118 Ending
The competition is nearly halfway through, and the performance of Celes and Stary in the first four episodes is extremely impressive. Yuan Xiao is quite satisfied. As the general producer of the program and the executive president of Yuan Xin, her two groups are steadily growing in popularity, discussion, and even commercial value.
The reports submitted by various departments this quarter also focused on the two groups Stary and Celes, especially the financial department. The biggest income is of course the sponsorship and advertising of "Code: Heart Dance Stage". Almost all the reserved advertising spots in the live broadcast have signed sky-high advertising fees. Sponsors flocked to the advertising spots that cannot be skipped in a national-level variety show like sharks smelling blood. In the end, the largest e-commerce platform and the most cutting-edge electronic industry in China won the title of "Heart Dance Stage". The sponsorship fee was sky-high. Measured by the level of domestic entertainment, it is probably second only to the Spring Festival Gala.
Another part of the income comes from the copyrights of the singles released by Stary and Celes so far. There is a little difference here. Stary's copyright income mainly comes from other artists' covers in variety shows and music festival concerts. Since Yuan Xiao started to set up idol groups, other entertainment companies have also set their eyes on the domestic idol industry. Businessmen are profit-driven. Yuan Xiao has made boy and girl groups very popular, so naturally other companies will be jealous of the profits. In the past two years, there have been an unusually large number of talent shows and groups launched, and as the "first" boy group, if the new groups and trainees do not cover a Stary song, it seems like something is missing.
It's not just artists, live streaming influencers, dance bloggers, and virtual boy bands. The copyright applications that Yuanxin has passed are varied. Stary's singles and choreography are very difficult, but the stage effect is obvious to all. As long as there are requirements for the quality of their own works, Stary is the first choice among boy band dances.
Celes' copyright comes from the soundtracks of various long and short videos. No copyright fees are required for non-commercial use, but the short video platform needs to pay for users. The soundtracks of various variety shows also like to use several atmospheric songs from Celes' first album. Although the cost of use is not very high, Celes' singles are extremely popular on the short video platform. All major marketing accounts have been using them since the beginning of the year, and the accumulated income is also quite considerable.
Combined with the endorsements of the two groups, album magazine APP membership fees and peripherals, as well as the income from overseas distribution of "Heart Dance Stage", Yuanxin Entertainment's entire first quarter revenue reached 650 million, basically the same as during the Stary tour in the previous quarter.
With Yuanxin Entertainment's huge fan base, the monthly membership fee for the APP alone is already a huge income. The peripheral production lines have been expanding all the time, and the factory has grown from one to three, which are responsible for the production of paper, dolls and special peripherals ordered by Yuanxin. The expanded production capacity just barely met the demand last month, so there is no need for fans to click frantically to buy every time a new product is released.
Yuanxin Entertainment's hunger marketing has always been the only point criticized among the rave reviews from fans. The quality of Yuanxin's peripherals has always been good, with novel designs and exquisite technology, and the prices are not outrageous, but they are sold out as soon as they are released.
The scalpers of the original series are equally outrageous. Since all kinds of admission tickets are strictly managed, they simply start the business of reselling official peripherals. Every time a new product is released, they rush to grab it at the right time, and then sell it to fans who missed out on it at a premium.
Yuan Xiao was also helpless about this. Such behavior is bound to occur in a market where supply exceeds demand. It is difficult to define and manage whether it is scalpers or pink scalpers. The company can only issue a statement on the official platform to repeatedly emphasize that there is no need to pay a premium for bartering and all purchases should be rational and on demand.
Last time, Stary made a new peripheral project with scent cards of each member's favorite smells. There was the herbal scent of the perfume that Captain Xiao Pei usually sprayed, and there was also the scent of freshly baked bread that Su Chen liked. When the new products were released, 200,000 cards were prepared for each member, for a total of one million scent cards. However, it still didn't last more than three seconds due to the purchasing power of the Satellite Sisters. Many fans reported that the shopping page of the APP mall froze twice at the moment the new products were released, and then it showed sold out. They didn't want to say anything anymore.
It's always like this anyway.
Yuan Xiao could only continue to expand production, at least to ensure that the link would exist stably during the limited-time sale of the peripheral products, and not to set an outrageous pre-sale time estimate of 200 days.
It is not surprising to have such fan purchasing power. Now, the number of fans of Yuanxin artists accounts for almost half of the domestic entertainment industry. If there was still some controversy in the first season, by the second season of "Codename: Heart Dance Stage", Stary has almost secured its position as the number one boy band in the domestic entertainment industry. The quality and originality of their three albums, each one better than the last, have almost shown the bright future of this group to everyone. Moreover, these five people are still young enough to continue to be active as idols for more than a decade. What could be more reassuring than being a fan of Stary?
Celes seemed to be even more motivated than his seniors, and his performance in "Heart Dancing Stage" was no worse than Stary in the previous and this season. More and more passers-by, fans of the show, and even Stary and Celes themselves began to look forward to what it would be like if the two groups trained by Yuan Xiao really met on stage, but in the fifth and sixth live competitions, the two groups did not meet on stage.
Celes' "Romantic Crazy" met the Korean boy group in the fifth episode and unfortunately lost. Stary re-interpreted "Night Boat" in the competition with Mir. In the sixth round, Celes and ENIGMA cooperated to complete a big show, but Stary chose to perform the pre-release song of the third album alone and finally lost to SIRIN's sincere Chinese cover. Although they were all wonderful, from the audience to the guests, almost everyone had some subtle emotions in their hearts. The discussion about which of the two groups is stronger can be opened in the group every day, but no matter how fans and passers-by analyze and discuss, they still have to compete to distinguish the winner.
Yuan Xiao is probably the only one in the world who doesn't want these two groups to meet. Although she and many people understand that the popularity of a song cannot prove everything, no matter who wins or loses, there will definitely be marketing accounts making a big fuss about it. Yes, she can fully foresee that if she were the marketing account, she would not give up such a good opportunity to ride on the popularity.
If it weren't for the live broadcast where both sides were deploying their troops at the same time, she would have wanted to use some "behind-the-scenes" skills.
But as the program progressed, Celes also encountered problems similar to what Stary encountered in the middle of the first season. The singles they could choose from became limited, and they did not have enough time to adapt them for each episode. They were far from being as calm as their seniors who had accumulated a year of experience. Every group has this kind of psychological fatigue, but Celes, who debuted the shortest time, is the one suffering the most.
“If we continue like this, we won’t be able to be considered a complete Celes even if we compete with our seniors. I really hope that if we have to face it, it’s better to do it sooner rather than later.” The two producers, Xin Mengting and Mo Shuangzhu, worked the hardest. They were responsible for most of the arrangement work in each episode, and they also had to practice choreography.
They all know that they can't worry too much about winning or losing, and winning an entire season of live competitions is not something that must be accomplished, but, how to put it?
After winning one episode, they will think about whether they should do better in the next episode. The girls all have strong personalities and are full of youthful vigor and enthusiasm. They don’t think that having a desire to win is a bad thing, just like they don’t think that they can’t be on the same stage as Stary just because they debuted a year later. They are like young calves, eager to challenge their predecessors.
Stary also doesn't think that there's no need to compare because they are juniors. They also think that Celes is a strong opponent. Fortunately, Yuan Xiao had separated the boys' and girls' practice rooms on separate floors a few years in advance. Otherwise, if they met in the corridor, the two groups would probably have sparked sparks face to face.
During this period, the daily materials updated by the two groups Stary and Celes have almost become fixed camera positions. Fans joked that it would be better to put a fixed live camera without sound in the practice room. Anyway, the edited videos are just communication practicing communication, and they are busy from sunrise to nightfall.
By the seventh episode, there was a new round of guests. Twenty-Four Order returned with a new album, and the men's team was a new concept boy group that emerged in Korea. They were also the largest group on "Heart Dance Stage", with a total of fifteen people.
Qin Kaiyue, who was already completely familiar with Celes, sat next to Mo Shuangzhu without any disobedience. He looked at her and then at the captain of the 24th Order, and sighed: "They do look alike."
Mo Shuangzhu was speechless: "Of course, my biological child."
Whenever they appear in the same frame, you can tell they are sisters. The other four members of Celes are already very familiar with their sister. Every day when Mo Shuangzhu talks to her sister on the phone at their home, the members next to her will chat with her. From time to time, they will receive specialties mailed by their sister when she travels around the country to feed them.
The production of 24Ling's new album was not very smooth. Just as they said at the end of last season, the members spent more than six months this year traveling around the country to collect folk songs. They visited many ancient monuments, recorded the mottled colors and traces with melodies, and took samples in the corridors of temples on cliffs. But when they really started the production, they felt that any music to describe the beauty of that historical time seemed too monotonous and pale.
All they could do was to use melodies, samples and carefully crafted lyrics to express some fragments of their feelings. The production time of the entire album was very long, and it was delayed again and again from the expected eight months. It was not until before the start of this season of "Heart Dance Stage" that more than half of the music production was completed and the advance hit was released, and they almost missed the second season of "Heart Dance Stage".
Of course, Celes and the others followed Mo Shuangzhu in listening to the demo version, and they all agreed that, from their aesthetic point of view, the best, most profound and memorable song in the album Twenty-Four Orders was not the first pre-release song based on Dunhuang, but another song in the album based on the Hexi Corridor and Jiayuguan. When they listened to the demo, it didn't even have a name yet, there was only a melody written from the pentatonic scale and a sample of the sound of the wind.
But it does not prevent it from being very nice to listen to, just like in this song you can taste the sandstorm outside the Great Wall and the ancient battlefield. After listening to it, Leng Ci put her hand on Mo Shuangzhu's shoulder and said that they wanted a song like this in their new album. In the end, it turned into a song about several people entangled together, and asked Mo Shuangzhu to write quickly.
The song chosen by Twenty-Four Order for their performance was the one that Mo Shuangzhu had strongly recommended. Twenty-Four Order has never been a group known for their dancing ability, but this time all the members wore armor elements and looked well prepared. They chose "Blue" this time and their stage makeup was a campus style with Celes wearing black-framed glasses, a plaid skirt and calf-high socks. Standing together, it was like the upstream and downstream of history looking at each other across thousands of years. The picture was very wonderful.
Qin Kaiyue looked at them with a little envy. She was not so arrogant as to think that the girl groups in the domestic entertainment industry were necessarily behind those overseas or anything. On the contrary, they had a lot of inspiration, a lot of freedom, and a lot of future.
Celes is good, Twenty-Four is great, and ENIGMA is also good.
In the seventh episode, Celes once again missed the chance to compete with his senior. This time, the two groups seemed to have telepathic connection and chose more cheerful and light-hearted music styles, which would have been great if they had met. However, Stary from the men's team chose to appear second to last, while Celes from the women's team chose to appear first, and they happened to meet the guest star.
When writing their names on the order list, the audience with a bird's eye view in front of the screen wanted to get into their phones to help the two groups choose. When the host cue them, they clearly said that they wanted to give the two groups a try to compete on the same stage. There will be many opportunities for cooperation, but very few for competition once they leave the show. In the end, they never meet each other. It can be said that they have a kind of telepathic connection.
After so many episodes, the final cumulative results of the male and female teams are basically the same. Both sides have won, lost and had two ties. The male team lost slightly and will have one less spot in the final Heartbeat Concert, but the difference is not big. There are still three episodes left, and they may be able to turn defeat into victory.
At this point, several permanent teams are carrying out the competition with perseverance. The girls from the Thai group no longer go shopping to be met by chance, and the members of the Korean group no longer share the delicious food they have eaten after coming to China on their social media accounts every day. Everyone's desire to win has been aroused by this show. If you lose to the opponent in any episode, you will feel really uncomfortable for a long time after it is over.
Several groups on the same team also became good friends through this program. Not only in the preparation room, but also before and after the game, they encouraged each other. The two teams also communicated with each other outside of the program recording.
Mir's company was not very supportive. When they wanted to re-record a backup of one episode, they couldn't find a suitable recording studio in China. Xin Mengting directly asked their agent to let Mir go to Yuanxin Company's professional-level recording studio. Stary also helped with the transportation and purchase of the stage equipment for the Japanese boy band Re:V. Not to mention Qin Kaiyue, who is almost becoming a Yuanxin artist. Even Yuan Xiao jokingly asked her if she chose to return to the domestic entertainment industry one day, she could consider signing a sub-contract to her.
Not to mention, this proposal is really quite appealing. Yuan Xiao, that's Ms. Yuan Xiao. There has never been a bad development for the artists she personally managed. Plus, this cooperation with their company has laid a good foundation. This joking remark may really come true one day in the future.
To be honest, Qin Kaiyue quite likes the atmosphere of Yuanxin. It is not like some domestic entertainment companies that are overly free and casual, where all the artists and trainees seem to do things based on their own preferences and their development paths are also free and wild. It is also not like some Korean entertainment companies that are overly cold-blooded and inhumane, buying out the youth of many people but refusing to let these precious years be shown to fans and audiences.
Now the domestic idol market has also been opened up by Yuanxin Entertainment. Maybe if there is a chance, he can really come back and participate in more good variety shows and stages.
As the competition progressed, the big moves that several groups were holding back became increasingly apparent. By counting their masterpieces, we can tell what they were going to do in the final episode of this season. Although the program team did not specify that the tenth episode was the finals, but used a separate concert to disperse the competitive atmosphere, the final episode was almost as valuable as the finals for both the resident groups and the audience.
Those who lost before wanted to get back at the challenge, and those who had not challenged before also wanted to take advantage of the last chance to try a few tricks. Stary's "Dawn", Celes' "Pet" and other famous works of several other groups were performed. Some netizens have already joked that it is hard to say whether the audience who received an invitation to the scene in the tenth episode is lucky or unlucky. Every group will use their big tricks, so won't they be hoarse from singing together?
As expected, in the two episodes, several groups tacitly chose to adapt. Stary had long wanted to try a cappella on this stage. Ever since Gu Yuchen taught them pure vocal chorus, the five of them have not performed a complete stage with a cappella techniques on a formal stage. After all, it is too bold. Even if all the idol groups in the world are added together, there may not be many who can complete pure vocal singing without music on the stage, and this time happened to be an opportunity.
"This Little Fish Cares", Su Chen only tried this song once before the remaining four brothers gave him a thumbs up and said, "Very good, this is the song."
The five-person a cappella group performed according to the responsibilities assigned to them by teacher Gu. Su Chen and Pei Zijin were the lead singer and backing vocalist respectively. The rapper Jin Zeyu was responsible for B-Box, which was the most important rhythm and drum beats of the song. This was easy for Jin Zeyu, who often played with flow changes when singing rap. The remaining two, Yu Le and Yan Fan, played one high-pitched instrument and one medium-pitched instrument, which was exactly the minimum configuration for a cappella.
Normally speaking, it is not easy to adapt a song into an a cappella version. Different from the harmony games they sometimes improvise in daily life and materials, the part of a cappella that uses vocals to simulate instruments is equally important. It is also an important part of distinguishing a cappella from a cappella. A sense of layering must be created so that the sound field energy of their song on a large stage is not weaker than that of a normal arrangement program.
Fortunately, the brothers have been eating and sleeping together for several years, so they still have some tacit understanding. The five of them each performed their own duties and snapped their fingers, and they really performed a completely different version of "This Little Fish Cares".
"But baby, life is more than this. We are here to feel the sunshine, watch the sunset and the rising tide, listen to the evening breeze sing everything, the leaves will turn yellow, and everything will be as usual."*
The final version seemed as if this was the way the song was naturally supposed to be sung. The voice of lead singer Su Chen was thick and warm, and against the backdrop of the equally soft vocals, it almost made people cry. Some of the audience members once doubted why someone would cry on a variety show recording, thinking that it was too exaggerated. But when they sat in the audience, enveloped by the gentle power, they felt that it would be a shame to the song if they didn't cry.
Using softness to overcome hardness, in this episode it was the gentleness of the Stary boy group that won over the high-energy hardcore HIPHOP of the guest Japanese girl group.
The men's team took the lead, but the women's team won back a round with SIRIN's OST cover. They cleverly chose a TV drama interlude that was a big hit in both the Chinese and Thai entertainment industries, and did not use "Original Heart", but solved the copyright issue themselves. Because the TV drama was so popular that it was a household name in Southeast Asia, even though SIRIN sang in Thai, more than half of the mainland audience could translate the lyrics into Chinese in their minds.
Although SIRIN's lead singer is young, her vocal ability is not inferior to some veteran singers. The impromptu high note in section C of the song goes straight to the top of people's heads, giving a feeling of blowing the roof off. This song has both the familiarity and the freshness of the Thai version. In addition, SIRIN's performance is really perfect. At the end of the show, it was ranked in the top three in the music charts and remained there for more than half a month. This is the first time that an overseas star group has been on the domestic entertainment charts for such a long time.
But Celes and Stary still didn't meet.
There is one last issue.
Either there is no king in the whole season, or the production team deliberately raises everyone's expectations to the highest level. Now even netizens who claim to be prophets dare not say what Yuan Xiao is thinking. The last seven days were like years for the entire network. Only Stary and Celes wondered why a day is not forty-eight hours?
Regardless of whether they can PK or not, both groups have put in one hundred and twenty points of their energy to prepare for the final battle stage of this season's show. No matter who their opponent is or whether they win or lose, they have to leave no regrets, right?
Especially Stary, they already had a regrettable year last year.
Celes' trump card is "Pet" from their first album. If you only listen to the name of this song, it is easy to mistake it for a sweet little song. However, since the day it was released, this song has been one of the favorite background music for many realistic TV dramas.
This song is one of the few studio songs of Celes, which means that their performance in the studio is better than live. This is not because there is any problem with their vocal ability, but because the emotions of this song are very strong.
When they were recording, they all used some tricks to mobilize their emotions before entering the recording studio. These tricks are very simple. Just searching some social news with keywords on the mobile phone can make people emotional and want to rush to the microphone and pour out everything.
However, it is extremely exhausting to mobilize emotions like this on a live stage. If it is not a performance like "Heart Dancing Stage" which only requires one stage to record an episode, they have to consider the quality of the entire performance and cannot be willful and exhaust their energy in just one program.
But this is "Heart Dancing Stage".
Leng Ci's eyes almost stared through the mirror in front of her when she was rehearsing in the practice room. It was as if her modern dance skills were passed on to everyone in Celes. Xia Wentao also gave each of them opera eye training. Although it was not exactly the same, at least there were similarities in expression control and management. Celes's sensitivity in capturing the camera has always been one of their group's killer weapons.
“She’s not your doll.”
“She is half of humanity.”
Leng Ci's voice is naturally suitable for performing English passages. After they worked out the new movement design, they all gathered around the assistant sister to watch the playback. Xin Mengting listened to the external sound while reminding Leng Ci: "You don't need to use too much breath in this part. This choreography may be unstable after changing to a forward step. The same goes for others, because based on the overall concept of our stage this time, we are very confident in singing this line of lyrics."
Mo Shuangzhu nodded in agreement and paused the playback to let Leng Ci try again. This time it was perfect. She did not deliberately lower her voice, as that would have made it sound greasy. As long as the words and breath were steady and solid, the opening of their stage was considered stable.
"The rose breaks free from the vase and pierces the sky. The true face is pieced out from the fragments of the mirror maze. The chain has broken. I declare that this game is controlled by me."
"Let's try another version of the harmony. I just changed it a little bit." Mo Shuangzhu turned around and quickly played a few notes on the keyboard in the corner of the practice room. "Taozi, try following this melody."
"Yes, I think this version can better reflect the emotions. Pay attention to the positioning at this time. I've made a note here to ask the director to cut the camera to this point during the rehearsal the day after tomorrow. Taozi, remember to move a little more outward at this sound."
“I will no longer adjust my dance steps for anyone’s expectations. I will tear off the labels to define my own talents. Wagging my tail and begging for mercy is not my attitude. It’s time to turn the script. The self in the mirror says: My way now!”
"Stop." Song Lianqing, who had been staring at everyone's movements in the mirror, called out, "Zhuzi, move your arm up two centimeters, Mengting, move your elbow outward, that's enough, remember this, let's do this eight beats again."
In fact, the difference is already difficult to see with the naked eye, but nailing down the details of the movements is always the eternal theme in the practice room. If you don't work hard here and practice over and over again until it becomes muscle memory, it means you won't be able to perform perfectly on stage. Live is a romance that only happens once, so all practice must be done 100%.
"One more time, five, six, seven, go!"
"Again."
"Again."
"Let's do it again. This time it's really good. Let's consolidate it and remember this feeling! Five, six, seven, go."
"P!E!T!S!"
"P!E!T!S!"
Six days and one hundred and forty-four hours passed in a flash. Until Celes stood on the stage waiting for the last battle of the second season of "Codename: Heart Dance Stage", she couldn't believe that in the end they would actually use "Pet" to compete against "Dawn" of their senior group Stary.
The two groups finally had their brain waves matched in the last episode. When the captains of both teams chose the last person to appear at the same time, making a perfect 1v1, they all raised their heads as if they were aware of something, as if a huge storm of cheers from the audience in front of the stage was magically transmitted to the show through the network cable at that moment.
The big screen showed the final contestant match: Stary "Dawn" versus Celes "Pet".
Senior brothers to junior sisters, the guests in the preparation room were also cheering, Celes and the other five were almost trembling with excitement at that moment, and Stary in the preparation room on the other side also had a smile on his face. Yuan Xiao also watched this almost fateful scene in real time on the screen that was broadcast simultaneously in the background. She finally chose not to intervene and let everything be arranged by fate. The light from the screen was reflected on her sharp-edged face, as always, calm and impartial, but she was secretly curious in her heart.
Both groups are hers, so theoretically she will win no matter who wins, but which style can better stand the test of audience taste?
"Dawn", even when the five of them first entered the company, they practiced singing and dancing while listening to this song, and the song "Pet" also has its unique meaning and value. When this song was brought to the stage with so many people's attention, it actually marked a victory. Both groups knew how much effort the other side had made for this stage in the last week. The lights in the company's practice room were on again until dawn. Countless ideas and details were carefully filled into these two songs by every member of the group who was good at them. On the stage of the last episode and the last show, who would win and who would lose would depend on their final performance.
【Author’s words】
* "This Little Fish Cares" lyrics and music by Wang OK
This novel ends here. Thank you for your continued support. As for the final victory or defeat of Stary and Celes, I will leave it to you to judge. The male and female groups are on different tracks, so it is possible for anyone to win or lose. Whoever wins is a victory for our Yuan Xiao. In the next few days, I will revise the ending and update more than five extra chapters, including the relationship between Teacher Gu and Xiao Xiao, the subsequent status of Yuan Xin Entertainment and the family concert, etc. Thank you again for your support and recognition!
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