HuaYu97: Starting as a Singer

Chapter 69 [069] Holding Three Major Awards, the Little King Truly Deserves the Title

Xie Tingfeng wasn't the only one watching Qi Yuan; Zhang Huimei was too.

In January, at the Top Chinese Music Awards in mainland China, Qi Yuan took away the Best Newcomer Award, which was originally a strong contender for her position.

At the time, she considered Qi Yuan to be the biggest rival to the Hong Kong Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards and the Taiwan Gold Song Awards.

She was right about him; Qi Yuan is indeed very strong.

A newcomer who debuted just last year and released only one album has already won a Top Ten Songs Award. It truly reflects the lyrics of the song "Small Town Girl," whose future shines as brightly as the stars in the sky. No, it shines even brighter than the stars in the sky.

After Qi Yuan stepped down from the stage amidst a chorus of honors and applause, Chen Baixiang chatted with several new award presenters for a while before beginning to present the bronze, silver, and gold awards for Outstanding Mandarin Songs.

The bronze award was a tie, with Jung Joong-ki's "Useless Love" and Richie Jen's "Too Softhearted" winning.

Tyrannosaurus Rex is actually quite good at singing.

Richie Jen's awards don't do justice to his immense popularity; that's what pop songs are all about.

The advantage of catchy pop songs is that they are easy to sing and commercially successful. The disadvantage is that they lack artistry and innovation, and judges of prestigious awards generally do not favor them.

Richie Jen and Jung Joong-ki each performed their own songs on stage.

There's not much to say about "Too Softhearted". Qi Yuan was sick of listening to it during his time in Beijing. It was played everywhere.

Jung Joong-ki's singing skills are truly excellent, and his voice is exceptional; he's a natural-born singer.

The silver award winner was Zhang Xueyou's "I Want to Go for a Breeze with You," and Wu Yingge's singing skills were as solid as ever.

The gold award went to Andy Lau's "Chinese People," a song written against the backdrop of Hong Kong's return to China, which is grand in scope and truly deserves the award.

The Most Promising Newcomer Award is also divided into bronze, silver, and gold awards.

The bronze medal winner is Liang Yongqi, and the silver medal winner is Zhang Huimei.

When announcing the gold award, Chan Pak-cheung and the other two presenters exclaimed in surprise: "Oh, the gold award is a tie again! Please welcome the winners of the gold award for Most Promising Newcomer at the 20th Hong Kong Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards: Qi Yuan and Tse Ting-fung."

"Ah Yuan, you're going on stage again." Zhou Jianhui was thrilled.

With a lucky general like Qi Yuan, how could he not secure his position as general manager?

Qi Yuan shook hands with the group of people around him, then nimbly ran onto the stage, where Xie Tingfeng, wearing a yellow coat, stood beside him.

Despite being heavily promoted by the Hong Kong music scene and widely recognized as the most outstanding young musician in Hong Kong, Nicholas Tse's presence was completely overshadowed when he stood next to Qi Yuan.

Qi Yuan is 1.8 meters tall, and he would be two or three centimeters taller with shoes on.

Nicholas Tse is about 1.68 meters tall, and even with 5-6 centimeter platform shoes, he is still much shorter than Qi Yuan.

It's common for the quality of genuine Hong Kong artists to be inferior to that of mainland artists.

The glory days of Hong Kong's entertainment industry in the 1980s and 90s gave many people the illusion that Hong Kong was teeming with talent.

If you dig deeper, you'll find that the vast majority of the handsome men and beautiful women whose names you can name are from mainland China or Taiwan.

Many talented people, including the Four Great Talents of Hong Kong, as well as many musicians and filmmakers, are actually from mainland China.

Having been rooted in Hong Kong for generations, the proportion of truly native Hong Kongers is very small.

To put it simply, it was due to special historical reasons that talented people from all over China briefly gathered in Hong Kong, which led to the golden age of Hong Kong entertainment, a time of dazzling stars.

When talented people from all over China stop flocking to Hong Kong, it will become quite normal for Hong Kong, with its population of only a few million, to not produce superstars like Li Ming, Aaron Kwok, Stephen Chow, and Brigitte Lin.

Nicholas Tse is truly one of the best newcomers the Hong Kong entertainment circle can find.

More than a decade later, the Hong Kong entertainment industry was even weaker, and the beauty of each Miss Hong Kong contestant was less than that of the previous generation. After receiving their respective trophies, Qi Yuan sang "Everyday" and Xie Tingfeng sang "Bad Habits".

During the subsequent awards ceremony, Qi Yuan went on stage again and received a Top Ten Outstanding Pop Singers Award.

The winners of the Top Ten Outstanding Pop Singers and Top Ten Golden Songs largely overlap, still including the Four Heavenly Kings, Leo Ku, Zheng Xiuwen, and Qi Yuan.

The champion, runner-up and third place winners of the annual highest sales award were Zhang Xueyou, Andy Lau and Aaron Kwok, respectively.

Qi Yuan's single album sales exceeded 150,000, achieving triple platinum certification, which is impressive, but it can't compete with the high output of these Hong Kong and Taiwan superstars.

Take Aaron Kwok as an example. He released four albums last year: Mandarin albums "Sharing Love" and "I'm Determined to Love You", and Cantonese albums "Call of Love" and "Sing This Song".

The same applies to Andy Lau and Jacky Cheung; it's normal that the combined sales of their several albums exceed Qi Yuan's triple platinum status.

Finally, there is a very prestigious award.

The winner of the Global Chinese Supreme Golden Melody Award is Li Ming, and the winning song is "As Long As You Love Me for One Day".

Li Ming at his peak was really popular.

Qi Yuan won three trophies in one night: Top Ten Golden Songs and Top Ten Outstanding Pop Singers, awards that a superstar must win.

If you don't win the Most Promising Newcomer Gold Award once, you'll never have another chance in your life.

Qi Yuan is poised to become the biggest dark horse of this year's Top Ten Chinese Gold Songs Awards.

The following day, Qi Yuan's name and photo occupied prominent positions in several Hong Kong entertainment newspapers.

Holding three trophies, including Top Ten Golden Songs and Top Ten Outstanding Pop Singers, is an essential step on the path to becoming a Heavenly King. Qi Yuan is coming on strong, and his threat to the Four Heavenly Kings may even exceed that of Richie Jen.

[The First Showdown Between Leading Young Figures in the Mainland Chinese and Hong Kong Music Scenes]

The accompanying photo shows Qi Yuan and Xie Tingfeng receiving an award together on stage; both of them look very handsome in the photo.

It must be said that the person who took this photo knew how to find the right angle. The photo was taken from Nicholas Tse's side, looking towards Qi Yuan, which effectively concealed Nicholas Tse's height disadvantage.

[The person most likely to shake the status of the Four Heavenly Kings in the music scene—Qi Yuan, with three awards in hand, has already become a true rising star.]

This is the benefit of winning awards; with the added boost of awards, Qi Yuan's status has risen rapidly.

He started out as a somewhat inflated pop star under Warner Music's marketing, but gradually evolved into a true pop star.

Qi Yuan was making waves in the Hong Kong music scene when a major piece of news from the mainland reached Hong Kong, with the headline "Chen Kaige angrily rebukes paparazzi spreading rumors on set."

Here's what happened: Some time ago, the media hyped up the story that Qi Yuan's refusal of the invitation caused Chen Kaige to fly into a rage.

Some paparazzi, eager to dig deeper into the scandal, visited the film set and asked Chen Kaige directly if he thought Qi Yuan was arrogant and conceited, and whether his claim that he wanted to blacklist Qi Yuan in the mainland film industry was true.

Chen Kaige immediately flew into a rage, pointing his finger at the paparazzi and yelling, "Which company are you from? You're spreading rumors! I will never accept an interview from your reporters again, and I'm going to sue you!"

Qi Yuan hoped that this young man would understand him better, not only recognizing his talent but also recognizing him as a great cultured person.

These unethical media outlets actually smeared Qi Yuan. Is it acceptable to abandon one's conscience just to sell newspapers?
Qi Yuan could endure it, but he couldn't.

Chen Kaige kept his word and, in a fit of anger, sued the newspaper that first spread the rumors, scaring the newspaper owner so much that he knelt down overnight.

Qi Yuan, who was in Hong Kong, was shocked when he heard the news.

When Kai Zi is in trouble, he really steps up.

(End of this chapter)