Text | New Voice Pro, author | He Jing (Beijing) "The snow is soaked in thousands of brilliant bells and molded Buddhist niches. Here we go to enjoy the feast in the dust. How can Zhu Yangai not see the brilliance of the cave paintings in the past, but wake up and watch on the wa

Text | Xinsheng pro, author | He Jing (Beijing)

"The snow is soaked in thousands of brilliant lights and the sound of bells molds the Buddhist niche. Here I go to enjoy the feast in the dust. How can Zhu Yangai not see the brilliance of the cave paintings in the past, but wake up and watch on the wall. "In the past two months, the song "Watching on the Wall" has become a hit on short video platforms. Especially in the second-generation videos related to "Black Myth: Wukong", this song has almost become a standard feature. The song

also frequently appears in the second-generation videos of various film and television dramas. A Douyin video about Lin Daiyu attracted 1.8 million likes. Singers such as Deng Yujun (Waiting for What Jun), Tang Bohu Annie, Xiao Xiao, Xiao Yiqing and other singers also sang covers one after another, setting off a wave of group building in the Chinese style circle and the ancient style circle.

In fact, this song is not an episode of a game or movie, but a song created and produced by the Chinese style music label "A Shallot" in 2019. The Xiao Cong team was also a little surprised by the sudden popularity of this song. On the Douyin platform, the #bishangguan topic has 1.8 billion views, and their advertising cost was only 20 to 300,000 yuan. "The right time, place, and people" is their summary of the reasons for this successful spread.

The sense of story is the basis for the popularity of "View on the Wall". When writing this song, Zhou Mingcong, the manager of the "One Shallot" label, had in his mind the story of a man who strayed into the world of murals. "There is a person, he can be An archaeologist, or a traveler, strayed into an ancient city in the wind and sand of the desert, and was sucked into the world of murals. The fairies on the murals came to life. He saw with his own eyes the most brilliant moments of this civilization, and also witnessed It tells the rise and fall of this civilization, and finally wakes up from the dream."

html In early August, they discovered that this song was a second-generation video for the hit movie "White Snake: The Floating Life" and the hit TV series "The Legend of Tang Dynasty: Journey to the West". , after short video platforms such as Douyin initially gained popularity, they began to actively launch some film and television accounts, music accounts, cultural tourism accounts, etc. After the game "Black Myth: Wukong" was launched, the Xiao Cong team found that many plots in the game fit this song, so they combined the music with the game. In less than a month, the playback data of the original version of "Wall on the Wall" on streaming media platforms has increased from an average of about 100,000 per day to 4 million.

Comparing several popular songs this year, from "In the Cloud" and "This Little Fish Cares" to today's "Watching on the Wall", we have observed that the taste of popular songs on short video platforms has quietly changed. "Cat's Meow", "Love You 105 Degrees" and other divine songs combined with gesture dance methods, to this day "emotion is greater than everything". To a certain extent, the logic of generating popular songs changes with short videos. Users’ usage habits on the platform, changes in platform models, and the social atmosphere jointly determine the current direction of popular music.

However, the Xiaocong team’s vision is not only to become a popular song on the short video platform, but also to hope that users will truly appreciate the song and bring conversions to labels and artists. So they opened up the copyright of the song, cooperated with singers such as Gong Linna, re-arranged and recorded it, and integrated it with some film and television, variety shows, etc.

Using emotions as the background color

"The fairy in the cloud tower, the lingering sleeves" "The rugged ravines and undulating mountains" "Why did Zhu Yangai not see the splendid cave paintings in the past, but wake up and watch them on the wall".

Through the contrast between the prosperous Dunhuang scene in its heyday and the withered colors of today's grotto murals, "View on the Wall" creates a tone of loss and sadness with a strong visual sense. This is why this song is often used in second-generation videos. The reasons are mainly based on the direction of be's story.

Looking back at the popular songs on the platform in recent years, a common feature is that they use a sense of story to make people feel for themselves. "This Little Fish Cares" with 400 million views on Douyin by

is a projection of current social emotions. "The room and mood are still messy. I want to tidy up but can't move. I have been feeling like this for a long time." This is the living situation of many people. "But my dear, life is more than this. We are here to feel the sunshine." It is an explanation for oneself.

's previous "Mohe Ballroom" moved people because of the poignant love story behind it. The story behind the primary school student's divine song "The Lonely Warrior" is the attitude towards life written by the lyricist Tang Tian in the hospital bed after he suffered from cancer. This further adds to the "inspirational feeling" of this song. The Cantonese version of "Lanting Preface" by

is also based on lyrics and music with a strong sense of narrative. As a second-generation video, the BGM has become a hot song on Douyin.

According to Zhou Mingcong, the highest level of expression must be about emotions. "I think art is about bringing people emotional fluctuations, which is greater than some singing and playing skills."

The sense of story provides the basis for the popularity of these songs. In addition to "humanity", the trend of national style is also It provides a good location for "watching from the wall".

In recent years, as the national pride of the Chinese people has grown stronger, various national customs and cultures such as Hanfu and folk custom travel photography have emerged. A number of ancient cities such as Luoyang and Dunhuang have become popular tourist destinations. A series of national customs evening parties on Henan Satellite TV have become even more popular. It has led to a wave of enthusiasm for national style. Even in this year's Paris Olympics, the rhythmic gymnastics team's "Qin Wang Breaking Music" and other competitions used national style songs as the background music.

In addition, Youku and CCTV have respectively launched the Chinese style music variety shows "Chinese Chaoyin" and "National Style Super Drama". Zhou Mingcong indeed feels that "Chinese style music is slowly getting better", the audience's aesthetics are constantly improving, and the number of audiences is also increasing. is increasing.

1.8 How to reach

The "Wall View" video released on station b in 2019 has reached 3.14 million views so far, which is the accumulation of steady progress over the past five years. Zhou Mingcong recalled that since its release, this song has always had relatively stable playback data in the Chinese style circle, and among the songs produced by their company, it has always ranked among the top in playback volume.

However, the popularity of "Bishangguan" does not only rely on the promotion of natural traffic. The Xiaocong team divided the promotion and distribution of "Bishangguan" into four stages. The first stage is the accumulation of natural traffic for 5 years, and the second stage is based on the second-generation video. Due to the popularity, the number of views increased several times. In the third stage, they began to actively intervene and promoted it to become a popular item through marketing and streaming. Zhou Mingcong recalled that in early September, the daily broadcast peak of all versions of "Wall on the Wall" had reached six to seven million.

On August 10th, the Xiao Cong team discovered that this song started to explode. “Previously, the number of plays of this song on streaming media was basically stable at around 100,000 per day, but starting from the 10th, we found that the number of plays per day could reach 300,000, at this time the spread of this song has reached the second stage. "

In fact, before this, there were many hits related to "Watching on the Wall". In August last year, a video on station B was called "In. The video of Zhang Xiaohan's "Watching on the Wall" was played loudly in a million-dollar recording studio and received 2.66 million views.

On August 2 this year, Douyin music blogger "Lie Ci" released a video with "Wall on the Wall" as the background music, which received 913,000 likes. There were many book fans, drama fans, and animation fans in the comment area. Variety show fans are even posting "fateful" scenes.

At the same time, the movie "White Snake: The Floating Life" was released in August. The plot of Fa Hai preventing White Snake and Xu Xian from getting together is in line with the sense of story presented in the song. Many netizens began to spontaneously use this song as a BGM to edit a second video. Netizens " The content posted by "Hanabi Yiyi" received 625,000 likes.

The "Provider" unit in the popular film and television drama " Tang Dynasty Weird Stories: Journey to the West", the story takes place in Dunhuang, with murals as the theme, which coincides with the theme expressed in "View on the Wall". The second-generation content of

's two film and television works has pushed "Wall View" to a climax and attracted more and more content parties to participate, such as "Tomb Robber Notes", "One Thought of Guanshan", "Celebrating More Than Years", "Youth Song" and so on. Fans of the drama have used this song as a secondary content for BGM editing. Someone on

commented, "None of the videos that use this song as BGM are satisfactory."

noticed the enthusiasm of users and the Xiao Cong team quickly followed up on the announcement, pushing "Wall on the Wall" to a more popular third stage.On August 20, they took advantage of the situation and launched a series of music, film and television, landscape, and painting accounts for promotion. Among them, Lin Daiyu ’s second creation video received 1.8 million and 1.374 million likes respectively.

On the same day, the game "Black Myth: Wukong" was launched. When playing the game, members of the Xiao Cong team felt that some of the plots had a high degree of compatibility with "Wukong", "such as Wukong's apprenticeship with Bodhi Patriarch mural, Zhu Bajie and Spider Spirit" story, and the story of the headless Buddha."

So the Xiao Cong team began to launch related topics to build momentum, and quickly gained recognition from game users. "Even the story of Zhu Bajie and Spider Spirit was a second creation taken by netizens. However, There were also mistakes in judgment. At that time, we thought Zixia Fairy would be very suitable for this song, but the placement effect was relatively average.

From a popular song to a national song

But for a content team, it was only popular on the short video platform. , it is difficult to bring conversion to this label.

From the perspective of business logic, short video music and streaming music are two models. Short video music mainly attracts users to create secondary creations and marketing methods to create popular BGM; while music released on streaming media such as QQ Music and NetEase Cloud Music , in addition to song copyright revenue, you can also expand more copyright methods through covers and other forms, and offline commercial performances, variety shows, OST, etc. are also the main sources of income. The music of the

Xiaoconion team mainly focuses on the latter. They hope to push the marketing of the song "Watching on the Wall" from the third stage to the fourth stage. "We hope that this song can be more popular and that everyone will truly appreciate it." song, this song will be forwarded to the circle of friends, not just as BGM. "

Many fans of film and television works have sent private messages to the Xiao Cong team, hoping that they can cooperate with the drama company and become the OST of the series. So they decided to open up the copyright and attract more people to participate. After

opened its copyright, it quickly attracted a number of requests for cooperation from TV series and variety show content parties. "Because the OSTs of many TV series have been determined at a very early stage, and the budget has already been spent, so it is not necessary to use our songs temporarily. It’s too realistic, so we used a free licensing form.”

’s free licensing of “Watching on the Wall” has indeed brought a good brand effect to Xiao Cong. Among the cooperation invitations Xiao Cong received from some drama content parties, in addition to adapting the drama, In addition to the version of "Watching from the Wall", I also hope that they can customize the OST for the series.

In addition, Xiao Cong also cooperated with some singers to re-arrange the songs and create a studio version that is more suitable for singers.

On September 11, "Watching on the Wall" sung by Gong Linna was released first. Compared with the original version and the popular remixed version on Douyin, Gong Linna's singing has a more eloquent feeling. Someone wrote in a comment on NetEase Cloud Music, "Teacher Gong's voice is like light and dust dancing in the light pillar passing through a thousand-year cave. From her singing, I hear the fleetingness of time, the ruthlessness of the sky, the impermanence of karma, the impermanence of all living beings." The pain of the sacrifice, the grace of Feitian, the carefreeness of the immortal, the compassion of the Bodhisattva, and the smile of the Buddha. "

This is exactly what Zhou Mingcong intended. "This version is based on the popularity of the original version. When re-arranging the song, the theme of the main song about entering the world of murals was weakened, and he entered the world of time travel faster. "When working with Gong Linna, Zhou Mingcong didn't even need to consider the singer's pitch and rhythm, he just told the story to him. Gong Linna is enough.

In fact, "Watching on the Wall" has been widely spread on various platforms before. We can't help but wonder, when "Watching on the Wall" already has a recording studio version, why did Xiaocong choose such a "heavy" mode?

In the opinion of the Xiao Cong team, most of the popular versions currently serve the purpose of Internet communication. They hope to release the insights accumulated in the past five years and fully interpret the artistic connotation of the work. The new version will also be suitable for more communication fields, such as singers’ concerts, OSTs of film and television works, etc.

In the past two months since "Wall Viewing" became popular, Zhou Mingming clearly feels that he "has more capital to focus on artistic creation."