Across America, Starting with the Boxing Champion

Chapter 182 Lighters

“.Sogivemereasontoprovemewrong,Towashthismemoryclean,Letthefloodscrossthedistanceinyoureyes”

 At the Metropolitan Cinema, Link held a microphone and sang "Give Me Reason" with the accompaniment of the band.

This is the New York premiere of "Transformers 2". Before the movie started, Link was invited to the stage to sing the movie's theme song.

 Pap, pah, pah!

 At the end of the singing, there was a burst of warm applause and cheers from the audience.

Link waved his hand and went to the front row of the audience to watch the movie. When he saw the battle between the "Autobots" and the "Decepticons", the phone in his pocket vibrated several times.

 He took it out, took a look at it, was stunned, and sent a message to Anna.

"sure?"

“Yes! MJ’s family has published an obituary at two o’clock in the afternoon.”

Anna replied to the message and said.

Link shook his head and sighed.

In fact, he had a premonition a few days ago. MJ's concert was originally scheduled to be held in early June. Because MJ was unwell, it was postponed twice. There was only one rehearsal at Lincoln Center, and the remaining two were postponed. Canceled because MJ couldn't be there.

Although he and MJ had only met twice and their friendship was not deep, seeing a familiar person disappear from the world also made him feel like a creature of its own kind.

 “Link, isn’t the movie good?”

 “Transformers” series director Michael Bay asked.

 “No, it’s pretty good. It’s the most exciting movie I’ve seen this year.”

 See Michael Bay looking at him doubtfully.

Link smiled softly and told the news about the death of another Michael. Director Michael Bay also sighed after hearing this.

 After watching the movie, the news of MJ’s death in Los Angeles was broadcast on many electronic screens on the streets.

 The news announced by the hospital is that MJ suffered a cardiac arrest at home and fell into a deep coma. He was then sent to the nearby UCLA Medical Center for rescue, but died after the rescue failed.

Since Michael was a big shot and was involved in too many things, in the days after his death, online news was full of rumors and there were various speculations about the cause of his death.

Also because of Michael's great influence, relevant news was all over the media. A few days after his death, many activities and concerts in the music industry were postponed.

Link's second album "Go Forward" was postponed to July as a result.

 "Anna, how are the sales of "Lighters" this week?"

In the office, Link asked as he flipped through the documents.

"Lighters" was released on major digital music platforms in mid-June as originally planned. Without much publicity, it had 75,000 downloads in the first week, ranking 74th on the Billboard singles chart and 5th on the rap chart.

 For two newcomers, Mars and Bobby Jr., this result is quite good.

“108,000 copies were sold this week, ranking 21st on the singles chart, and second on the rap chart, only 0.2 million copies behind the first place “D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune)” and third place behind Kanye "Monster" is more than 30,000 copies."

Ms. Anna said while holding the folder.

 “Sounds pretty good.”

Link took out a lollipop and put it in his mouth.

Anna looked at him and smiled: "Yes, not only did it perform well, the media also spoke highly of this song, praising this rap song for its perfect fusion of funk, rhythm and blues, and rap, opening up a new "The rap style has also changed the style limitations of people listening to music, and it has a certain degree of pioneering in rap music. "XXL" magazine gave it a five-star rating and called it one of the ten most recommended rap singles this year."

 “Five-star review?”

 Link was a little surprised. "XXL", also called double-X-L, is the most authoritative professional magazine in the rap music industry, headquartered in New York.

 Each month, we will review the songs on the rap chart, give a 1-5 star rating, and release the best singles of the month.

Link's "I\'mTheOne" and Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune also only received four stars, but he gave "Lighters" five stars. It is obvious that he is very optimistic about this song, which also shows that The quality of this song is really good.

 According to this momentum, "Lighters" is very likely to reach No. 1 on the rap chart next week.

Unfortunately, in the afternoon of the same day, a rap single "Forever" co-created by Lil Wayne, Kanye, Eminem, and Drake was released on major music digital platforms.

 Because this song was jointly sung by three of the top rap stars + rising rap star Drake, and because everyone knows that their purpose in releasing the song was to prevent "Lighters" from reaching the top of the rap charts. As soon as this song was released, it attracted a lot of attention.

The song was released by Epic Records. At the time of its release, people from Epic Records explained to the New York Daily News reporter that the song was one of the interludes in the personal biopic of NBA star LeBron James, "Basketball King." one.

　　The movie was released in early June, and the single "forever" was originally planned to be released in June, not for the purpose of competing for the charts.

Not many people would believe this explanation. If it weren't for the sake of competing for charts, they wouldn't have chosen to release "Lighters" when it was about to top the rap chart. This situation is like Kanye trying to suppress Link's " I\'mTheOne", releasing "Monster" in advance.

 Although the release time of this song is controversial, it does not affect its sales.

 “Forever” had 237,000 online downloads in its first week, successfully occupying the first place on the rap chart, and also ranked eighth on the Billboard singles chart.

 "Lighters" sold 96,000 copies in its third week, surpassing Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune and continuing to rank second.

“It’s so despicable for three top players to join forces to suppress Mars, a newcomer. Link, should we fight back?”

Link Music Studio, Wiz Khalifa said very angrily.

Link flipped through the new issue of "Billboard" magazine and shook his head, "Three top artists and one popular new star. Even if we collaborate on another song "I\'mTheOne", we can't beat them."

"Link, you are a master of tactics. Last time Jay-Z's "D.O.A. (Death of Auto-Tune performed so strongly, but was still beaten to the first place by "Give Me Reason". You will definitely be able to do it this time."

Mars stared at the afro and smiled.

 Little Bobby, Phillip, and Ali next to him nodded in succession.

Link glanced at a few people and smiled helplessly.

  "Give Me Reason" was able to reach the top of the singles chart because of the traffic brought by the movie and the high quality of the song itself, and it has nothing to do with tactics.

But some people think it's his tactic, otherwise he wouldn't have announced a compromise one week and reached number one the next week. Some media called it 'Link's comeback'. Even people from Link Music think so. It's hard for him to argue.

“Let’s slow down the fight for the rankings. MJ just left. It’s not good to make too much of a fuss.”

A few people nodded.

MJ was so famous that his death had a big impact on the American music scene and the world music scene. Recently, MJ fans in many countries and places have held memorial activities and parades, and it is said that the number of participants has reached millions.

MJ has also collaborated with rappers from the East and West Coast to release two rap albums, and has many fans in the rap industry.

 Being too high-profile at this time will attract attacks from anti-fans.

 For example, Kanye and Lear’s recent efforts to compete for the charts have met with a lot of backlash.

Link is a new singer and rapper with few die-hard fans. At this stage, he needs to learn to win over fans and win people's hearts, so that he can have more followers and fewer enemies, so that he can remain invincible.

 Chatting for a few words, everyone continued to discuss music creation.

The people currently signed by Link Music are all singer-songwriters. Brother Martian was able to collect the songs for his first album by himself. Lana has been an underground musician for four or five years and has a thick songbook in her hand.

Wiz released an album with Warner Records in 2007, as well as the hit single "SayYeah". In September last year, because Warner postponed the release of his second album, he chose to end his cooperation with Warner early and became a Freelance singer.

At Link's invitation, Wiz agreed to hand over the production and distribution of the second album to Link Music.

Little Bobby is a singer at Atlantic Records. After being seconded by Link, he mainly helped Mars produce the first and second albums.

Link will sometimes come over and talk about music with everyone. Occasionally he will play some music fragments to provide reference and inspiration for everyone, or collaborate with them to write songs and lyrics, but he will not give them complete songs anymore.

 For singer-songwriters, the singing level will be higher if they write the songs themselves. It is not a good habit to rely on others to write songs.

Several other people have signed multiple record contracts with Link Music. If they all relied on him to write songs, he wouldn't be able to produce so many good songs.

“Boss, the time for MJ’s memorial service has been decided, it will be next Tuesday.”

 Anna called and said.

 “Okay, book me a flight.”

Link thought for a moment and said.

 (End of this chapter)