Author | Pengpeng Editor | Fan Zhihui "When I close the book and prepare to set off, love has arrived in an instant." After releasing the new album "Dream Diary", Yu Zhen told the story behind the song "La La La" on Weibo, She will this song....

Author | Peng Peng Editor | Fan Zhihui

"When I close the book and prepare to set off, love has arrived in an instant."

After releasing the new album "Dream Diary", Yu Zhen told the story behind the song "La La La" on Weibo story, she sees the song as a summary of the past five years.

Five years ago, she released her first single "Journey to the West Award Ceremony". She compared herself to Sun Wukong, envisioning that she would have a ground-breaking rebellion that would cause chaos in the sky; five years later, she used musical notes to pave railway tracks , walked step by step, passed through waves, and finally stood under the spotlight of the concert.

On November 18, 2023, Yu Zhen held a concert called "Miracle" in Suzhou. On the stage, she burst into tears several times. Off the stage, thousands of music fans sang loudly, taking over the emotion and shock that Yu Zhen had brought to them.

Behind the scenes, Oxygen Entertainment founder Kenn Wu and label head He Kun witnessed Yu Zhen’s growth along the way, and served as the music director and producer of the concert respectively. Because of their previous commitment, this time, even if they might lose money, they chose to support Yu Zhen and hold her first concert in her life.

From "Dream Diary" to "Miracle" Concert, what does a concert mean to rising artists? What thoughts can it bring to the industry?

From "dream" to "miracle"

With long blue hair, a leather jacket, and a black rose blooming on her chest, Yu Zhen just felt right when she appeared on the stage. She was fully engaged and enjoying every minute of the stage. When singing "Suicide Note", Yu Zhen covered her face in tears and choked up her voice on the stage, while the harmony and the audience completed the song.

As a manager, He Kun has witnessed the changes in Yu Zhen's mentality along the way. When He Kun first joined Oxygen Entertainment, Yu Zhen told him that she liked performing in live houses and the feeling of interaction and resonance with the audience. She didn't like music festivals very much because she felt that the audience was too far away and there was not enough interaction. But He Kun told her that she must first "move herself" with her works before the audience will be infected.

After five years, Yu Zhen has created ripples with her songs, infecting more and more people. The last song of the entire concert was "La La La". In this song, Yu Zhen shared the story of creating miracles because of love with all those who have dreams.

A whole year before the "Miracle" concert, Yu Zhen was busy creating her new album "Dream Diary", which was also her first album after joining Oxygen Entertainment.

At the beginning, Yu Zhen had no clear creative main line. Kenn Wu suggested that she should not put any restrictions on herself and just write casually. Later, Yu Zhen found inspiration from her diary and gave Kenn Wu more than 20 songs. In the end, the two of them selected 11 songs to make a new album.

Coincidentally, in these new songs, Yu Zhen always uses the image of "dream" over and over again. Therefore, the production team decided to use "Dream Diary" as the theme of the new album, recording every time they bravely set out for their dreams. The title song of the album and the theme of the concert were "Miracle". For a dreamer, isn't a miracle the bright moment that dreams pursue?

"For me, the created notes traveled through Yu Zhen's voice and infected countless people on that stage. This is really amazing!" Kenn Wu told Music Herald, as the first concert produced by Oxygen Entertainment, " "Miracle" is the secret of music or stage. "One note can change the fate of a group of people, and a stage can change an artist's self-perception."

In order to present Chu Zhen's best state, He Kun and kenn wu specially invited well-known overseas directors and production teams as the main team. Among them, the concert director Kim Sung-joo is from South Korea and has directed Super Junior’s concerts. "I said we are a small-scale artist, and Director Jin said I also want my work. I said but you will lose money. He said this cannot be said in terms of losing money, this is called investment." He Kun recalled.

During the entire preparation process, Jin Shengzhu regarded this "miracle" concert as his important work, so he meticulously polished every detail regardless of cost. "He is an artist, and he insisted on taking on this seemingly impossible task because he saw this - he is also creating his dream." He Kun also said with emotion.

As a well-known producer in the industry, kenn wu has an almost stubborn insistence on music quality.

In the concert documentary, you can see their working status behind the scenes. They will watch Yu Zhen's rehearsal videos over and over again, reviewing the performance of each song one by one. They cannot tolerate any flaws. Even on the day of the performance, Kenn Wu raised various questions every day, and then the whole team solved them one by one.

In order to solve the ticketing problem during the performance, Kenn Wu and He Kun even broadcast live. This is a rare move in the entire industry. The person in charge of a company directly faced the doubts of music fans. Fortunately, in the end The effect was unexpectedly good, and my sincere attitude earned fans' understanding.

After the concert, Yu Zhen continued this dream-making journey. She hurried to teach in eight primary schools in the mountains of Yunnan, teaching the children there about physical hygiene, teaching them to love themselves, and teaching them to grow up with peace of mind. For Yu Zhen, the story of dreams and miracles does not seem to just stop in the lyrics. She chooses to practice her lyrics and attitude with her feet.

From "dream making" to "miracle", they foresee the scenes in their dreams and personally make their dreams come true.

What does a concert mean to rising artists?

It goes without saying that the concert market has been very popular in the past year.

"2023 China Performance Ticketing Industry Research Report" shows that the box office revenue of performances in the first three quarters of 2023 alone has exceeded that of the whole of 2019, achieving revenue of 31.54 billion yuan, an increase of 84.2% compared to the same period in 2019. But in addition to the so-called prosperity, the industry also has to start thinking about the imbalance between supply and demand of high-quality performance content.

On the one hand, with the surge in the number of concerts provided, audiences have put forward higher requirements for the stage presentation, on-site experience, and artist performance of the concerts, and the traffic rules have begun to fail; on the other hand, organizers who pursue stable box office income Attention will be focused on a small number of leading artists, which will lead to the narrowing and homogenization of the performance market, leading to abnormal development.

If a concert wants to be recognized by the market, it needs to be based on high-quality works and excellent strength, and use this to form differentiated performance content. This is enough to filter out a large number of teams who want to make quick money through performances. It is not an easy task for rising artists.

As the first artist signed by Oxygen Entertainment, Yu Zhen is also the first time Kenn Wu has set foot in artist management. The "Miracle" concert is also his and the company's first attempt in the concert field. With so many projects coming together for the first time, Oxygen Entertainment will undoubtedly have to invest more and take higher risks.

But choosing to hold a concert for Yu Zhen is by no means a slap on the head, but more based on considerations of her own growth stage.

Since her debut in "Rap New Generation", Yu Zhen has grown rapidly and her business capabilities have been greatly improved. In the eyes of Kenn Wu and He Kun, she has been able to control a larger stage and now needs a high-standard concert to expand her influence.

"It is actually very difficult to make money for such a large-scale concert in a small venue." He Kun told Music Herald that for this concert, Oxygen Entertainment's initial investment cost far exceeded the budget. But in Kenn Wu's view, this is not a whim. Even if it involves losing money, it is a step that artists have to go through in the process of growth. "Investing artists' income into content construction is the most worthwhile investment."

kenn wu emphasized, “We do not want to be in a loss-making business for the rest of our lives, but by adopting this concept, we hope to achieve the ultimate in content construction, so that the performance of artists can be more outstanding, and they can thrive in this industry. Because, maybe the future benefits will not be limited to these two performances."

In He Kun's view, this concert is also a test for the performance team of Oxygen Entertainment. "This concert also gave me the courage to challenge all kinds of impossible tasks. As long as you work hard to do anything, no matter what We will be given some feedback on the results. ”

In an increasingly impetuous industry environment, a fully immersed concert is more related to the singer’s identity.

When a rising artist is forced to join the wave of profit-seeking, the company will choose variety shows or programs for the artist. Live broadcast projects. Compared with the delayed feedback in music, the feedback from frequent facial recognition in variety shows and showing up in the live broadcast room to bring goods is immediate. Artists may gain considerable popularity in a short period of time.

But in the long run, The identity of a musician will become insignificant, and it will be uneconomical and cost-effective to spend time polishing his works. In the end, artists will inevitably be labeled with stereotypes such as "variety show musicians" or "goods anchors", and when When the wave of the industry fades, without powerful music works around, musicians often can only stay on the shore and fall into the embarrassment of "naked swimming".

He Kun believes that for a girl who left home to pursue her music dream since she was a child, Said that the concert is the "miracle" in her life, which allows her to have a sense of belonging in the music industry. In He Kun and Kenn Wu's artist training philosophy, "We sincerely hope that singers will be singers first, and then He/she can be anything else. "

In other words, in addition to spending a lot of money and energy on training, newcomers also need "pillars" on a personal spiritual level, and the company's solid support and the infinite love of fans can inspire them to create more high-quality content. , become a true artist.

An idealistic adventure and persistence

When the music industry enters the era of streaming media, every listening behavior is recorded in big data. The data is imported into the traffic pool, and profits and losses, investment costs and The calculation of economic returns has become very easy.

This is indeed the operating philosophy of many record companies and brokerage companies today. They often look for talents with clear streaming data performance, quickly harvest the value of traffic, consume their talents, and the training process in the middle But they were ignored.

In this mentality of eager for quick success, the life cycle of musicians is compressed. After a short burst of popularity, they quickly decline until they are eliminated by the market.

But you must know that these characteristics are not innate, but It requires constant efforts and investment to help potential newcomers shine. And if you want to get rid of the fate of becoming popular and dying at the same time, the content and operation of musicians are particularly important.

Having been in the industry for more than 20 years, kenn wu has seen too much in the industry. Talented young people who are at a loss in the industry. In his opinion, talented young people should be valued and their content should be well managed instead of just consumed. With almost idealistic persistence, he decided to invest in the industry. Talented newcomers, cultivate and manage them well. Although they may not get high returns in the short term, there are still business opportunities in making the content the best.

"One thing that makes me happy is that I can experience and realize myself in my life." on the road to their dreams while helping others realize their dreams. In our industry, if you can persist until your last breath, it may be a blessing. This is the psychological advantage of a CEO who can make music! has the support of music and meaningful things. "He said.

And Yu Zhen's ability to come together with Oxygen Entertainment comes, to some extent, from the compatibility of musical attitudes and ideas. All along, whether in public interviews or in lyrics, Yu Zhen Never hiding her love for music and her ambition to become popular, "I have always known that I wanted to be a professional musician. This is my goal."

Five years ago, Yu Zhen was still a small town girl. She could spend two months' salary to buy a fully copyrighted accompaniment; five years later, she traveled to many cities and tried various jobs just to save money to make music, but she never wavered in her identity as a musician.When people attribute her success to talent, she simply replies, "My talent is love."

So, back to the core of the problem, can idealistic music labels catch up with the speed of the traffic era?

In this regard, kenn wu said that idealism and the pace of the traffic era are not contradictory. "We work with the artists we work with to host their dreams and ideals. Our task is how to transform ideals into notes, so that the notes can be When people hear it and even see it, monetization is realized in the end."

Different from the general trend of the industry, Kenn Wu and He Kun have always brought a kind of ingenuity in the recording era to cultivate and incubate artists, and are more patient and Confidently remove details and standards, and through long-term precipitation, arouse greater market response, extend the life cycle of musicians, and release greater value.

When asked what kind of musicians he prefers to collaborate with, kenn wu’s answer was “cooperate with musicians who need you.”

For Oxygen Entertainment, what it pursues is "mutual need" with musicians. Through the alignment of values ​​and the advancement of content and works, we abandon short-term gains and losses, realize the common growth of musicians and companies, and advance from "mutual need" to "mutual achievement", allowing talented and rising musicians to step up One step at a time to grow and ultimately gain long-term value.

And in 2024, there will be many new people like this joining Oxygen Entertainment and continuing to follow them through this path.

As Kenn Wu said in the "Miracle" concert documentary: "When we are making music, we may worry that no one will listen to the music after we make it, no one may watch when we get on the stage, and there may be no applause after dancing. But This is a lovely side of this industry, because it will surprise you, and your efforts will be rewarded accordingly."

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