen, what they sold was purely the songs themselves.

Therefore, even though they were among the top few in the domestic pop music scene, their highest-selling albums were invariably the ones that made them famous. After that, whether it was the Flying Band, Liu Mingliang, Zhao Xinfu, Zhen Zhen, Hu Yang, Zhang Chang, He Runqing, and others, almost everyone, once their first or second album sold well, unless they produced another hit song, their album sales would steadily decline.

In other words, if you sang a good song and it became popular, people were willing to buy a cassette to listen to, but they would not really like you as a singer and would not follow your albums!

In short, there was no habitual consumption.

As is well known, sequels to blockbuster movies are often money-making machines, and the second album after a hit album often follows this principle. However, in the past twenty years, the domestic music scene has largely deviated from this principle.

In the end, it was because people did not have much extra money to chase stars. Therefore, only if your song was really good and really popular would people buy it to keep.

However, in recent years, things seemed to be changing.

First, of course, everyone could feel that the domestic economic situation was getting better year by year. The income of previously advantageous professions, such as teachers, was no longer as advantageous. For example, Qi Jie, who quit her job as a teacher, earned three times more selling cosmetics, and it was said that the other girls at her counter earned about 2,000 yuan a month. Li Qian's father, as a senior teacher, earned just over 2,000 yuan a month, and new teachers like Qi Jie, who had just started, earned about 1,000 yuan a month. As practitioners of a profession generally considered to have high and stable income, they could not keep up with the income of a regular girl selling cosmetics!

Although this example was not absolute, it was a glimpse through a small window... The increase in salespeople's income, which came from commissions, indicated that they sold more, and more sales indicated that more people were buying, which in turn proved that people's purchasing power was steadily increasing.

In fact, after twenty years of market cultivation and the rapid economic development of the country, people were generally becoming more affluent. Therefore, Li Qian believed that the era of a significant increase in domestic music sales was just around the corner, even though the overnight success of Liao Liao could not prove his point.

However, some clear examples were that in recent years, more and more female singers were achieving platinum records, and even more male singers were achieving platinum records. For example, when Liu Mingliang first became famous, his highest-selling album was the one he released in 1992!

Therefore, Li Qian firmly believed that his judgment was correct.

The domestic music market, and by extension, the domestic entertainment market, was about to experience a significant expansion and boom!

Of course, the overall market boom might not necessarily extend to some currently niche genres, such as whether the success and good reputation of "Unfinished Love" could represent that domestic listeners really liked this new style of Chinese music that Li Qian had introduced.

Not necessarily!

Therefore, "Half a Pot of Tea" would be a good litmus test. (To be continued.)