1. First sight
In the 1990s, the spring breeze of reform and opening up blew on the land of Shenzhen, attracting a large number of young people to go south to pan for gold and create a career in Shenzhen.
In 1998, a dance hall called "Golden Age" in Shenzhen's Luohu District opened. Unlike traditional karaoke, this dance hall has added a live-action singing stage and opened in the immediate recruitment.
(Shenzhen, 1998)
Zeng Yi, a 19-year-old young man, works in a factory in his hometown of Yiyang, Hunan Province, as a radio worker. In the 90s, the monthly salary was very low, and dozens to a hundred yuan were taken. On this day he received a call from a friend: "Hey! Zeng Yi, do you want to come to Shenzhen? We recruit people in the dance hall, high salary! ”
The young Zeng Yi was worried that his ambitions had nowhere to go, running with the mood of "I am still young, I should go out to see", packing his bags and going all the way south.
After arriving in Shenzhen, Zeng Yi became a regular employee and served as a music director, responsible for planning stage performances, artist management and other work.
At that time, Yang Weilinghua, an 18-year-old Mongolian girl, had just finished her job as an electrical appliance salesman and was looking for a job. She traveled thousands of miles from Inner Mongolia to Shenzhen to work, and when she first went out, she relied on her family to sell two sheep before she had the money to buy her a plane ticket.
Either way, she had to find a job to support herself. When Ling Hua was at a loss, she just saw that Golden Nianhua was recruiting song and dance artists, and she came with the mood to try.
In this way, The Hunan boy Zeng Yi and the Mongolian girl Linghua became colleagues, or the relationship between superiors and subordinates, Zeng Yi was the stage director, and Linghua was his subordinate artist.
When they first met, Linghua, who had a big grin, saw Zeng Yi, who was dyed with yellow hair and dressed strangely, and complained in his heart: "This man looks so ugly." "Zeng Yi at work is a calm and reliable young man who treats his work meticulously.
The dance hall business is quite hot, and the pressure of the artists is also great, and they have to stay up late to work every day and open 4 shows a night. At that time, playing games online was the best way to relax and entertain them after work. Ling Hua recalled working in the dance hall many years later and smiled: "After work, I will run the Internet café to play games and play "Legend", and we all play this. ”
Around 2000, I got a monthly salary of four or five thousand yuan in Shenzhen, which was already very good. The intensity and pressure of work are also very large, Zeng Yi revealed in an interview with "Super Interview": "There is a lot of pressure in Shenzhen. New programs should be designed continuously. ”
2. Create a combination
From 1999 to 2004, they experimented with the style of group performance. He was also favored by a company called Peacock Records. Many years later, Zeng Yi recalled this past after drinking and spitting out the truth, shaking off the difficulties of the early stage of the group.
It turned out that at that time, the peacock boss only looked at Linghua alone and wanted to sign her alone, but Linghua refused. Ling Hua knew better than anyone that without Zeng Yi there would be no chance for her to take the stage. Long before coming to the "Golden Age", Linghua also applied to the Window of the World and the Cultural and Folk Village to be a singer, but they were all brushed off. When no one appreciated her singing skills, it was Zeng Yi who pulled her and let her take the stage to perform. The two people have long become friends, and there is no reason to leave Zeng Yi.
Linghua, who was proud and cheerful, found the boss and said, "Either two people sign it together, or I won't sign it." "In the end, the company compromised. Zeng Yi also accompanied Linghua to sign a 5-year "deed of sale".
At the beginning, the three team members formed a group called "Hair Nerve", Zeng Yi was the lead singer, Ling Hua and another female member, Zhang Jie, did chorus accompaniment. In the first two or three years, this group became famous in song and dance halls, and as a grassroots singer, it was well-known in Shenzhen.
In 2003, member Zhang Jie withdrew due to personal development. Thus the "nerve" combination ends. The remaining Zeng Yi and Ling Hua need to re-set up a new combination of works.
At that time, the Hallyu was sweeping across Southeast Asia, and Zeng Yi and Linghua regarded the Korean "Cool Dragon" group as idols. The two men discussed, "Or let's imitate their style." ”
Just do it, start with styling. Zeng Yi painstakingly shaved off his naturally thick hair and turned it into a bald head; Ling Hua resolutely kept up with the fashion, and permed her hair into the popular killing Matt "explosion" style at that time.
The new group was born, named "Cool Fire", and began to cover the works of The Cool Dragon, sucking fans continuously and the scene was full. As the popularity of the two men grew, the company was also collecting songs for them, hoping to release their own songs.
Teacher He Muyang's original work "Above the Moon" was originally a lyrical song, and by chance, when he heard Linghua singing her hometown song, when she was full of emotions, her high-pitched voice was like discovering a new continent, so he contacted their company and hoped that the song would be sung again.
The song was eventually adapted into, what we hear later, with a passionate, positively high tune, with a novel style of rap rap.
Linghua can never forget, before the first time on stage to sing "Above the Moon", the boss first listened to the recording of the demo, the expression is serious, obviously not very satisfied, which gives Linghua a big blow inside. On the day of the real performance, Ling Hua and Zeng Yi opened with firepower, and they did not expect to receive a full house of applause. When the boss heard the live singing, he couldn't help but applaud them.
It's so novel, you haven't heard of this kind of music, and traditional folk songs are presented in a fast-paced, easy-to-understand way.
"Over the Moon" is on fire, and the enthusiastic response of the audience explains everything. While the iron was hot, the company sent the song to Guangdong TELEVISION. In that year, Linghua and Zeng Yi entered the public eye for the first time in the form of a combination, first appeared in the Guangdong Provincial Young Singers Competition, and after being shortlisted, participated in the "CCTV Young Singers Television Grand Prix".
The goal of the two people with full combat strength is to take the top three in the country. As a result, only 7th place was obtained. This incident caused the two people to be devastated and negative for a while.
Back in Shenzhen, Teacher He Muyang comforted them: "You should be like a phoenix, reborn from the fire, phoenix nirvana." Then, the two regrouped: "Or do you want to change the combination and start over?" ”。
Sad and sad days, the game "Legend" accompanied them, teacher He Muyang made a suggestion: "It is called phoenix legend." "After the idea came out, they immediately discussed it with the company and finally decided it.
3. Difficult to become famous
In 2005, the most memorable year of Phoenix Legend's career - on the Walk of Fame, album, and Linghua's marriage.
The second time they went to Beijing, they wanted to participate in the "Walk of Fame", which was very popular in the country at that time, and it was the stage that grassroots singers dreamed of, and success or failure was in this move.
The two men sang "Over the Moon" and rushed all the way to the final. However, it is a pity that the opponent Ah Bao's performance and audience popularity are better, and the Phoenix Legend has won the runner-up.
After going back, the company decided to give them an album. Together with the photographer and stylist, a total of five people, with a traditional handheld video recorder, ran to the grassland on the dam to shoot the MV.
Zeng Yi recalled this time, not without emotion: "It was too cold, the grassland at minus twenty degrees, the wind of six or seven, we wore tulle clothes, and we wore a leather coat when we couldn't stand it." ”
The effect of the MV is completely unimaginable to shoot in cold weather.
The company realized that what Phoenix Legends lacked at present was exposure and popularity, so it arranged for them to participate in a tour called "TOM Music National College Tour", although there was no remuneration, the exposure density was large, an average of three days, and each show had 10,000 viewers.
At this time, a gaze stopped on Linghua, who was later Linghua's husband and the driving force behind the Phoenix legend - Xu Mingchao. At that time, he was the music editor-in-chief of the TOM website, and was attracted by Linghua's voice and fell in love at first sight.
There were too many things that happened this year, and things that they didn't expect happened one after another, and the 05th Supergirl, the dark horse player Ji Minjia, sang "Above the Moon" and became a popular track for a while. Phoenix Legend felt a sense of crisis.
Xu Mingchao, the driving force behind the scenes, began to exert his skills, using TOM's relationship to recommend "Above the Moon" to the mobile CRBT website. After this set of operations, the PHOENIX Legend's CRBT set a record of 79 million downloads, and the dividend era has arrived, turning the crisis into joy.
This song instantly became the pop music of the streets and alleys,
In 2006, Phoenix Legend left his old owner and changed his name to a new economic company founded by Xu Mingchao: Hundred People Culture. This company was born specifically for the creation of the Phoenix legend. Publicity, packaging, marketing are all in great detail. The company popularized the Phoenix legend as the first.
I even went to the countryside to paint wall skin advertisements.
The benefits of this are to reduce costs and increase rural and small-town groups that have not been paid attention to. It laid the foundation for the phoenix legend to become a "rural heavy metal" combination.
In a short period of one year, the phoenix legend went from the price of 20,000 to 30,000 commercial performances, rocket-like rapid increase to 850,000, and the two sighed with emotion.
It worked.
4. The storm continues
Someone always asks how the Phoenix Legend divides the accounts? Is it that Ling Hua has more than Zeng Yi?
This question, Ling Hua has answered many times: five or five points.
Everyone always thinks that Zeng Yi is the light of the Lingling flower to earn a lot of money. Even Han Hong joked: "Zeng Yi is the easiest man to make money in all of China." ”
Only Ling Hua knew, not what everyone saw. In the early years of cooperation, the two people could not make money, and the cost of life stage became a problem, and every time Zeng Yi borrowed money with a thick face. All the cooperation for 17 years, how to divide when borrowing money, how to divide when making money.
After entering the culture of the Hundred People, Xu Mingchao solemnly asked the two of them to change their images: Linghua took off the nose ring, and Zeng Yi was not allowed to wear a bald head and wear a leather coat.
The legend of the phoenix, from the era of killing Matt, to the era of national style. Good luck followed.
In 2007, CCTV Spring Festival Gala invited Phoenix Legend to sing "Above the Moon", and the two people especially cherished this opportunity, constantly rehearsed, and kept improving, just to take the best state for a few minutes on stage.
Before the Spring Festival Gala, the song "Above the Moon" was revealed to be a copy of the British Blue Band's "All Rise".
For a time, the media rushed to expose the Phoenix legend into the "plagiarism door". Ling Hua and Zeng Yi's hearts were pierced by ten thousand arrows, and they could not argue with each other.
This year, spring evenings are not available. Ling Hua and Zeng Yi's mood fell to the bottom. On the 30th night of the New Year, the two were worried about whether to turn on the TV to watch the Spring Festival Gala. Zeng Yi took a sip of wine, and Ling Hua's eyes were filled with tears
The next day, they bought a plane ticket to travel to Europe. LingHua bought and bought, Zeng Yi wandered around, and drank when he was bored.
When the cold is at its peak, the sun will come.
The truth came out in February not long after, when musicians professionally identified "Over the Moon" as not suspected of plagiarism. Finally returned the innocence of the phoenix.
In 2008, Phoenix Legend released a new album "Auspicious Ruyi", the song "Free Flight", which became a popular song for the whole people.
This year's Spring Festival Gala, they stepped onto the stage as they wished. Still singing "Above the Moon", two people rode on the stage on bicycles.
In the same year, he also sang the new song "Free Flight" at the CCTV Lantern Party.
In 2009, in June, a new album "The Most Dazzling National Style" was released, which showed the popularity of this song, which not only became the music of the streets and alleys, but also became a must-choose track for square dance aunts, the mobile phone ringtone of small-town youth, and later crossed the Pacific To the United States.
In 2010, the successful transformation of the Phoenix legend, with the new song "Lotus Pond Moonlight" came out, their performance form is sought after by the public is not unreasonable, every year to launch a household name "Divine Comedy", suitable for all ages, easy to understand, anyone can quickly learn, this is the charm of the "Divine Comedy".
In 2011, Ling Hua and Xu Mingchao held a wedding in Ordos. The following year, Zeng Yi married a woman outside the circle who accompanied him for 8 years.
The family business is grasped with both hands, and in these years, large-scale evening programs can see the active figure of the Phoenix legend. They have been exploring and innovating on the path of music. This is also the reason why fans have loved them for many years.
The most recent appearance, in the program "Fight for Songs", covered the original music of Douyin "Under the Sea", was given the lowest score by the public judges.
A young man stood up and commented, "Your song is the soil of gold, wood, water, fire, and earth."
Ling Hua repeated this sentence with a smile: "Soil." Instantly on the hot search. At present, the song "Under the Sea" has become the first place in the Chinese live chart of Station B. The click-through rate exceeded 100 million. Netizen comments are that the immortals sing under the fan.
Netizens frantically forwarded, #Phoenix Legend singing steadily like fake singing # became the headline of hot search. They always have a kind of magic that flips against the wind.
The legend of the phoenix that has achieved fame, more than ten years of thorns and thorns, a small number of critical voices, how can they care?
No singer can be loved by everyone, and the Phoenix Legend exists for those who love them and know how to appreciate them.
Unexpectedly, in 2021, phoenix legends rely on superior voices and talented performances to gain the love of young people, and in the future, their pitches will no longer be exclusive to square dance aunts. It will align with democratization. The nation is the world.
Responding again and again to "disbanding", Linghua always spoke, and we did not disband. Nor will it be dissolved. A gold medal partner who has worked together for 22 years and experienced sadness and joy together, their relationship spans "lovers", like warriors side by side. Don't say who of them is the light, the Phoenix Legend is indispensable.