336 The Second English Album, Either Wang Zhuang or Four Twos
The scandal between Cao Xuan and Avril Lavigne did not cause any turmoil in China. She was mainly just famous, and her influence was only limited to the United States. The country did not know who she was at all.
Domestic media hype also depends on celebrity status, especially for top celebrities like Cao Xuan who are not lacking in scandals. The minimum guarantee must be above the second tier or a popular newcomer.
Overseas, there are even two levels, one has to be first-tier or one of the queens.
There is no way, foreign artists have limited influence in the country, they can't get promoted, their popularity and traffic can't be increased, and no one reads the news.
Therefore, nowadays, even if you want to quarrel with Cao Daguan and take advantage of the scandal, you still have to queue up.
Volumes for domestic female artists, and even more volumes for foreign female artists.
Male artists also wanted to participate, but Cao Daguan refused to take the job...
In August, after entering the summer vacation, the crew of "The Legend of Heaven and the Dragon Slayer" has completed filming all relevant outdoor scenes. Until mid-September, all scenes were filmed at the film and television base in the suburbs of Beijing.
Cao Xuan was also able to free up some time to start preparations for a new English album.
"The Legend of Heaven and the Dragon Slayer" will be completed in September, and the new movie will be launched before the end of the year. There will be about two months in between to concentrate on the new album.
At present, some preparatory work has officially begun.
Billboard has been unable to win the championship, which made Cao Xuan feel suffocated.
This is the second English album and the first official studio album, so if we want to continue to play Wang Zha, we have to make a name for ourselves in the European and American music circles.
This album has the same format as most of Cao Xuan's Chinese albums, with a total of ten songs, 5 high-quality songs and 5 slightly more ordinary songs.
This is also the rule that Cao Xuan has gradually discovered. 5 high-quality songs + 5 ordinary songs are the best combination.
Putting aside the reserve of ammunition, the most important thing is that the promotional resources and energy for each album are limited. The five high-quality songs can make full use of these resources as much as possible and achieve complementarity at the same time.
If it were 10 high-quality songs, it would be great, but in fact it would be a waste of the potential of some songs.
For example, "Bright Stars", each of the 10 songs in it is in the top three of the charts, or even the number one song.
But releasing it all in one breath, although it created an unparalleled crush on other singers, it also caused a certain degree of internal friction between them.
Many songs have lower popularity and success than those achieved by the original time and space.
So from then on, Cao Xuan began to consciously carry out a 5+5 combination to maximize the potential of the album in the most effective way.
Of course, Cao Xuan has not given up the idea of making a god-level album composed of 10 high-quality songs. It is a waste, but the effect is indeed impressive.
The reason why he has such a high status in the Chinese music scene is largely due to the reputation he gained through the crazy chart-topping performance of "Bright Stars".
So Cao Xuan has always had a plan in his heart. When the time comes, he will also release a god-level English album like "Bright Stars" to let those big-name European and American singers experience the power of cheating.
However, Cao Xuan has just established a foothold in the European and American music circles, and his popularity and influence have taken shape, but it is not yet solid enough.
If you rush into a big move, you will probably waste mana without achieving much results, and it will also arouse the vigilance of relevant record companies.
Warner is not the only company in the United States. Universal, EMI, Sony, and BMG are all not in trouble.
Even judging from the current scale, Universal is vaguely the number one record company in the world, and Warner can only be ranked second.
If Cao Xuan jumps like this before he has a firm foothold, he is likely to face joint suppression from major companies. He will not do this kind of loss-making business.
So Cao Xuan plans to work steadily and step by step to become a top star in the international music scene.
Wait until his popularity, qualifications, and influence have reached a certain level, and he will not be easily suppressed by a few companies, then we can make bigger moves.
………
Wei Xixi, deputy director of Fanxing Music Department, is Cao Xuan's royal music producer. He is now a well-known music producer in the industry, and his reputation is as good as Zhang Yadong, Sanbao and others.
Even if it weren't for the short time he became famous, and because he basically only served Cao Xuan, Cao Xuan overshadowed him a lot, otherwise Zhang Yadong's title as the number one music producer in the mainland would have changed hands long ago.
Wei Xixi also has a strong arrogance within Fanxing. Except for Cao Xuan, no one is easy to show off. Even General Manager Li Yan and his immediate boss Ma Ning can't do anything to him.
Well, with the exception of Hu Jing, Lao Wei still understands the power of pillow wind...
The reason why Wei Xixi is so good in Fanxing is because he is a good arranger, has collaborated many times, and has a tacit understanding with Cao Xuan, who appreciates and trusts him very much.
With her boss protecting her, Wei Xixi naturally walked sideways in the company.
Cao Xuan even acquiesced that he could do nothing at ordinary times.
Fanxing has signed five new singers, and Daolang has even started producing singles. However, Deputy Director Wei, who is responsible for the production, only supervises the production, and the rest is handled by the producers below.
With such intensity of work, Wei can still earn a guaranteed seven-figure annual salary and generous bonuses every year.
The prerequisite is that you must be able to help Cao Xuan with the album arrangement and production.
As long as the album's arrangement and production are good, Cao Xuan will "dote" on Wei Xixi in everything, and he can do whatever he wants without him having to ask, and his salary will be fully paid.
But if you don't do it well, Ma Liu will pack up and get out.
Lao Wei knew his own value very well, and also understood why Cao Xuan could tolerate him being so presumptuous.
So he was usually lazy and indifferent, and even secretly skipped work to run his own bar.
But as soon as I receive the task of Cao Xuan's new album, my whole work attitude is completely different. I focus 200%, work hard day and night, and strive for excellence.
In the lounge of the crew of "Eternal Dragon Sword", Cao Xuan, who was still in costume, listened to the demo brought by Wei Xixi, his brows sometimes frowned and sometimes relaxed.
After listening to the song, he pondered for a while, and then Cao Xuan gave his own opinion: "Old Wei, my idea is that the melody of this song is more beautiful and soft, and the accompaniment is mainly piano, with occasional drums..."
Wei Xixi immediately took out his notebook and started jotting down notes. He was even afraid of missing something, so he took out a specially bought recording pen.
As the musician who has collaborated with Cao Xuan for the longest time, he knew very well how talented the man in front of him was.
Not only is he proficient in composing lyrics and music, he also has his own unique and outstanding insights into arrangement. In most cases, it is Cao Xuan who guides him to complete the arrangement.
Wei Xixi has no doubt that if Cao Xuan has enough schedule, he can complete a series of tasks such as lyrics, composition, arrangement, mixing and production by himself.
In fact, Cao Xuan did the same thing when he first debuted. Later, when his schedule got busy, it was Wei Xixi's turn to take action.
Therefore, Lao Wei was arrogant to others because of his talent, but he could not be arrogant in front of Cao Xuan. Not only was Cao Xuan his boss, but also out of respect for Cao Xuan's talent and business ability.
What impressed Lao Wei even more was that although Cao Xuan was talented, he was very low-key.
Even though she was very confident, she often lowered her profile to discuss research with him and asked for his opinions. Although he might not necessarily adopt them, he respected them very much. This moved Wei Xixi quite a bit, and he felt a little bit like he was dying as a confidant.
Not only Wei Xixi has this idea, basically all the musicians who have been in contact with Cao Xuan feel that Cao Xuan is extremely humble in music.
As for acting, although she is not very high-profile, she has her own opinions.
After briefly chatting about his initial opinions on the demo, Cao Xuan kept the demo and would listen to it often in the future, and then put forward more specific and detailed opinions based on the golden finger.
This new album is a good test of arrangement, but the biggest test is singing skills.
Even though Cao Xuan has directly "upgraded", he still has a little headache with the difficulty of these songs.
The first song "Sugar".
The Chinese name is "Sweetheart", a lyrical rock song launched by the American band Magic Red in 2014.
This song is also known as the wedding song, because the lyrics and the MV are the band's live accompaniment to the couple's wedding, so many wedding background music will use this song, which is almost equivalent to China's "Marry Me Today".
A few years ago, if these two songs had been released, one Chinese and one English, Cao Xuan might have gotten more popular work.
But now Boss Cao can't see these three melons and two dates. The main thing is influence.
This song is quite famous in China. Apart from weddings, it is mainly due to the game "Reverse War".
Basically, more than 70% of people who heard this song were either at weddings or in the game "Reverse War", and very few heard it through other channels.
Cao Xuan personally likes this song, so he took advantage of it, but this song is more difficult to sing.
Adam Levi, the lead singer of the Magic Red Band, nicknamed "Sao Dang", has an excellent voice. He can sing two small high notes at every turn, and as his name suggests, he sings very coquettishly.
Cao Xuan is confident that he can make this song popular, but it may take some effort. More importantly, he is hesitant about whether to show off too.
Don't be cool, I feel like I have no soul when I sing this song.
Come on, Cao Tianwang is a bit embarrassed.
The second song "The Nights".
The Chinese name "Those Nights" was written by Avicii, a Swedish singer nicknamed "God A". He has been selected into the top 100 DJs in the world many times and is among the best. He is extremely talented.
This song was written by Avicii to his father. Some of the lyrics in it were spoken to him by his father when he was a child. They are very positive and emotional.
Unfortunately, Avicii died young and this song became a song to commemorate him by many fans.
Cao Xuan was hesitant to copy this song for a while, but later he couldn't help it, he really liked it and couldn't help himself.
As for the composition of this song about his father, Cao Xuan is not afraid of revealing the truth. It is nothing more than encouragement and life insights. Many fathers have similar educational speeches, and Comrade Cao also spoke.
Although the original words are not like this, the artistic processing of the lyrics is normal.
The third song "Believer".
The Chinese name is "Believer", a representative work of Menglong Band. It was the best rock song on Billboard in 2018 and ranked in the top five of the singles chart for many weeks.
Although Cao Xuan didn't want to catch a sheep trying to pluck out its wool, Meng Long's song that he couldn't hold back was really gaining fans.
The previous song "Natural" by Menglong, although it only ranked eighth on the Billboard singles chart, was the song that attracted the most die-hard fans of Cao Xuan.
The passionate melody and extremely violent singing can impress the fans as quickly as possible and set up the atmosphere of the scene. Cao Xuan, who was planning to stick to a certain rock route in the early stage, is very enthusiastic about Menglong's songs.
The lyrics of the song "Believer" have somewhat religious elements, but they are insignificant.
Even this so-called religious element is far-fetched. The faith in the song title and lyrics is more about insisting on oneself and bravely pursuing dreams, so the religious elements in it are just rhetoric and can be retained or not.
The fourth song "The Phoenix"
The representative work of the band Fall Out Boy was released in 2013. The chart performance is not very strong, but it is very popular and is a hard-core pop rock.
This song borrowed many elements, and Cao Xuan had to collect certain copyrights in the later stage to avoid overturning.
In fact, Cao Xuan has been thinking about this song for a long time before settling on it. Compared to classic songs by bands such as Lincoln, Magic Red, and Coldplay, the connotation of this song is a bit inferior, but it is better than it is explosive.
What Cao Xuan wanted was to explode, and rock and roll was a difficult road to follow, especially when he was first gaining fame, so he chose this song to highlight the explosive melody.
Don't think that European and American fans only like songs with depth. Saliva songs are also very popular, and they are even more popular.
Just like when Cao Xuan released Chinese songs before, he always mixed a few high-quality songs with a hit song for market consideration.
And don’t underestimate this song. The connotation may be a little worse, but the melody is explosive enough and it’s not very difficult to sing.
Even though the original version of "Fall Out Boy" often overturned during the live performance, North Korea was still under great pressure and was even ready to change the song at any time.
The fifth song "FreeLoop".
The Chinese name is "Uncontrollable Notes" or "Free Cycle", which was released in 2005 and later became well-known to Chinese fans because it was used as a Ford sedan commercial song in 2006.
It once became the most popular English ringtone in China and has endured for a long time. Many people still love to listen to it more than ten years later.
This song became a global hit, ranking on the charts in nearly half of the countries in the world, and performing extremely well on the charts. It is considered one of the rare songs that has made a large-scale debut around the world and has been widely successful.
Cao Xuan decided on this song early, and almost even included it in the first EP. Later, after much consideration, he changed it to the second album and made it the first title song.
The above 5 songs are the best songs from Cao Xuan's second album. It can be clearly seen that Cao Xuan has weakened the proportion of rock music and increased the proportion of lyrical songs.
Although some of these lyrical songs are also in the rock genre, they are still more popular overall.
This is also Cao Xuan's choice. Although rock music can attract fans, its lyricism is not much inferior, and it is easier to achieve results and win awards. "Rebeautiful" is the best example.
And compared to rock music, Cao Xuan is personally better at the interpretation of lyrical songs.
Of course, on the other hand, there are really not many classic rock songs, and it is not as easy to collect them as lyrical pop songs.
Of course, Cao Xuan has not given up on rock. This time there are two songs with strong rock style among the five songs.
In the future, the route of Cao Xuan's English songs [rock + lyrical] will not change, but the proportion of the latter should gradually increase.
Although Cao Xuan really wants to be the King of Rock and Roll, the reality is that the King of Love Songs or the King of Lyrics is more suitable for him.
But no matter what, the overall quality of this second album is still very impressive. Not to mention that the first song is the best, but at least four of them are second-rate, no less than the first EP.
Coupled with the accumulation last time, Cao Xuan is no longer an unknown person in Europe and the United States. In terms of popularity and influence, he is comparable to the top in Europe and the United States. This will also have a great benefit for the release of the next album.
Therefore, Cao Xuan is very confident in the results of his second album and is looking forward to it bringing him greater surprises...
