Calling someone "China's calling card" is the highest compliment a celebrity can get, but the Emperor Beast clearly broke past the idea of a calling card. When a Qatari royal, a Spanish princess, and fans across Japan and Korea all get more and more into Chinese culture, it isn't a stretch to call Chu Zhi the ace of cultural outreach.
Day two, 2.07 million copies worldwide.
Day three, 1.66 million worldwide.
Three days blasting to 7.1 million made IFPI's stats team gape and recheck national reports again and again. IFPI mainly handles trade and copyright protection, but because it partners with dozens of national orgs, like China Records Corporation and China Audio and Video Publishing House, it can access detailed numbers.
The results blew past what Qin Fei and Lao Qian expected. Even if sales dipped hard later, breaking ten million was almost guaranteed, and that "almost" felt rock solid.
Who was the last act to sit at the same table as ten million?
Akenda's 2019 album crossed ten million global after two years of sales.
Or that Korean group, splitting into three sub-units for separate releases, then combining for a group album, selling ten million across the team in a single year.
Even in this parallel world where physicals do a little better than on Earth, a top Hollywood-tier singer pulls maybe five or six million first week. Chu Zhi's new record blew the roof off.
"In the realm of notes, Chu Zhi's god. With those numbers, I'm not surprised," Ke Meilun said. He'd just received thirty original cues Chu Zhi wrote for Unsinkable, each one scratching exactly where he itched.
That's what soulmates in art look like. Ke Meilun even went and bought All Nations Vol. 1 at a record shop and got photographed by reporters.
He let them ask a couple questions.
"Even before we worked together, I listened to Mr. Chu's music. His songs are alive, like an oak radiating endless vitality. Unsinkable. After working with him, I'm even more sure his talent's a treasure for the industry.
As for the new album, your wording isn't professional. I'm not a music pro, which means I don't have enough expertise to evaluate. What you want is my impression, right?
All Nations Vol. 1 will be remembered by history." He said that, and he understood. He understood, so he turned and walked toward the sea.
Understood what? That saying this much for Chu Zhi was enough, and quietly floating the idea of another film together hit the real target.
Why the sea? Ke Meilun lived on Long Island, right by the water.
Back online, Ke Meilun spotted a nasty spark.
[Has nobody noticed? My God, looks like only I have. Chu Zhi and his new album are part of a Chinese plot. They raised him from childhood to dominate the world with culture!]
He reached for his reading glasses. He didn't wear them daily, only for important things.
"Posted from Wyoming, that crowd again," he muttered. He knew Wyoming was among the most hostile states toward Chinese, and he hadn't forgotten the bloody Rock Springs mine massacre.
Think about it, raising a star to dominate culture around the globe, that's just cultural export. Hollywood excels at it. The post just slapped a conspiracy label on Chu Zhi and tried to smear him.
Give it a little time and people would start calling Chu Zhi a spy. Don't think that kind of talk's too childish.
He called Fox and asked them to change the conversation, to stamp the spark out before it became a fire.
Before Unsinkable, he wasn't a first-tier director. Two small sci-fi hits made him money, sure, but not a top dog. Now he was helming a movie with a budget north of 200 million dollars. Even before release, that put him in the top tier.
Whether he'd ascend for real depended on the box office.
Would Fox help? Of course. As soon as they got the call, they pulled strings across their media empire.
In short, "Fox, you don't want a huge investment to flop because of your lead, right?"
One of Hollywood's Big Five, Fox had its hands on the levers. TV, news, the works.
Niu Niu's team had already clocked the smear and drafted responses, but Fox moved faster, steering focus back to the work.
They used a simple method. Fox invited a legendary giant, Nad Stein, a Grammy Lifetime Achievement winner and true musical polymath. He'd excelled in classical, ballet, film scores, and Broadway, and he was the New York Philharmonic's first homegrown principal conductor.
A machine of efficiency, Nad left over 300 albums, blending elite taste with popular reach.
They got Nad to publish a column-length review of All Nations Vol. 1 in that day's issue of the bimonthly Rolling Stone.
Anyone who's worked in print knows a bimonthly locks copy early. Slotting in a late piece costs a lot.
"Thriller sits at number one on Billboard, Beat It at number two, as if answering Chu Zhi's so-called swagger. All Nations Vol. 1 shakes the world.
Beat It is vivid and aggressive. The opening riff in 4/4 sends a jumping invitation. It feels like a storage closet packed to the rafters suddenly thrown open: anti-violence ideas roiling, a signature bell pealing, guitars crackling with distortion, claps about to slip their leash…
This singular hard rock dance cut becomes true pop. When a pop song lets us glimpse something deeper, it means something different.
In Don't Cry for Me, Argentina I hear doomed romance and the release of self-disgust, the releaser being Eva Perón, a name the West knows well.
The sorrow lives between an abstract political air and a soothing melodic line. 'Don't cry for me, Argentina' is the lyricist's mercy for the Land of Silver.
The New Long March Rock and Moscow Nights make me think Chu Zhi's a revivalist.
The former is an alt-rock funhouse, where radio-wave power draws fuel from 'one two three four five six seven' and the chord engine.
The latter is a Soviet statue, but Chu Zhi isn't pining or mourning. He carves a niche with his lyrics and sets the statue inside. Natural minor, natural major, melodic minor, then back to natural minor shape a Moscow from decades ago.
From a musical point of view, the strangest thing isn't the eight languages. It's that the fourteen tracks show three utterly different emotional arcs.
I want an answer. What was Chu Zhi's mental state when he made this album?"
Rolling Stone is as authoritative as it gets in the West. Combine that with Nad's stature and how rarely he speaks now, and the review exploded on Twitter.
One more thing. Nad Stein had nothing left to prove. You could invite him, but you couldn't make him praise someone against his conscience. Born in 1938, he was nearing the end of the road. He had no reason to stain himself.
So when he finished the album and learned the songs were all written by the singer himself, his curiosity about Chu Zhi's mind was sincere.
Thanks to Nad's breakdown, non-musicians finally saw the gears turning.
"Nad said what I wanted to say. No wonder the album felt split to me, like half a burger and half a sandwich sitting on the same plate. I thought it was the languages. Turns out it's the emotion arcs."
"In a way, a Chinese artist writing songs that differ in both emotion and language on the same album is a one-of-a-kind talent."
"Before release, I thought the promo team was dumb for hyping it like that. After all fourteen tracks, I smoked five cigarettes, ate two steaks, and downed half a bottle of red. The promo wasn't exaggerating."
"It feels like a group piece by several artists. They don't share a philosophy, they don't even talk, but they're all top tier."
And more.
Like Nad said, the album's emotional unity is a mess. The last one, The One Gazed Upon by the Gods, at least held to courage and forward motion. This one's split wide open, yet every lane works.
Whether you judge by killer singles or a glorious chaos, All Nations Vol. 1 is going into music history.
Everyone waited to see what kind of sales miracle it would carve.
Day four…
Day five…
After a week, the heat cooled a bit, but global cumulative sales hit 11.85 million.
At the office.
"Spared your life," Qin Fei sneered at the monitor on Qi Qiu's desk.
"It's even crazier than I thought. Breaking ten million in a week," Qin Fei said.
"Brother Jiu, you made a myth," Qin Fei shouted.
"Actually, we made a myth," Chu Zhi corrected.
The numbers were wild. Chu Zhi decided to treat the whole company to a feast that night. Back to his office, working happy.
"I figured the 75th anniversary celebration would be at the Great Hall of the People. Didn't expect the National Centre for the Performing Arts," he said, reading the invitation. He accepted, though there was a tiny pang of regret.
Thinking it over, it made sense. The 70th had been at the Bolshoi in Moscow. By symmetry, the Great Hall wasn't likely.
He set the regret aside and submitted his program, the instrumental vocalise Dedication. Vitas wrote it for his mother who passed from illness. Chu Zhi had hesitated between The Cry of the Crane and Dedication for a long time. He chose the latter, vowing to himself he wouldn't pour real feelings into it this time. He'd go for pure technique.
If he sang the Vietnamese songs Mother in My Dreams and Visit Home Often with real feeling, he'd make himself cry. The Emperor Beast couldn't be totally heartless after all.
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"奉献"(Fèngxiàn, Dedication). Official Title (Russian): Мама — by Vitas, written in memory of his mother.
"鹤之泣"(Hè zhī Qì, The Cry of the Crane). Official Title (Russian): Плачь журавлей (Plach' zhuravley) — associated with Vitas's repertoire.
"梦中的妈妈"(Mèng Zhōng de Māma, Mother in My Dreams). Official Vietnamese Title: Mẹ Tôi— Vietnamese song reference in context.