Another Saturday night, Ye Zhao adjusted the channel, put on headphones, put the radio in his arms, and came to the public phone downstairs, ready to make another call to order songs.

After the prelude to the start of the show ended, Yoshisuke Kuwata's voice came through the headphones. Ye Zhao picked up the receiver and was just about to make a phone call, when he heard a word that made him stunned.

On the radio, after the end of the greetings, Yoshisuke Kuwata did not enter the program process as usual, but first made a song recommendation, on the radio, he said with a smile: "The single that the agent bought in the record store next to the station, although it is an underground single, but the quality is quite high, and the cover of this single is still the Shonan coast of my hometown, which reminds me of the beach, parasols, playing watermelon games, and of course, there is a bikini lady who is absolutely indispensable...... Ha ha. ”

In the midst of Yoshisuke Kuwata's somewhat (lewd?) laughter, the prelude to "Summer Color" sounded on the radio. Ye Zhao put down the phone, and there was only one thought left in his mind, that is...... It's going to be developed.

How powerful is it to be recommended by Yoshiyu Kuwata? This music bigwig debuted in 1978 and continued to be purple in 2017, and his band Nantian Stars ranked third in the total sales of all RB, second only to b'z and Mr. Child, and even Yoshiyu Kuwata himself debuted SOLO, which got nearly 20 million sales, and was once evaluated by the music industry as "the god of RB pop music". In the RB entertainment industry, where the replacement is so fast that it is suffocating, it is not a miracle.

Kuwata Yoshiyu's radio is in prime time on Saturday, and the number of listeners must be tens of millions, and it is already a big face to be mentioned by him on the radio, not to mention that at the beginning of the show, he took the initiative to recommend it, and also played the song from beginning to end, which is simply a big pie falling from the sky.

Sure enough, after Yoshisuke Kuwata recommended the song on the radio, the next day, people who listened to the radio began searching for the single at record stores near them.

As a single with a minimum print run of only 2,000 copies, even if it was only sold in Tokyo, the maximum number of copies distributed to each record store was only 5 to 10 copies, which was certainly not enough to sell, and the only stock in the record store was sold out, and people who could not buy the single kept calling the record store to ask for a replenishment, and the staff of the record store had to deal with the customers who came to inquire and at the same time sent a restock request to the distributor's Apollo Records.

This "summer craze" has exploded not only in the record industry, but also in radio and karaoke. In addition to urging the record store to buy the song, the listener also began to frantically order the song on various radio stations, and the broadcasting association, which had not yet included the song in the music library, had to take the initiative to apply to Apollo Records for the source of the music.

Without an office and a record company, Ye Zhao can't know the specific sales of singles, after all, the current ORICON singles list only counts the top 100, and now is not the era when 200 copies can be sold out in the future, even if 2000 CDs are sold out in one day, that is, they have just touched the edge of the daily chart, so even if he has expected in his heart that this single will be improved because of Kuwata Yoshiyu's recommendation, but to what extent, he doesn't know.

At Apollo Records, after listening to the sales of "Summer Color" reported by a female assistant and calls from all over the country asking for replenishment, Arakawa Kazushi fell into deep thought. Although he has known for a long time that this is a good song, in his original vision, an underground single like this without any publicity can only wait for word-of-mouth to ferment, and then become popular in a long time.

But I don't know whether to say that Ye Zhao's song is good or his luck is good, this song will be recommended by a character like Kuwata Jiayu? Seeing that the momentum of this song is getting better and better, there is a trend of popularity, and Arakawa Kazushi's mind is also alive, if this song can replicate the myth of "ロード", then as the person in charge of the song, on his resume, this brilliant stroke must be indispensable, and when the time comes......

Thinking of this, Arakawa and Shi's hearts jumped wildly, grabbed the phone on the table, and called the pager.

When he received a call from Arakawa and Shi, Ye Zhaogang picked up his guitar and prepared to go to Shibuya. Hearing the BP machine ringing, Ye Zhao dialed it from the public phone downstairs.

"Hello, I'm Ye Zhao. ”

"Brother Xiaoye, I'm Kazushi Arakawa. On the other end of the phone, Arakawa Kazushi's voice was very eager, "I called to tell you a big good news, your single "Summer Color" has been gaining momentum, and all the record stores in the Tokyo area have been sold out! Now that the record stores have sent out an application for distribution to Apollo, I want to ask you, do you want to play big and print another batch of records?"

"Well," Ye Zhao pretended to hesitate, "Although I also want to print it, I really have ...... at hand."

"It doesn't matter, as long as you agree, the company can pay you for the printing fee in advance, and then deduct it from the royalty. ”

Since this is the case, Ye Zhao readily agreed, "How many more are you going to print?"

"50,000, no, the first batch will print 100,000 copies first!

100,000 copies, the printing cost alone exceeded 6 million yen, but Ye Zhao still chose to agree without hesitation, and once again increased his chips for his big gamble.

Of course, as it turned out, he won the bet.

On July 12, 1994, when a newspaper printed with the CD sales chart released by ORICON appeared in a convenience store, it was discovered that a singer named Ye Zhao with his single "Summer Color" occupied the 14th place on the singles chart with 22,852 copies in the singles chart. This single appeared quietly, and even the name of the singer was unknown, and people who didn't know it couldn't help but ask in their hearts: Who is this person?

On the other hand, thanks to the launch of radio sources and karaoke, when the broadcast effect of Yoshisuke Kuwata gradually faded, the popularity of this song did not decrease, but set off a new round of trend.

In the RB music scene in the 90s, one of the important indicators that determine whether the song can become popular is whether the song is catchy, which is more obvious after the rise of karaoke, after all, for most people, this is just a place to sing in a hot atmosphere, and the song "Summer Color" perfectly satisfies this, so when this song lands in karaoke, this song is in people's word of mouth, from the sparkling fire, igniting a spectacular flame of the prairie momentum.

On the weekly CD sales chart on July 19, the momentum of this "Summer Color" did not decrease, but increased, reaching ninth place on the list, and the cumulative sales reached 56,200 pieces. The underground single reaching the top 10 of the ORICON charts was a high-profile feat both in the 90s and after the millennium, and not only passers-by, but also the industry took notice. The well-known music magazine "CDDATA" did not hesitate to write and published a full-word report in the magazine that was released next.

"Last week's weekly singles chart, there was nothing worth writing about, after all, in this week, there were no big-name artists releasing singles, and the results of the weekly champion were not impressive, which can be said to be a rare peaceful week in this era of fierce competition in the music industry. However, this conclusion was completely shattered when the author saw a single that ranked ninth on the list, this single is called "Xia Se", an underground single launched by a singer named Ye Zhao. ”

"We know that it is much more difficult for an underground single to do well than a regular single, after all, the mainstream record companies can not only provide singers with perfect promotional services, but also record tracks from the music library, which are not available in underground singles. But in such a difficult situation, after this single was quietly released on June 21, instead of being abandoned, it achieved a surprising rise against the trend. ”

"The title song of the single, "Summer Color", is an authentic summer ballad. The three-and-a-half-minute song is completed in one go, with guitar sounds and playful hand bells, bringing a refreshing feeling like a sea breeze, and the youthful lyrics also complement the melody of the song, which can be called a clear stream in the hot summer. When it came to the C/W song "Secret Base", the singer named Ye Zhao changed his style and sang a rhythmic rock song, showing us his versatile talent. ”

At the end of the article, the magazine's editor summed it up this way: "Before listening to this single, I might have doubted that this song would have achieved such a result, but now, I dare to assert that it will be a famous song that will be passed down to the world!"

CDDATA is one of RB's most famous music magazines and can be said to be a must-buy book for music lovers. As soon as this issue of the magazine was released, it completely boosted the sales of "Summer Color".

On July 22, female singer Ryoko Shinohara, created by Tetsuya Komuro, released the biggest single of her singer career, "Love, Heartache and Strong", and before this hit single that eventually sold more than two million, the other songs on the weekly chart lost a lot of color.

This week's limelight is firmly occupied by Ryoko Shinohara, the actress who debuted in 1989 and occupied the screen as a royal sister in later generations, until she took Tetsuya Komuro's ride and released this single, she was still an unknown eight-rate star, so her success is also in the spotlight.

In strong contrast with Ryoko Shinohara, who is firmly in first place, is Ye Zhao's "Summer Color". The day after the release of "CDDATA", a large number of followers of "Summer Color" instantly appeared among the people who came to buy the record. The single continued to be enchanting this week, except for the first day when it was squeezed into 16th place by a new single released this week, and then it was bullish all the way, defeating one opponent after another, and rushing all the way into the top five. If it weren't for the fact that the record store was once again depleted of inventory, the results would be much more than that.

On the Apollo side, the president of the company personally made a decision, and on the premise of paying all the printing costs for this single, he contacted the printing factory to work overtime to produce the single.

At the same time, with the popularity of the single, record companies, brokerage companies, and even TV stations that wanted to find Ye Zhao to do the show, people from all walks of life moved when they heard the news, and they all went to Apollo Records to inquire about Ye Zhao's information, striving to "take him down" in one fell swoop.