Author: Yin Lei
Editor: Jiang Yue
The full text is 10838 words, and it is expected to take 20 minutes to read
When the news of shrimp music was about to shut down, the elegy began to ring.
It was a death that had been foreshadowed. As early as the fall of the planet Ali, Shrimp Music lost its future, and it was rumored that it only accelerated its death.
In the music story of the frustrated ending, there were once two key gentlemen. They created a grand blueprint for The Planet Ali and Shrimp Music, and now they are all strolling around their lives and acquiescing to this death.
Gao Xiaosong, the chief designer of Ali Music, has just recently lost 26 pounds of meat and is carrying his 13-year-old daughter to the dinner table; another leader, Song Ke, evaporated from the public after he became the chairman of LIVE NATION China last year.
cliff
When Gao Xiaosong was young, he learned the profundity of death.
When he was admitted to Tsinghua, he was rewarded and traveled to Qingdao. On the way, he met the fortune teller, counted a few gua, and counted all of them, Gao Xiaosong had a premonition that the divine operator appeared, and asked an extremely heavy question with a fierce heart, "When will I die?" ”
The old gentleman pinched his fingers and counted - 35 years old, you will die.
For more than a decade, Gao Xiaosong was terrified. The day before his 35th birthday, he went to Mount Wutai alone, borrowed the Buddha to cross the robbery, and decided to make a decision.
In November, When Mount Wutai was empty and closed, he met a boy who said he could take him up the mountain. Gao Xiaosong felt strange, and there was a tour guide to seal the mountain? But he didn't want to waste his tongue, so he went on the road with the boy and the driver.
After a person in front of the Buddha statue solemnly muttered for half a day, Gao Xiaosong decided to resign himself to fate and immediately went down the mountain. The driver was still peeing on the side of the road, he got in the car first and turned on the heating, but as soon as the fire broke out, the car parked on the slope actually slipped forward. He didn't know that the handbrake had broken, and when he was nervous, he took off the gear and drove down the slope straight to the cliff.
Gao Xiaosong suddenly realized that the god of death had come.
At the moment of a thousand gunshots, a figure in the back seat jumped to the front and stepped on the brakes, and the car braked, less than half a meter away from the cliff. Gao Xiaosong turned around and looked at the boy who saved his life. Gao Xiaosong was stupid, feeling that the boy was the apparition of the Buddha, and when he left, he took out 3,000 pieces with deep affection and asked the boy to accept it no matter what.
The next day back in Beijing, Gao Xiaosong woke up in a state of palpitations, opened his mobile phone, and received a storm of blessing text messages. On his 35th birthday, he felt so wonderful to be alive, and silently told himself: "From now on, I am not afraid of anything!" ”
After escaping death, Gao Xiaosong completely liberated his nature, and after that he wandered in the ocean of literature and art, writing songs and making movies. Although he is also the leader of Wheat Field Records, more often than not, he is like a crane in the clouds.
Of course, this is also because he has Song Ke.
Song Ke founded Maitian with Gao Xiaosong in 1996, and later joined Evergrande Music together to run Ali Music. They are like the Wright brothers who invented the airplane and the Coen brothers in Hollywood, although they are not related by blood, they are inseparable in their careers.
Gao Xiaosong is knowledgeable, comes from a scholarly family, has amazing eloquence and romantic ideals, but unfortunately he can't write songs and sing, and he doesn't keep his business in entrepreneurship. So two people appeared beside him, one was the old wolf and the other was Song Ke.
If the old wolf is Gao Xiaosong's "mouth", then Song Ke is Gao Xiaosong's "ass".
"With a big wave of his hand, I had to shut myself in the office every day and make the plan carefully." Song Ke said that Gao Xiaosong was a master planner, and his speech was extremely inflammatory.
In June this year, Gao Xiaosong's live broadcast overturned, the public image fell into crisis, followed by a "small restaurant is difficult to operate due to the epidemic, Gao Xiaosong spent 10,000 yuan to eat a meal to show support" news, let the public opinion peak turn around.
Gao Xiaosong was responsible for firing the cannon, and Song Ke was responsible for execution. The 2015 Ali Planet conference was the last doubles match between the two. After the two and He Jiong awkwardly danced a space dance on the stage, they began to take turns on the stage to tell the heroic strategy of Ali Planet.
At that time, in Gao Xiaosong's eyes, the Ali planet was particularly sublime, and it was a sample of commercial idealism.
Let there be no difficult music business in the world - Ali Planet contracted a basket of singers, fans, record companies, and performance units, let them buy and sell on their own platforms, socialize, and "electrify and enter the network" for Chinese music at the bottom level, which was simply a dimensionality-reducing blow to Tencent, the opponent of the copyright war at that time.
Gao Xiaosong said halfway, pulled the KFC BOSS to the stage, emphasizing the strong cooperation between enterprises and enterprises. The KFC boss did not go through the moves and crosswalks with Gao Xiaosong, and without saying two words, he could not help but advertise, Gao Xiaosong stood aside, raised the microphone in one hand, crossed his waist with the other, endured for a while, and finally drove him off the stage.
When Song Ke came to the stage, Gao Xiaosong sat down next to Lin Yun'er, who was very moving. He has always boasted that girls guide values, but at this time he seems particularly cold. He twisted to the other side reservedly, holding the electronic cigarette in his hand and handing it to his mouth, without the slightest intention of talking to the girl more.
Gao Xiaosong that day, bathed in the brilliance of professional managers, only had a career in his heart. To the "cliff" under his feet, he was unaware at that time.
Xu Xiaoping, an investment tycoon, commented on the music track: "Music is art, investment is also art, in addition to the necessity of understanding music and loving music, there must be managers who understand music in the entrepreneurial team." Gao Xiaosong is the standard-bearer of Chinese folk songs, and Song Ke is the top trader in the mainland recording industry. Art and management, both of which are occupied, Ali Music, does not seem to be difficult.
Ali music brewed for eight months, and Ali Planet was also pinned on high hopes - but after half a year, it was cold.
Song Ke said grievously, "At that time, our products have gradually had merchants and fans settled in, but the platform feels that our speed is too slow." ”
No one can be patient with Song Kirby, from 1996 and Gao Xiaosong founded Wheat Field Music, they have been pirated and disgusted by the Internet for more than a decade, but they are still strong. He continued to complain in the industry that content copyrights did not make money, until he joined Alibaba in 2015, saying goodbye to the oppressed role in the upper reaches of the music industry and turning into a copyright purchaser.
Song Keru was relieved, but fate made people, and his appeal for copyright for more than ten years suddenly worked! In July 2015, the state vigorously promoted music copyright regulations - how can you not pay for people's music?
Sitting in Ali's office, Song Ke remembered bitterly, but could not think of sweetness. Tencent Music's speed in the copyright war has opened his eyes, how can these laymen be so anxious to make music? He felt like everyone was crazy.
Gao Xiaosong rarely came to the company, He Jiong did not come to the company at all, Song Ke guarded their planet alone, and no one danced space dance with him anymore.
Marginal people
Song Ke's confidence in the Internet came closely to gao Xiaosong's moment of escape.
In 2003, China Mobile approached Song Ke and wanted to buy his rights to make mp3 CRBT. Song Ke, who was still in Warner's wheat field at that time, was a little surprised, doing music for so many years, it was always a direct infringement of others without greeting, and I had never heard of sending money to the door. Excited Song Ke rushed to warner leaders to report, Warner leaders as soon as he heard him say mp3, immediately angry came up, mp3 that set we do not engage.
At that time, international record companies were very resistant to digital music, and it was easy to associate quality degradation and piracy when they heard it.
Song Ke, who was bitter about the record industry, felt that this might be a sloppy turn, and he pondered for a long time, and at the end of Warner's gilding, his wings were hard enough.
Under the guidance of Gao Xiaosong, Song Ke joined the Taihe Group with Wheat Field Music. Taihe Wheat Field was established with a high profile.
The company that was just founded added up to only 6 people in total, but Song Ke was full of self-confidence, and he deeply felt that young Chinese people needed themselves. At that time, young people's lives were boring and boring, and only color bells allowed Chinese youth to have their own Style.
The bigger temptation, of course, is copyright sharing.
In the past, they sold a genuine cassette for ten yuan, and they could only get eight cents. Rampant piracy and a distorted sales split left Song Ke with no other choice but to file complaints for years. China Mobile's promise is that it only needs 15%, and the remaining 85% is divided by SP (service provider) and wheat field on a five-to-five or four-six basis.
It's a return to justice.
Song Ke and his brother desperately threw themselves into the crembell business. The most brilliant achievement is the cooperation with Daolang.
In order to cooperate with Daolang, Song Ke drank with him for 5 days. The first day was when Dao Lang went to Beijing to find Song Ke, and the two of them mixed up and became acquainted. The second time was when Song Ke went to Xinjiang to find Daolang and drank for four consecutive days. On the fourth day, the two of them were drunk and red-faced, and Dao Lang finally couldn't hold back, and heroically asked, "Big brother, you must be in trouble when you come to me." ”
Song Ke wiped the aging on the side of his mouth: "I really have a matter." ”
Song Ke wanted to sign Dao Lang, but at that time he already had an agent and distributor, and Song Ke felt that these two people had given Dao Lang a lot of help, and he couldn't bear to cross the knife to win love. "I'm not going to rob both of them of their business, record distribution contracts and showrunners." Song Ke was drunk with a flushed face and full of pride: "I signed another contract with you!" ”
"What contract?" Dao Lang asked.
Song Ke thought for half a day and didn't know what the name of the contract he was going to sign was: "Well, it's called the new technology copyright contract!" ”
Dao Lang felt that Song Ke's wine was average, and drank too much nonsense: "Big brother, you quickly take it away, I don't know what you are talking about." ”
Song Ke explained: "You notice, you don't understand what it is at all, in fact, I don't know much about what it is. ”
The more he says, the more mysterious it becomes: "But most likely, it brings in a higher income than you do and sell records." ”
After saying that, the two continued to drink. Sitting and drinking, drinking backwards, Song Ke secretly decided that these four days could not be drunk in vain. Before leaving, he left a sentence in a serious tone: "I can let you earn a villa in Xinjiang!" ”
Dao Lang immediately decided: "Big brother, I will give you this contract!" ”
This contract later brought daolang eight figures of income. In the CRBT rankings at that time, Daolang occupied three seats in the TOP5 and five seats in the TOP10. His "First Snow of 2002" reverberated across the country for a year, and now it's a shiver in retrospect.
Since entering the industry in 1996, Song Ke has never received such fame and fortune, and for a time he became a model of business and a model of musicians. Taihe Wheat Field ranked 13th in the "2006 Top 50 Most Valuable Enterprises with Investment Value in China" by authoritative venture capital institutions, and ranked 14th in the "2005-2006 Best Business Model" appraisal of Business China Business Review.
CRBT has made Taihe Wheat Field a fashionable company.
He felt that at that time, Taihe Wheatfield's digital music had taken the lead in the world. His story also impressed investors, with Song Ke getting a $9 million investment from SoftBank Saifu in 2005 and $10 million from South Korea's SK Telecom in 2008.
At that time, Yan Yan of SoftBank Saifu was strong, investing 5 million US dollars in the project, and the project side had to come up with a timetable first. But when investing in Song Ke, Yan Yan was particularly cheerful. Every time the two meet, Yan Yan will bitterly advise: "I invest in this project is to vote for you." Every time Song Ke listened, he felt that he was not only chosen by capital, but also chosen by history.
"As soon as the color bell rings, the gold is two thousand", Song Ke's record infected his peers. Just the year after Song Ke left Warner, Warner producer Lu Zhongqiang also got an investment from IDG and entered the CRBT war. He wrote eight color bells a day, the rhythm was getting stronger and stronger, and the lyrics were becoming more and more popular. Lu Zhongqiang's efforts were not in vain, and finally won a singer, his name is Guo Degang, and like his cross-talk, his "Just Right" circle of fans is innumerable.
At this time, Gao Xiaosong heard his friend sing "Double Stick" for the first time in KTV, he was completely shocked by this song, although his shock was delayed for several years, but still could not stop his excitement and desire to create, he was determined to also write a fanciful song, and Fang Wenshan.
Just when he was making a strong ambition for the two works of "Kill Her to Feed the Pig" and "St. Petersburg Testament", Song Ke called him urgently and asked him to immediately fill in the lyrics for Li Yuchun's new song. Gao Xiaosong quickly threw himself into the creative mood, switching from Russian night school ballads to urban ambiguity minor tunes.
Song Ke signed Supergirl champion Li Yuchun, and after the Battle of Daolang, Li Yuchun was the next million dollar baby.
One early in the morning, Gao Xiaosong and Li Yuchun were in the car, and like a small reporter, he took out a piece of paper with a few small questions written on it. After several rounds of QA, Gao Xiaosong wrote the title - "Happy Winter".
Relying on this trump card, Song Ke led the establishment of the "Digital Music Distribution Alliance", and Sohu, Tencent, Baidu, TOM, and Mobile Monternet were all pulled into the alliance as a store for Taihe Wheat Field. For every song they sell, they get a 35% to 45% share. Li Yuchun's songs can be returned as long as they sell tens of thousands of songs, and in the end, they sell hundreds of thousands of songs.
Gao Xiaosong has type O blood, and like Guo Degang, he is a die-hard loyalist of Givenchy, and loves to step on a pair of Rick Owens high-top shoes; Song Ke AB blood, like Fred Perry tennis shirt.
At this time, Song Ke, wearing a suit and leather shoes, polished leather shoes, two buckles on his chest, a Nanyang giant style. He attended entrepreneurial gatherings, attended awards ceremonies, became a guest of Honor at Christina's concerts, gave interviews to major media outlets, and returned to Beijing on weekends to play a round of golf with friends.
Gao Xiaosong, who wandered away from the world, was not willing to be lonely.
As if inspired by Song Ke, he ghostly sent Shen To write a blog, exposing Han Han's full reference to the lyrics of "Youth Without Regret" in the book "Triple Gate", and that all the books should be removed from the shelves without his own authorization. He originally only wanted Han Han to pay a little compensation and establish a law for the jianghu, but the lawyer at that time was highly motivated, more excited than himself, insisting on a big fight, "Let's let him take the books off the shelves!" Gao Xiaosong thought about it and felt that he was indeed reasonable, and he had reason to go all over the world, and the Gao Han War was about to break out.
However, Gao Xiaosong did not expect it, and public opinion actually supported Han Han one-sidedly. A group of people ran to Gao Xiaosong's blog and said that their articles quoted Luo Dayou's songs, and also quoted Xu Wei's songs, and everyone came to him to turn themselves in. Gao Xiaosong was pushed into the deep moral ditch and finally failed miserably. Since then, Gao Xiaosong has vowed not to argue with people online.
Song Ke's good days did not last long. As the real money earned by the CRBT rolls more and more, the closed loop composed of mobile, SP, and content parties has also undergone internal tilting. "Honesty" has become a scarce quality – CRBT downloads are concealed; sales terminals are divided into multiple blocks under various names, and which piece of revenue will be distributed to the content provider, and the mobile has the final say.
"Of the 29 billion wireless music revenue, of which 18 billion is counted as function fees, China Mobile does not recognize this as wireless music revenue." Song Ke's content copyright was finally squeezed back into less than 10% of the space. He began to be disappointed in this market.
In an interview with an American reporter, Song Ke's answer became abstract.
When asked by the reporter what his future plans were, Song Ke said to provide more musical added value, "that is, you buy a dollar thing, it feels like buying a five-dollar thing." The American reporter did not understand, he added: "When young people want to sing karaoke, we can let you learn the song in advance through accompaniment and lyrics." "Foreigners are stupid.
The CRBT business accounts for 70% of the company's revenue, and Song Ke is stuck in it, and the downstream of this business rushes to eat meat, and he can only drink soup. This was the first time that Song Ke had ridden the waves on the Internet, and just a few years later, he was completely squeezed to the edge. He once fantasized that the standards of the music industry in the internet age should be produced in China, but he later admitted that he was naïve.
With the advent of the smartphone era, CRBT began to become insignificant.
In 2011, Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong left a weighty sentence, and then each went in an unbelievable direction.
In his last year in the Taihe wheat field, Song Ke threw out a sentence "The record is dead", and then ran to the Beijing CBD to sell roast duck; Gao Xiaosong's drunk driving case was tried, and in the defendant's seat, he held up a crumpled note with eight big characters on it - Liquor Ling Zhi Di, take me as a warning.
Song Ke went to the roast duck shop in Chaoyang District, and Gao Xiaosong went to the Dongcheng District Detention Center.
utopia
Since Song Ke and Gao Xiaosong founded Wheat Field Music in 1996, every time he has been a matchmaker for Gao Xiaosong, only selling roast duck is his own idea. A reporter ran up to his restaurant and asked him why he had given up his lofty ideals. He pointed to the duck and said, "The first thing I do after eating the roast duck is that I should pay you, and it is still in the balance; you are doing a good job, and people still praise you." You see what kind of attitude this is! ”
The loss of copyright trading, Song Ke is angry.
After graduating from Tsinghua University, Song Ke went to the United States to study, and like an undergraduate, studied environmental engineering, Gao Xiaosong called this "solid waste" major. While in the United States, he read a copy of The Business of Music, which described how to turn a song into a profitable copyrighted product and the business practices that might have anything to do with copyright. If Song Ke received the most precious treasure, he regarded it as the "Bible".
But this devotion and passion lasted only a short time.
When he got the first credit card, he immediately ran to the piano shop to buy equipment, and the little boy who watched the store asked him what type of music he played, song Ke thought for half a day, and came up with a sentence, rock. The boy asked what kind of rock and roll, and he was asked again, and the boy probably had a number in mind. He took out various types of guitars and took turns showing them to Song Ke. Song Ke was stunned: "You are a professional musician, right?" The little boy replied, "I'm okay with that." ”
Song Ke later recalled that the child had no problem playing with Cui Jian.
At that time, the most infectious person in the United States was Zhang Chaoyang, who had long hair at that time, ideal to be the lead singer of a rock band, but then somehow gave up his ideal to start the Internet. Seeing the little boy in the piano shop, Song Ke realized that he completely dismissed the idea of playing music. He didn't do anything related to environmental engineering either, and after two years of reading books, he started selling all kinds of things, including jewelry.
After returning to China, Song Ke continued his jewelry business. At that time, Gao Xiaosong was already a well-known musician in China, and "You at the Same Table" was popular all over the country. He wanted to make an album at that time, but he didn't have money, so he asked Song Ke to vote for some.
During the May Day holiday in 1996, Gao Xiaosong called Song Ke, "Brother Shi, come to work in the Asian Games Village."
"What class?"
"Our company, you cast me an album, I helped you register a company, called Wheat Field Music."
In Song Ke's circle of friends, whether Gao Xiaosong was present or not, every time he ate, he would mention this person. "He's our Shadow." Song Ke described him this way: "XiaoSong often has some outrageous and provocative remarks. But he was a warm-hearted man. ”
Gao Xiaosong often does a thing perfectly, waits until it is on the right track, and then disappears all over the world. He gave the wheat field its name out of his love of Salinger's novel The Catcher in the Rye. The name of The Park Tree, also Gao Xiaosong, he was originally called Pu Shu, Gao Xiaosong felt that it was difficult to write, so he changed it to Park Tree, "As soon as the two words are written, they are all next to the wooden characters, and the branches and branches grow upwards, which is very beautiful, like a forest." Gao Xiaosong was quite satisfied with his changes. Xiao Ke's name is also from Gao Xiaosong's handwriting, the album is close to the end, Gao Xiaosong said that Ke Zhaolei's name is too many strokes, and you will be called Xiao Ke in the future, so it is easy to remember.
Although Gao Xiaosong did not say it publicly, the name of Ali Planet is also inseparable from his aesthetic. When he went to the United States in his early years, his favorite website was called "Lonely Planet", which was a travel website, which was a window for him to look at the world at that time.
Before and after the establishment of the wheat field, Gao Xiaosong held the big brother every day, and the big brother also pinned a BB machine. As soon as the phone rang, he pulled out this "big brick" and had face.
The phone finally rang pompously. Gao Xiaosong answered the phone and heard Park Shu's voice for the first time, "My name is Pu Shu, I want to sell songs." ”
Gao Xiaosong invited Park Shu to a small forest to talk in detail, "Since you want to sell songs, you should sing a few songs first." Park Shu sang two songs in a row, And Gao Xiaosong was greatly moved, and he asked Park Shu, "You sing so well, why do you want to sell songs?" How good it is to sing it yourself, and how good your image is. ”
Park Shu replied very bluntly: "I think everyone in your music circle is an idiot, I just want to sell songs to make money, make money to make my own records, I don't want to get along with people in the music circle." 」 ”
Gao Xiaosong felt that Park Shu was more unsophisticated than he was, and his interest in him intensified: "Even if there are many idiots in the music circle, there are still many people with ideals, such as me." Leave your album to me. ”
Park Shu became the first singer to sign a contract with Mai Tian Music, and then Mai Tian signed Ye Bei and Yin Wu. Gao Xiaosong described the glorious years of the wheat field at that time in the book "Like a Funeral": "The wheat field music that quietly played the piano and sang at the end of the crazy and dizzying century, our, proud, wheat field music." ”
His memories of the founding of Maitian are always full of fleshy poetry and crazy Beijing slang. Only this passage, he somewhat restrained.
In a small office in Beijing's Asian Games Village, Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke were caught up in an uncontrollable romantic entrepreneurial passion. At that time, 90% of the company's telephone bill was everyone's midnight love long-distance bill; a small dinner table in the company's kitchen, mingling with music critics and distributors; and receiving hundreds of handwritten letters from all over the country every day.
Gao Xiaosong is sensual, Song Ke is calm, their friends, colleagues, former colleagues, no one mentions that the two have any subtle similarities.
In all the memorable dreams of his youth, Gao Xiaosong always held a fake gun, and when he encountered the enemy, he fled into the wilderness, but he could not run fast, and finally he could only pretend to be dead countless times, and then woke up sad.
In his first book, "Faces Painted on the Wall," Gao Xiaosong said he was not confident when he was young.
Song Ke is the "real gun" on his entrepreneurial road, no matter where he goes, as long as Song Ke is mentioned, he must sing the praises of Song Ke's image of Wei'an in Tsinghua. And every time a reporter interviewed Song Ke and asked him why he was so beautiful in college, he explained it repeatedly, saying that many of Gao Xiaosong's descriptions were dramatic, and some of the scenes he said did exist, but the plot was exaggerated.
"But Xiaosong is my nobleman." Song Ke's musical career is completely in line with Gao Xiaosong's plan.
The timing of making wheat field music at that time may not have been wise.
Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke founded Maitian in 1996, and they do not seem to understand what will happen in the future, and the past era of planned economy has not provided them with any reference significance. They felt that even if there was piracy, as long as the profits of the production, wholesale, and retail systems were reasonably distributed, the wheat fields could make money.
This is the first time that the two people have blind confidence in the future on the road to entrepreneurship.
But in terms of musical standards, wheat fields have the capital to blow. Mai Tian operated independently for four years, releasing Gao Xiaosong's "Youth Without Regrets", Park Shu's "I Went to 2000", and Dada Band and Ye Bei's records, each of which was above the standard. But piracy has wasted a lot of effort. For three months, Mai Tian could not pay his salary, but fortunately, Song Ke played mahjong with exquisite skills and pulled the company out of the ghost door at the card table.
The two are completely generating electricity with love.
Everyone drank, bragged, fell in love, and burned their arms with cigarette butts when the love was thick. Conservative estimates show that Song Ke has 6 scars on his arm, and Gao Xiaosong is more flame resistant, with 20. Song Ke said that when she was younger, she thought this was the same as tattooing, but it was better.
When the wheat field was unsustainable, Gao Xiaosong played a key role in matching Warner Records for Song Ke.
Warner's identity as vice president of China has made Song Ke an important player in the mainland music circle and a real music tycoon.
Song Ke is willing to put the label of businessman and rationality on himself, and consciously draws a line with Gao Xiaosong's soft and twisted force field. But Warner's colleague Zhan Hua, as well as SoftBank Saifu's investor Yang Dong, mention Song Ke, and in the end, they will fall to his sensibility.
When talking about that cooperation with Daolang, Song Ke originally had the opportunity to get all the contracts of Daolang, and the reason why he only signed the new technology copyright contract was very simple, "At that time, when I suddenly thought that when my company was just starting out, I made Park Shu red, and then a person with a higher bidder bought Park Shu, and my heart was uncomfortable at that time. ”
When Song Ke was born, his father was 52 years old and had four daughters. The old father was determined to beat Song Ke into a man, and at that time, his living environment and educational environment did not have the word "love", only love the party and the country, and did not love the father and love the son. Growing up in an environment that made Song Ke ashamed to open his mouth about the expression of emotions. Reason is an involuntary correctness.
Gao Xiaosong's growth environment is just the opposite. In his "Short and Tight Finger to the North" there is such a story:
When he was a teenager, Gao Xiaosong was walking happily on the streets of winter, and suddenly there was a sound of "Dang", his eyes were black, and when he touched his face, his hands were full of blood. He looked around for half a day, only to find that a cabbage gang had hit his head, and the cabbage in the winter was frozen like a brick.
Gao Xiaosong rushed to the health center full of blood. The nurse painfully wrapped a bandage around his head, and Gao Xiaosong immediately remembered that the defeated enemy army in the movie was tied up, and the revolutionary heroes were tied horizontally. So he asked the nurse to tie it around again, and the nurse said, "You are not injured on the horizontal ground." Gao Xiaosong was very insistent: "I am not injured and I have to be tied up like this." ”
With two bandages on his back, Gao Xiaosong returned home by himself. His mother looked at it and said, "What's wrong with you?" Gao Xiaosong said: "I walked to the street and didn't know what was going on, but I was opened by the cabbage gang." "The family didn't say anything, didn't find someone to theorize, then ate, didn't take it seriously." Gao Xiaosong grew up in this relaxed environment.
He said that when he opened the scoop, he let his brain completely open up, and from then on learning was always the first.
Tool man
The cabbage gang that winter made Gao Xiaosong's later life smooth, but drunk driving at the age of 42 made him seriously injured.
Before going to prison, he had just finished filming the movie "Dawusheng", and he also discussed a strong alliance with Xu Jiayin's big boss in the music industry. But in the summer of 2011, he curled up in the bunks of the Dongcheng Detention Center, feeling anxious at the thought of movies and music, like mourning.
But what moved Gao Xiaosong was that Xu Jiayin did not abandon himself, and in prison, he received a message from Boss Xu, "Don't leave, don't give up, everything is business as usual." ”
Gao Xiaosong was in the detention center, but his heart already belonged to Xu Jiayin.
After being released, Gao Xiaosong decided to pull Song Ke into the gang in order to show his attitude. During this time, Song Ke, who sells roast duck, has been studying the food and beverage bible "Haidilao, you can't learn it". When Gao Xiaosong let him join Evergrande, he missed music, but he was attached to selling roast duck, and suddenly he remembered the sentence he had wanted to say for half a year, "Music is a great industry!" ”
Song Ke returned to the jianghu.
The gameplay of Evergrande Music, Xu Jiayin gave a clear proposal - 50 to 100 performances in 1 year. Even though this figure initially made Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke feel incredible, Xu Jiayin quickly persuaded the two with his logic of operating Evergrande football.
In 2010, Evergrande invested in football, when Chinese football fell into a match-fixing scandal, the industry fell into a trough, Xu Jiayin found the right time to read the bottom, pushed Evergrande football to the peak in one fell swoop, and even for a time was invincible in the whole of Asia. And their way of playing in the music market is to copy Evergrande football.
The music industry is also in a downturn, Evergrande hopes to find the most professional traders and the most marketable singers, like the frequency of football leagues, a large number of commercial performances, tickets and sponsorship will support this business model. And Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke are the most professional traders.
Xu Jiayin left Hand Evergrande Football, Right Hand Evergrande Music. When he looked to one side, it was the Famous Italian "Silver Fox" Lippi; when he looked to the other side, he hoped that it was Song Ke, the godfather of Chinese music.
Song Ke said: "My biggest driving force is vanity. He was hit by Xu Jiayin's words, and the two men's hands were tightly clasped together.
In order to show loyalty, Song and Gao have invested in Evergrande Music, Song Ke is enthusiastic, and the money invested in Evergrande Music is more than the roast duck shop; Gao Xiaosong is even more imperative, proudly saying: "We hope to establish a century-old record company."
The first plan is to hold 60 concerts in one go.
At the beginning of 2014, Song Ke took Zheng Jun and Da Zhang Wei and ran to "Every Day Upward" to do publicity, just like Jobs released the iPhone that year, Song Ke announced with a world-changing tone: "With the money of a movie ticket, watch the show!" After saying that, the applause from the audience was thunderous.
Gao Xiaosong was not inferior in advertising, he went to Shenzhen Satellite TV and Huang Jianxiang to explain, the program team asked the two to pretend to be very fierce on stage, so that the program is good. Gao Xiaosong was very cooperative and began to blow in the show, the most brutal part of which was his announcement that he would represent Evergrande Music in the acquisition of China Records and Lehua Entertainment.
Gao Xiaosong's breaking news immediately caused an uproar in the industry, and the big newspapers and tabloids speculated and analyzed deeply, and finally the reporter ran to ask Song Ke, how is the acquisition progressing? Song Ke looked helpless and explained that Xiaosong just went to promote the Evergrande brand, but he did not expect that he would carry it forward like this.
The two men's hard work of publicity did not seem to work.
After a few months, the market's weakness and profit decline began to appear. Singer appeal declined, and there was no greater spending power except for sponsorship. Moreover, the synergy brought by the parent company real estate company to the music industry is not much. In 2014, their 26 performances contributed a total of 44.91 million yuan to the company's revenue, which did not cover the cost, and the gross profit margin of the Evergrande Music Festival this year was only -6.75%.
Shortly after the acquisition of China Records and Lehua Entertainment, Gao Xiaosong, Song Ke and Evergrande's contract expired, and the two did not renew their contracts.
The century-old foundation in Gao Xiaosong's mouth lasted less than three years.
Gao Xiaosong: Everyone is old, and no one dies of heartbreak. I counted the days and the money, waiting for eternity to come.
Gao Xiaosong, who left Evergrande, considered whether to continue to start a business or study for a doctorate. But it didn't take long for him to drag Song Ke into Ma Yun's Taiji Zen Temple.
Ali Planet, in this discussion, began the initial brewing.
The achievements in Evergrande Music are difficult to satisfy, although Song Ke said that he had given Boss Xu everything thoughtful when he left, but they urgently needed a chance to prove themselves, which was an account of their growing ambitions.
Regarding this long-cherished wish, Ma Yun can provide them with almost everything.
In July 2015, Gao Xiaosong became the chairman of Alibaba Music and Song Ke became CEO. Gao Xiaosong, who was bitter and bitter, intensified the dramatic treatment of the speech, and announced an irreparable promise, "This will be the last stop in our music professional manager careers."
In the same year, the state launched the "Sword Network 2015 Special Action", for the first time to take music copyright as a key governance area, under the strict order, major websites and apps have offline unauthorized music works. The "red line" of copyright in the music market was demarcated, and the war officially began.
Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke were in the middle of the whirlpool, but they were calm, and they made a strategic decision that was crucial to the life and death of the team at this time -- they almost gave up the player copyright war, and instead focused on another new creation, that is, the ali planet.
Alibaba Planet is formed from the acquisition of Everyday Sound, integrating music production, performance, venue rental, ticket purchase, and advertising on this platform, hoping to create a "Taobao in the music industry". Gao Xiaosong said that the copyright war is to play backgammon on a large chessboard. It's a waste.
"Such a big chessboard, no one left a child in the spare place, and the light was crowded in the middle of the shopping." The midbelisk of the chessboard is 'music copyright', and the corners are other links in the music industry. At that time, Gao Xiaosong used a metaphor of crepe crepe to show the insight into the pattern.
He has a bigger vision to use Ali Planet to revolutionize the music industry: "We strive to become a world-class music institution within three years." At that time, Gao Xiaosong's resources in his hands were too sufficient, and he said that he could do anything.
At a crucial moment, they made crazy decisions. But the madness only lasted a few months. Voices of discontent began to emerge and became loud.
At the beginning of 2016, Wang Hao, the founder of Shrimp Music, took the initiative to adjust to DingTalk, and then a number of VPs left one after another, and the entire marketing team that was originally beautiful every day resigned en masse. Employees are protesting to Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke with actions.
At the same time, the operation of The Planet Ali is far less than expected.
The platform initially set up 50 categories, and it is expected that each category will have 100 resources stationed. After half a year has passed, only 20 resources have been settled in each category. In addition, the growth of users is slow, and the original daily sound of user stock is also rapidly draining.
Ali lost patience. On December 11, 2016, when I opened Ali Planet, what the user saw was a pop-up window for downloading Shrimp Mi Music.
Soon, Ali Music announced that "Ali Planet will stop music services in the near future".
Gao Xiaosong and Song Ke's hallucinations, in the form of black and white letters, were shattered.
This product, which only survived for 9 months, was only rated two stars in the App Store when it went offline. The decline of the planet Ali overnight, shrimp rice has also been affected. The momentum of the whole team reached the freezing point.
According to iResearch's "2016 China Online Music Industry Research Report", in 2016, the coverage rate of QQ Music's entire matrix in music copyright reached 90%, while Ali Music only had 20%.
In December 2018, Tencent Music Entertainment Group was listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Tencent Music whipped the corpse, the Ali planet collapsed, the copyright lost, and Song Ke quietly left.
And Gao Xiaosong continues to act as his Internet "doorman", left and right, as if all regrets can be digested by the poetry of the distance. Later, Ali invested in NetEase Cloud Music, Ma Yun had a new shift in the layout of music, Shrimp Music was speculated to be abandoned, and fate began to become confusing.
At the end of 2020, people began to easily sing elegy for shrimp rice because of a rumor. The youth of the old user was locked into the spirit hall early.
Gao Xiaosong has been flaunting himself as a "doorman" more than 20 years ago, and the path for doormen to achieve their goals is to instrumentalize themselves by attaching themselves to a master.
Three days without a monarch, it is the norm for the doormen, but Gao Xiaosong has always been able to move between various eminent figures and achieve belonging.
Perhaps, the blame is Gao Xiaosong's family training, which has deeply rooted poetry and distant places into his brain, he always looks at the distance, and then honors every kind of virtue and ability as a master, and materializes every master into a beacon, and these lighthouses always tempt him on the other shore.
He was still better suited to take a fake gun, go into exile, and look for an opportunity to pretend to die on the spot.
However, poor Song Ke has been in the music industry for 24 years, from making records to performing, to going to Ali to change the world, several times, but has been subject to the marginalization of the role and the inopportune strategy. Although he always said that Gao Xiaosong was his nobleman, the latter, more or less, was also copying himself outwardly, making Song Ke also a tool for service, and it was difficult to become a legend in the business world.
Just like the no way to choose from shrimp and rice, under the killing of capital, the fate of literature and art is more or less like this, and the premise of utopia is capitalism.