New York 2006

Chapter 61 Electronic Music
Luo Ji, Braun and Jeff were discussing their new song We Are Young in Luo Ji's office.Agent Braun persuaded from the side.

"Logic, why don't you save "We Are Young" for your second album? Your first album already has three very good songs."

When Jeff Busker heard this, he directly retorted: "The record industry is in a very sluggish situation right now, and it urgently needs a shot in the arm. Logic's three hit songs are obviously not enough. Four would be better, five would be better. In this way, his The album will sell out immediately, and the album will be supported by the entire recording industry. Now that the entire recording industry is in such decline, they are eager to have a singer who can lead the entire recording industry out of the woods."

Luo Ji listened to the argument between his two generals. He did not try to dissuade them, but just listened on the sidelines.

Braun looked at Luo Ji and persuaded him very sincerely: "Logic, many artists feel that their creative inspiration will never stop, but this is not the case. After some artists write a classic song, they can never write it again. A song of that caliber is coming out. You have to plan ahead.”

Jeff Basker directly angrily said: "Braun, do you think the boss is a parallel import? No one can question his talent. He wrote We Are Young in only 15 minutes that day. He will write better ones in the future." Isn’t the song relaxing?”

Braun said: "I'm not questioning Boss's talent, I'm just making plans for the future. The album contains Marvin Gay sung by Boss and Britney. According to Britney's popularity, Boss's album sales will definitely not be low. Wouldn’t it be better to save this song for the next album.”

"What we want is a blockbuster. There hasn't been a super popular new singer in the past few years. The boss's debut album is very likely to surprise the world. Are you going to let the boss give up such a great opportunity just for a song?"

"I'm thinking about the future! Don't misinterpret me."

"Stop arguing." Luo Ji interrupted the argument between the two: "Record it first. As for whether it will be included in the album, we will wait for a while to decide."

Both of them made sense, but Luo Ji had a new idea, whether it could be adapted into the Apocalypse routine.With a few songs from Duo Tianqi, I don’t have this trouble at all.

After Luo Ji heard Jeff humming a short melody of "We Are Young" yesterday, he discovered the song.This opened up a new idea for Luo Ji. Could he listen to more classical music and some old songs? Maybe he could discover new songs through these melodies.

A lot of popular music nowadays samples songs from the past, but only changes in arrangement.For example, Madonna’s hit song Hung Up two years ago sampled ABBA’s single Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight).

The art form of music has been developing for too long, especially with the explosive emergence of modern pop music. In addition, the human ear itself has relatively fixed aesthetic habits for music. In fact, it is necessary to write a piece that has no similarities with previous works and still sounds good. There are very few melodies, which is why music has gradually developed towards de-melody in recent years.

After the quarrel was stopped, Jeff, under the guidance of Luo Ji, began to make the accompaniment of the song We Are Young. The accompaniment of this song was very simple and only involved ordinary instrumental music. Jeff worked very easily.

The accompaniment of "We don't talk anymore" is not that simple. It involves a lot of electronic music. No one except Luo Ji himself knows what kind of effect it needs.So today Luo Ji has been communicating with electronic music pioneer Eno on how to produce the accompaniment of Apocalypse.

Music producer Eno uses Roland's electronic synthesizers and MIDI controllers to modulate frequency, amplitude, waveform, duration, envelope, etc., and then produce different timbres.Luo Ji told him the effect he wanted, and music producer Eno and two of his men were responsible for achieving the effect.But for a long time there was no progress.

"Logic, that special sound only exists in your mind. Language cannot describe the sound clearly. We cannot hear the sound in your head. You must learn the basic knowledge of electronic music and produce rudimentary synthetic sounds. That is the only way. We can continue to improve.”

The music industry is an industry, and there are too many categories of knowledge in it. Rao Shiluo Ji has been learning about music since time travel, but there are still things he doesn't know how to do, especially electronic music, which involves synthesizers, computers, and software. .

"Eno, don't worry, you don't have to worry about my learning ability. I will master the basics of electronic music in a short time. During this time, you can make your kind of lyrical electronic rock. I like that kind of tone very much. I need it." As long as you produce more than five of those songs, I will accept them.”

Eno nodded, and then he spoke: "It's normal that you don't understand the basics of electronic music. Electronic music has never been mainstream in the United States, but in Europe, electronic music often has a place. Like Cher's Believe, Aqua's Barbie Girl, Kylie Minogue's Can't Get You Out of My Head, these electronic music are selling like crazy."

"Aren't these songs disco?"

"Haha, this is indeed disco, but it is also house music and electronic music. Disco production generally requires the use of electronic synthesizers, so disco is electronic music. The word disco is not appropriate, it should be dance music, dance music .”

"That's right, but why is electronic music not mainstream in the United States?"

After Ino's explanation, Luo Ji finally understood the reason.

Disco is a popular dance music and one of the electronic music genres. In the mid-20s, disco was introduced to the United States and was initially only circulated in some black clubs in New York. Disco music was relatively simple, with strong beats and strong dynamics.Therefore, in the early 60s, it gradually developed into a music form with national influence.

The popularity of disco squeezed the living space of rock songs, and the contradictions between rock and disco began to accumulate.And during that time, many discotheques appeared in the United States, specifically for people to relax and dance after get off work. These discotheques gathered marginalized groups in the United States, such as blacks, Latinos, and sexual minorities.They can't go to those elegant dance halls and can only come to discotheques.

Europeans don't think this kind of thing is a problem, but the United States is the conservative base of the West and treats marginalized people with malice. Social news gradually began to criticize Disco.

Until the "Night of Disco Destruction", the survival of disco in the United States was completely destroyed, and countless discotheques closed down.

On July 1979, 7, during a baseball promotion event in Chicago, Dahl, a popular rock radio DJ who had been unemployed for two weeks because of disco, took the lead in shouting "Disco Sucks!" Disco sucks.

Inspired by him, thousands of rock fans brought disco vinyl records to Chicago stadiums on the night of July 7th.During halftime, Dahl, wearing a military uniform and helmet, drove a jeep into the middle of the stadium and shouted to the crowd: "This is the biggest anti-disco rally in the world! Now listen, we've taken you away." All the disco records that were brought in tonight, we put them in a giant box and we’re going to blow them up!”

More than 2 disco records were detonated directly in the stadium. This incident was widely reported across the United States. The media had long been disgusted with the gathering of black people, Latinos, and LGBT people in discotheques.The media began to criticize disco in all aspects, and disco disappeared in the United States.It’s hard to see disco in mainstream music anymore.

"As the world's largest music market, the United States does not accept disco music. Correspondingly, many countries will reduce the output of disco songs. However, the rhythm of this kind of song is really strong, very suitable for playing when dancing, and it is good Disco music is really good, so this style of music has always been popular in Europe, Latin America, and East Asia."

"Ah."

"It has been more than 20 years since the United States boycotted the disco wave, and no one talks about that past. In the past few years, many electronic songs have achieved good results on the Billboard, but we are still in the era of contemporary rhythm and blues. This is the most popular music genre in the United States right now. Your Viva La Vida Billboard No. [-] spot is almost gone."

Beyoncé's contemporary rhythm and blues "Irreplaceable" had much higher points on Billboard than Luo Ji's "Viva La Vida" in the first two weeks.Therefore, she has not been actively ranking.Luo Ji quickly reached No. [-] on the Billboard through intense publicity and sneak attacks.

Beyonce reacted belatedly and began actively promoting her songs.However, Luo Ji's single relied on inertia and out-of-circle reports that it was the first time that Chinese descent had reached the top of the Billboard. The point difference between the two on the bulletin board is not big.

"Haha, it's okay. I'm very satisfied that my first single can get to No. [-] on the Billboard. I don't plan to promote the single anymore. The most important thing now is to produce the album."

In the next few days, Luo Ji began to devote himself wholeheartedly to learning the basics of electronic music. He took time to record and even went to school to take an exam.

Having just finished taking the school exam, Luo Ji came to the recording studio excitedly and began trying to synthesize the sound he wanted.As expected, knowledge is power. In the past, Ian's entire team was unable to synthesize the effect he wanted. But now that Luo Ji had initially synthesized the sound he needed, they improved very quickly and perfectly realized Tianqi's synthesized sound. .

During his free time, Luo Ji saw a magazine that Ian and the others had placed next to their synthesizer, and started to read it with interest.

This magazine turns out to be a magazine about the electronic music industry. It records major events in the electronic music industry, famous DJs, the latest technology, the business prospects of electronic music, famous dance halls, etc.

"Where did this magazine come from?"

The young British producer said: "This "DJ" magazine is published in the UK and is very famous in the electronic music circle."

"Then why do I rarely see him in the United States?"

"I don't know that."

Perhaps it was because electronic music had not been popular in the United States. Luo Ji searched the Internet out of curiosity and found that this magazine was published in the United States, but its sales were very small.

Luo Ji went to the official website of "DJ" magazine again and browsed it briefly. He found that there was very little content on the official website, only a dozen reports, and it had not been updated for a long time.

I don’t know whether it’s because they don’t pay attention to the Internet, or because they have operational difficulties and don’t have the funds to put the magazine on the Internet.Luo Ji dialed Max's phone number.

"Remember to order an extra copy of "DJ" magazine for the company in the future. I will read it."

(End of this chapter)