This article is from the WeChat public account "Music Herald" (ID: nakedmusic), author: Fan Zhihui, 36Kr is published with permission.
Author | Late Rainfall Edit | Fan Zhihui
After a lot of going, the 32nd Summer Olympics are finally here.
This is a special one in history, when the Tokyo Olympics were postponed for a full year due to the global COVID-19 pandemic. On the evening of July 23, Beijing time, the opening ceremony took place in a quiet stadium that could have accommodated 68,000 spectators but is now empty. Singers such as John Legend sang John Lennon's famous song "Imagine", but just like the name of the song, only the image of the singer was cast on the screen.
At the same time that everyone was watching this sports event of "bright spots and slots flying together", an old song also quietly climbed the hot search. Like hit works such as "Family with Children" and "Happy Planet", it has been engraved into the memories of a generation's growth and has become a collection of collective feelings. Netizens have sighed, "At that time, I would insist on watching this MV on TV, and I would sing along with it" and "Ye Qinghui!" ”。
When we set the time back to April 17, 2008, on the 100-day countdown to the Beijing Olympic Games, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee held a grand launch ceremony at the Capital Museum. At the press conference, the official global debut of a song jointly sung by 100 singers, although only 80 finally appeared or sang in the MV. This is the later famous and popular "Welcome to Beijing".
"The door of my house is often open, open arms waiting for you", "Beijing welcomes you, everyone with dreams is great, and if you have courage, there will be miracles"... These well-known songs have tenaciously passed through time, and 13 years later, they can still trigger countless songs and spawn a super social topic effect.
As a phenomenon-level Olympic propaganda song, "Welcome to Beijing" has far exceeded its own positioning and connotation in terms of the degree of transmission and social influence of the work.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="127" > a main melody song, why has it been sung for 13 years? </h1>
On the evening of July 13, 2001, China's first successful bid for the Olympic Games boiled over the whole country, and on August 8, 2008, the Beijing Olympic Games were grandly opened.
It was also in the first half of the same year that natural disasters such as the snow disaster in the south and the Wenchuan earthquake, which had not been encountered in a century, came one after another. In the context of such an era, the Beijing Olympics are like a consolation after extreme sadness, which comes just right.
"Welcome to Beijing" was born in this period, Lin Xi composed lyrics, Xiao Ke composed, Xiao Ke, Chen Shaoqi, Yu Binghan three people as producers. The project lasted for a month and a half, with the initial formation of the song idea in early March 2008 and the completion of the production in mid-April.
100 singers, more than 200 staff, 5 days to complete the song sample, two weeks to Beijing, Hong Kong and Taiwan to record, 6 days to complete post-production, 11G recording file materials, more than 7,000 minutes of documentary materials... At the time, this was undoubtedly a huge and ambitious project.
Xiao Ke said in an interview with Sina Entertainment that year, "The creative process is more complicated, mainly because it is difficult to reconcile. Interestingly, when asked if he would cooperate with the other two producers in the future, Xiao Ke replied, "I won't cooperate again, I can't smash my own brand." ”
However, this collaborative song is unexpectedly hot and extremely resilient. In 2008, after "Welcome to Beijing" was launched, it immediately became a popular song listened to or downloaded by netizens, as well as a popular on-demand track for offline KTV. Until 2009, "Welcome to Beijing" was the on-demand champion of The Sound of Music Radio of China Central Radio.
Only this kind of national-level festival of extraordinary significance can gather so many popular artists with its public welfare nature, sense of identity, social appeal and super high exposure. Liu Huan, Na Ying, Jackie Chan, Han Hong, Eason Chan, Lin Junjie, Nicholas Tse, Huang Xiaoming, Li Yuchun, Han Geng... They formed a rare first-line cooperation lineup, and also set a benchmark for the case of "government propaganda + top artists" platter group portrait cooperation.
Nowadays, the success of this song is nothing more than a few reasons: the lyrics are simple and clear, the melody is catchy, and the characteristic landmark buildings such as the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, the Bird's Nest, the Water Cube, and the Courtyard in the MV have strong beijing local characteristics; the super-first-line popular artists take turns to appear in the camera, which is dazzling; the song also cuts to the mouth of the public mood, which is the excitement after the catastrophe, conveying the core of patriotism and love for the people, enthusiasm and friendship, and sportsmanship without borders. With official support, this song has also become a big country that shows China's tolerance and openness, and is also a wonderful external image business card, and in the 3G mobile phone era, the distribution and marketing of CRBT music, TV media dissemination at all levels from the central to the local level and other factors have accelerated the sinking of the song.
It is worth mentioning that the influence of this Olympic promotional song can not be underestimated to this day: I know that there are more than 10,000 likes; the number of AI repair version uploaded by fans on B station has exceeded 3 million, ranking 60th in the highest place in the whole station; the YouTube platform has played 2.85 million, and many overseas viewers still watch the message and never forget it.
13 years later, the singer Lin Yilun, who participated in the singing of the song that year, said on Weibo with nostalgia: "Nostalgia for the summer of 2008, "Welcome to Beijing" is simply a melody engraved in the DNA."
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="152" > competitive sports arena, and music has never been absent</h1>
From the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to this year's Tokyo Olympic Games, the retro nostalgia caused by "Welcome to Beijing" proves that an excellent promotional song can penetrate into the capillaries of all levels of society, resulting in years of event publicity potential.
Stylistics have always been inseparable from family, music and sports are both popular culture, and there are many cooperations and intersections.
From the perspective of the application of music in the field of sports alone, the types are extremely extensive: the theme song/promotional song of the sports event; the soundtrack at the opening/closing ceremony; the functional music during the event, such as the award and exit soundtrack; the accompaniment of specific sports such as synchronized swimming, figure skating, etc.; the atmosphere interactive repertoire of the event site; the music used by athletes to relax and adjust the state before the game; the logo song of the sports program; the advertising song of the sports product; the soundtrack in the mass sports process, etc., which derive multiple application scenarios.
And these complex application scenarios often correspond to a huge workload and sufficiently subdivided product positioning. Taking the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games as an example, the total music library of the event was 72,000 songs, with a total duration of more than 1,200 hours. Based on 38 Olympic sub-events and 20 Paralympic events, the Olympic Organizing Committee has also prepared a separate music library for each sub-event.
At the same time, the popular event itself is a cross point between sports and artistic carnival. At that time, the Beijing Olympic Organizing Committee also specially hired 74 foreign experts and more than 1,700 people to form a professional team of audio and video technology and broadcasting, aiming to bring mascots, acrobatics, lara exercises, martial arts, ethnic folk dances and other performances to the audience, which can be seen in the degree of attention.
At the Tokyo Olympic Games, there are also professional top music production teams to join. Naoki Sato, a well-known Japanese composer, was responsible for the background music of the award ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic and Paralympic Games, and he was also the soundtrack producer of many well-known film and television works such as "Doraemon: Walk with Me".
According to Naoki Sato, the recording, which was scheduled for last spring, was postponed to September last year. Due to the epidemic, the orchestra and choir could not gather, and 144 musicians had to record in sections and then produce later.
Under the competition, this sense of ritual belonging to music is indispensable. It should be known that music has important cultural symbol significance and public communication power, and the official use of many Japanese games' classic music as the entrance song for athletes at the opening ceremony, such as the soundtrack of "Dragon Quest", "Final Fantasy", "Monster Hunter" and other works, has further strengthened the brand recognition of Japanese animation in the world, triggering the audience's empathy and yearning.
In addition, the recent opening ceremony composer Keigo Koyamada resigned due to bullying, causing an uproar in public opinion. About 4 minutes of music composed by him was urgently replaced, which also reflects the central position of the musician or musician in the Olympic event and the storm effect it may have.
It can be seen that the linkage between sports and music has never stopped, become more and more encrypted, and with the change of the times, there is more room for openness, integration and innovation.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="176" > "sports + music", how many crossover games are there? </h1>
Through the Olympic Games, we turn our attention to the entire big sports industry, how can sports + music play?
Or take "Welcome to Beijing" as an example. Many people only know that "Welcome to Beijing" is a public welfare song with the theme of the Olympic Games, but they do not know that it is inextricably linked to the platform.
This is actually the third collaboration between the Organizing Committee of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games, the Beijing Municipal Bureau of Cultural Heritage and China Mobile, following the theme song "We Are Ready" for the first anniversary of the Countdown to the Olympic Games and the theme song "Everyone Is No.1" for the first anniversary of the Countdown to the Paralympic Games.
In May 2008, the number of downloads of China Mobile Olympic song color ringtones exceeded 17 million, of which "We Are Ready" was downloaded 1.85 million; "Everyone Is No.1" became the first Paralympic song that China Mobile could download for free, with a download volume of 1 million; in August 2008, according to Xinhuanet reporter statistics, the number of "Welcome to Beijing" ringtone downloads on the Internet has always been at the forefront, more popular than other popular songs.
It was also in 2008 that the opening ceremony of China Mobile Wireless Music MiguHui was held in Beijing, and the three producers of "Welcome to Beijing", including Xiao Ke, all arrived at the scene. 13 years later, China Mobile Migu still took over the Olympic cooperation and cooperated with CAA China to launch the Olympic cheer song "Ready".
In addition, China Unicom has also become the official communication service partner of the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games, using video CRBT to promote the 3D avatar of the smart Winter Olympics IP "Little Dream". It can be said that in this kind of major historical event of music + sports, enterprises with a deep state-owned background have never been absent, and traditional CRBT products have evolved from audio in the 3G era to video forms in the 5G era, and are still full of vitality with their advantages of over 100 million user coverage and channel sinking capabilities.
In addition to the operator's content operation gameplay, after the head Internet platform entered the game, the play and tricks of music + sports are now more and more in-depth. Among them, content operation is the core sector, and cross-border cooperation, traffic drive, and resource interconnection are common strategies.
For example, recently popular sports-themed film and television works have continued to deliver original content to the market, such as the already well-known Meng Meiqi and the Summer Rain Winter Olympics movie "My Heart Is Flying", which undoubtedly targets the high-sticky fan base behind the traffic artists; the idol group INTO1 released the Tokyo Olympic report cheer song "INTO THE FIRE" released by The Tokyo Olympics on July 16 from Tencent Video's "Creation Camp 2021", which reached the user base outside the audience portrait of conventional sports programs.
The integration of events and performances can bring short-term explosions and sprint topic effects. Midfield performances of large-scale sports events and associated live stages are also valuable opportunities for artists to publicize.
In the field of joint marketing, on July 2, Tencent Music Entertainment Group (TME) and NBA China reached a strategic partnership to become the latter's official music partner. In addition to TME, as early as 2019, NetEase released the content strategy of the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games, mentioning that it will give full play to the advantages of products such as NetEase Cloud Music, relying on the circle-breaking potential of independent musicians and others to release consumption potential.
In the future, in order to attract the core consumer users of Generation Z, related industries will continue to promote transformation. In addition to traditional sports events, the development of online e-sports is a dead end, and it is also an effective way to expand the scope of potential music consumers.
In addition to cross-border co-brand promotion songs and game interludes, live broadcasting, broadcasting, explanations and other links in e-sports competitions provide flexible application scenarios for music, as well as opportunities for new technologies such as XR and virtual idols. With the advent of the 5G era, the AIoT wave has become unstoppable, the function of music in sports and fitness, home entertainment and other scenarios is indispensable, and the smart watch + fitness music playback function has long become the standard.
It has to be said that the cross-border integration and model innovation of pan-entertainment are always changing rapidly with the development of the times, and they have also opened up the imagination space of music + sports.
For more ordinary audiences, when "Welcome to Beijing" sounds again, what we can't forget is not only the golden age of star-studded Chinese music, but also the youthful memories of carrying the bench with family and friends and watching the Olympic Games in front of the TV.
Resources
1.http://ent.sina.com.cn/y/2008-12-17/22412300687.shtml
2.http://capetown.china-consulate.org/chn/xwdt/t478962.htm
3.http://sports.sina.com.cn/o/2008-05-27/17563685364.shtml
4.https://www.chinacourt.org/article/detail/2008/08/id/316938.shtml
5.https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/zh/news/meet-the-team-behind-the-tokyo-2020-podiums-theme-music-and-costumes
6.https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/zh/games/victory-ceremony/vc-music
Typography | Anlin
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