12 A Genius Music Producer
When Yuan Xiao appeared at the door of the eighth recording studio, there were still five minutes before their agreed time.
From a distance in the corridor, she heard someone anxiously making a phone call and knocking on the door. Yuan Xiao approached with her cell phone in hand. It was a man in his thirties or forties, a little overweight. Yuan Xiao recognized that this was the agent of Gu Yuchen that Liu Zhu had told her about. They had just talked on the phone not long ago, and he was also responsible for the work of several other producers in the company.
"Mr. Yuan!" When Yuan Xiao was recognizing the person, the footsteps of the person coming were heard. He raised his head and gave Yuan Xiao a slightly apologetic and flustered smile, with slight sweat on his forehead.
"Brother Chen Yuan." Yuan Xiao nodded politely, without showing any impatience. "What is this?"
"I'm sorry, Mr. Xiao Yuan." Chen Yuan looked helplessly at the closed door of the recording studio and the screen full of missed calls on his phone, trying to help the person inside find a reason to save his image in front of his boss. "He may have worked all night again last night. He hasn't woken up yet. I'll call him again."
"It's okay. It's because I didn't make an appointment in advance. We can change the time later..." Before she finished her words, the door of the recording studio suddenly opened. In the dark room, the man lowered his eyes sleepily, his black shirt was wrinkled, and he was not wearing glasses. He leaned against the door as if he had no bones, and yawned with his hand covering his mouth.
"Please come in." Yuan Xiao was stunned. His voice was very pleasant, but different from Su Chen's young voice that was like the gurgling sound of a mountain spring. Gu Yuchen's voice was more like a bottomless pool in a mountain stream. It had a clear and thick voice, and perhaps because he had just woken up, it was a little hoarse.
He grabbed a handful of messy, slightly long hair in front of his eyes and sighed, as if sleepwalking, "Wait for me a moment, I'll go wash my face."
Gu Yuchen walked away in a daze, leaving Yuan Xiao and Shen Yuan looking at each other. OK, since they are here and there is still a long time before the end of get off work, it would be good to solve the problem today.
The shed was a little messy, with a thin gray blanket draped over the sofa. It was obvious that someone had just rested here.
"Boss Yuan, don't mind it. You know, that's how artists are." Chen Yuan had never met Yuan Xiao before. Whether it was the current one or the previous one, he was not sure what kind of person the new young boss was. He spoke politely.
"Oh, of course that's okay." It's normal for them to reverse their day and night schedules when doing art. Some people just get more inspiration as it gets late at night, and there's nothing you can do about it. Yuan Xiao expressed his understanding.
"Brother Chen, you probably haven't had time to convey my invitation to Teacher Gu yet, right?" Yuan Xiao saw Chen Yuan shaking his head and smiled, "It's okay, that's great, I'll talk to him myself later."
Gu Yuchen was not out for long. After a while, he came back with his face covered with water droplets. He took two pieces of paper from the workbench to wipe his hands and face, and pushed his slightly wet hair back, revealing a pair of slightly tired but beautiful eyes.
Maybe it was due to his current occupational disease, the first thought that flashed through Yuan Xiao’s mind was: Why isn’t this popular?
It's ridiculous that the domestic entertainment in this parallel world is still so ridiculous. A bunch of love-brained people occupy the top positions in this world, and the truly powerful idols can only be left behind and move behind the scenes?
Yuan Xiao had been busy in the half hour before coming here. He played all the songs Gu Yuchen had released over the years on repeat and read through this man's life story.
The information prepared by the system was very complete. When Gu Yuchen was 16 years old, he entered Tiansheng, the largest entertainment company in mainland China at that time, as a trainee. Yuan Xiao also knew that company. It was established earlier than their Yuanxin and started out as a music company. It also signed several superstars back then, but it has not been doing well in recent years.
But it was still at its peak more than ten years ago. At that time, the idol industry in Japanese and Korean entertainment was in its rising period. The popular boy and girl groups were famous all over Asia. Mainland entertainment companies were jealous and formed their own boy and girl groups. Gu Yuchen was discovered by a scout at that time.
Unlike other small companies that were trying to catch up with the trend and make quick money, Tiansheng was really aiming to create a star-making industry in the mainland like the Japanese and Korean entertainment industries. They also invested a lot of manpower and resources in training Gu Yuchen and other trainees. In order to create a domestic entertainment boy group that could match the Korean groups in terms of strength and appearance, they actually locked up the signed trainees in the practice room for three years of hard training before selecting the best ones to form a four-member boy group.
Unfortunately, the ideas and expectations were all good, but the practice period lasted too long, and the positioning at the time of debut was not accurate. The mainland market had long been ruined by all kinds of crude boy bands that just picked a few people and trained for two days before debuting, and had lost interest in idols. By the time Gu Yuchen and the others debuted, they could only be regarded as the tail end of the first generation of boy bands.
At that time, self-media was not yet popular, and marketing methods were far less diverse than they are now. The person in charge of their project and Gu Yuchen had nothing but a passion for youth, which, thrown into the domestic entertainment environment at the time, did not make much of a splash.
The star-chasing market was not formed, and the few fans who did have would not give up mature and exquisite Korean and Japanese entertainment groups for domestic entertainment boy groups. His group had been maintained for nearly six years with difficulty. Gu Yuchen had a good relationship with his members, and later he almost relied on outside work, selling songs and filming to support the group. Even so, the company's business gradually declined, and it did not want to continue to operate a group that might have no use except for the feelings of a small number of people. In the end, they had to go their separate ways and ended in a mess. The first generation of domestic entertainment boy groups was wiped out, and only talent show limited groups were left on the market.
There are four people in the group. Two of them became actors and played supporting roles in some TV dramas and online dramas. One was completely disillusioned and retired from the circle, got married and raised a child. The last one, Gu Yuchen, switched to behind-the-scenes work and joined another company as a music producer.
He is the youngest in their group. He trained for three years and participated in group activities for six years. He then moved behind the scenes to become a producer and went to college. It has been more than three years since then.
Yuan Xiao stared at Gu Yuchen, who had left the idol makeup studio. He was still a handsome guy who attracted a lot of attention when he walked on the street, but he was much more low-key, with a dull expression. There was almost no trace of the young man with burning vitality that Yuan Xiao saw when she watched his stage videos.
She couldn't help but sigh in her heart. It took the domestic entertainment industry six years to kill another idol.
Her group absolutely cannot do this!
Gu Yuchen nodded at Yuan Xiao and Shen Yuan, pulled open the large boss chair in front of the workbench with one hand, and reached out to turn on the computer.
"Little... Mr. Yuan, right? I'm sorry, my demos are all in the computer. Wait a moment while I turn it on." He was much more polite than Yuan Xiao had imagined. And yes, although artists always have some weird tempers, he has been struggling in the entertainment industry for so many years. If he still maintained his useless aloofness, he would have starved to death long ago.
He thought Yuan Xiao came to pick songs. She had made a lot of noise in the company, so it was no surprise that she found him. Gu Yuchen still had some confidence. When it came to the production of a boy band's album, no one in the entire company would be more professional than him.
After all, they were extremely poor when they were in the band. Those unfortunate guys didn't have an agent like Yuan Xiao to protect them. His current skills, from composing to arranging to recording and mixing, were purely forced out by life in the beginning.
There is no other way. Making music is really too expensive. I write my own lyrics and music, and record and mix the music myself. The money I save is enough to pay for ten months' rent in Beijing.
"No rush." Yuan Xiao picked up the songs Gu Yuchen wrote for others in recent years and the ones he released when he was in the group and listened to them. They really met all her requirements for a boy band producer. To be honest, she could tell that the songs he made after his transformation behind the scenes were more refined and mature than before, but she felt that... they were still better than before.
I wonder if this person still has the spirit? Has he been worn away by life?
"Teacher Gu, actually I came here today to invite you to participate in our men's group project."
As soon as these words came out, Yuan Xiao keenly noticed that Gu Yuchen's fingers on the computer paused. He stopped moving the mouse towards the folder with the word "demo" on the desktop, turned around, and was very surprised: "What?"
"I'm sure you two have heard about the company's recent plan to form a boy band. Since we're going to form an idol group, we have to start preparing the concepts and songs for the first and second albums now." Yuan Xiao was very sincere. Gu Yuchen was the one who had actually participated in the entire process of the development of the boy band in this world. His experience was crucial to her.
"Teacher Gu is a very good music producer with diverse styles and rich experience. Moreover, he is very good at fast songs. You are the most suitable candidate not only within Yuanxin, but also among all the music producers in the entire domestic entertainment industry. So I would like to invite you to lead the production of all albums for this boy band and subsequent boy bands." Yuan Xiao sat on the sofa and looked directly into Gu Yuchen's eyes. "I sincerely invite you to serve as the project's chief producer and music director."
For a moment, it was as if something very complicated flowed through his eyes. He looked deeply into Yuan Xiao's eyes and was silent for a long time.
Gu Yuchen lowered his head, letting his hair cover half of his face, his fingers scratching the edge of the table unconsciously. Yuan Xiao didn't know how many entanglements and memories went through his mind at this time, and finally he uttered with difficulty, "You'd better find someone else..."
Yuan Xiao glanced at Chen Yuan, who was obviously anxious but didn't dare to speak, and said to him, "Brother Chen, I'm sorry, can we talk alone?"
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