From the 1990s " desire " (singing Mao Amin ) to "desire", " million times asking " (singing Liu Huan ) to "Beijing people in New York"; to the theme song of this century "Let's get married" " finally wait for you " (singing Zhang Liangying ), the interlude of "Story of Yanxi Palace" " The sound of snow falling " (singing Lu Hu ), the theme song of "knowing or not knowing or not should be green, fat, red and thin" "knowing or not knowing or not" (singing Hu Xia , Yu Kewei )... For TV series, a good song is undoubtedly the icing on the cake.
Screenshot of the theme song "Know or not" "Know or not" "Know or not" "Know or not".
But when the production of songs in the series increases dramatically, we find that in the past, the phenomenon of "one drama makes one song famous, one song is popular" no longer appears. Instead, a drama often has six or seven songs, most of which are unknown. The drama song market is entering a development node with uneven quality and great waves. Beijing News reporter interviewed Liu Jing, founder of Youth Fanhua Music, Wang Feng, general manager of Shaoyan Music, music singer-songwriter Lu Hu and other industry insiders, revealing how the vocal music in the series has become a force that hits the heart.
Development history: From "borrowing" songs to large-scale original market
In the 1990s, Chinese TV series first golden period, the series songs have not yet been professionalized and concreted. Most drama parties choose to be authorized by the singer rather than "exclusive original" when considering the time, cost, etc. The well-known "The Most Romantic Things" (singed by Zhao Yonghua ) was released in 1994 and was not until 2003 that it became the theme song of the TV series "The Romantic Things". The TV series "Walk Left, Go Right" aired in 2005 uses many classic old songs such as "When Love is approaching", " Courage ", "I Really Love You", and "The Price of Love".
Even if it is original music, most of the series had only two or three songs in their early years. For example, the theme and opening song of the TV series "Bright Sword" are both " Chinese Military Soul ". The information shows that the TV series " Golden Fen Family " only has two songs: "Danxiang" and " Let Her Landing ". Only works such as "The Legend of Condor Heroes" and "The Legend of Sword and Fairy 3" with large audience base and relatively abundant investment will have more than 3 songs.
Screenshot of the theme song "Dark Fragrance" of "Golden Fong Family".
Around 2015, the film and television industry began to change - from TV series to movies, the entire industry seemed to have pressed the acceleration button, and the series was particularly obvious. The increase in the promotion demand of the drama party and the more abundant capital investment have made the number of songs in original dramas grow rapidly in a step-by-step manner.
film field is the first to get involved in publicity and promotional songs, and has achieved remarkable gains in distribution, increasing national popularity, and increasing copyright income - such as the promotional song "Little Apple" of the 2014 movie " Old Boy: The Raptor Crossing the River ", and the song of the same name sung by Mayday in " Later Us " in 2018. A study conducted a survey of 1,100 social platform users, and 64.5% of users "consider watching the movie after a movie released a very favorite music"; 27% of users "choose to watch a movie mainly because of theme songs, promotional songs, promotional songs, etc.". The rules of
have also begun to be imitated by the drama industry. The drama team found that "vocal songs can improve the drama in multiple dimensions." said Wang Feng, general manager of Shaoyan Music. For this reason, the vocal music of the series is also vertically divided into today's promotional songs, theme songs, character theme songs, etc. from the "regular matching" of the opening, ending and interlude. Even different couples in the play have different fixed tracks.
In addition, the standardization of digital music copyright and the fierce competition of music platforms have also greatly increased the market value of drama songs, and a large number of singers have poured in. It is rapidly entering the medium and large-scale original market from a small and beautiful industry.
development bottleneck: Three major reasons cause the chance of work becoming popular has decreased
According to the "2020 Chinese Digital Music Annual White Paper" released by Tencent Music by You Music Research Institute, with the increase in investment in the production, production and marketing of film and television IP, the total production of film and television music in 2020 maintained an upward trend, of which 751 film and television drama music were released, with a year-on-year increase of 47%.
In the past five years, many high-quality drama songs on the market have become household names. For example, the theme song "Knowing or Not Knowing or Not Knowing or Not Knowing or Not" "Knowing or Not Knowing or Not", the theme song "The Direction of Light" of "Long Songs", and the theme song "The Distance between Us and Evil" "Passing by the World", etc.
However, the theme song "The Beijinger in New York" "Ask a Thousands of Time" is 29 years ago, and the music "Preference", " Not Change to in this life" and "Forgot Time" is 13 years ago, and the popularity has only increased and not decreased... Compared with the significant increase in production, a few popular songs were released that year, and a few popular songs were released for more than ten years, but it seems that they are no longer there.
Screenshot of the theme song "The Direction of Light" of "Long Song".
1) Changes in music listening and watching habits, making it difficult to hear songs
20 years ago, most of the channels for public listening to music were TV sets, radios, mobile phone ringtones, and streaming media. Data once showed that the digital music market size in 2003 was only 300 million yuan. "At that time, there were few songs and relatively many fine works. Many songs were always heard and naturally became well-known." In Wang Feng's view, with the rapid development of the Internet and digital music market, the public has now gone from being instilled in one direction to actively screening, and the space for music selection is getting bigger and bigger, and some music will even be automatically blocked by users during the screening stage.
Secondly, more than 400 dramas will be broadcast in 2021. Based on the 4 songs of each drama, nearly 2,000 songs will be poured into the market. Music singer-songwriter Lu Hu is a metaphor for the current situation. Just like in the past, only 10 people were seen on the street, and there was always 1 person you could remember; now there are 1,000 people on the street, and everyone will be dazzled. "You heard a nice song before, and you would download it and listen to it. Now you may only listen to a chorus of a song, but you don't have the heart to understand and loop again." The songs of
dramas are not only drowned in the vast digital music market, but are also "blocked" by the fast-paced viewing mode. Most of the songs in popular dramas are repeated many times in the drama, or are fully displayed in heavy scenes. Like "The Voice of Snow Falling" is also known as the "Box Lunch Song" of "Story of Yanxi Palace" - as long as the characters go offline, they will ring "as promised". But nowadays, a drama has reserved multiple episodes of songs, which makes it difficult for many songs to be fully displayed in the film. "After slicing and editing, a song may have one or two lines. Before everyone can taste it, it will be gone." Lu Hu admitted frankly.
In addition, watching TV shows on video websites has become the mainstream, and most viewers are accustomed to "skipping the opening and endings", which has led to many viewers not even listening to the opening and endings.
Screenshot of the ending song of "Story of Yanxi Palace" "The Voice of Snow Falling".
2) Anti-monopoly reduces copyright income, and film companies may invest less
As digital music copyright becomes more formal, the potential copyright monetization ability of drama songs once attracted countless investors. According to Tencent Music Youyou Music List "2019 Chinese Digital Music Annual Report", the annual sales of a popular costume drama music album in 2019 reached 35.97 million yuan. Coincidentally, another costume hit drama in 2021 launched the original soundtrack album, with the crowdfunding amount reaching nearly one million yuan within a few hours.
According to a producer named T in the industry, the drama party used to make a few songs mainly based on artistic needs, and even did not care about the copyright or how to release it later. Sometimes it only took the singer's authorization. However, in 2019 and 2020, with the fierce competition in digital music copyright, the platform provided very considerable copyright fees for drama songs, and demand also increased. "This is a good channel for producers. Later, everyone felt that the number of songs was higher, and the copyright income on digital platforms might be better." This also led to the improvement of some drama players' investment, publicity and attention in music production, especially the song part.Many dramas have also begun to ignore functionality and have invited big-name singers to sing promotional songs and promotional songs. It is not uncommon for a drama of twenty or thirty episodes, and seven or eight series songs, but most of them are ignored. "Like some TV series with twenty or thirty episodes before, they have made dozens of songs. There is actually not much need for this. After all, the drama is very short, and a song may not appear once or twice, and its value is not very high." Mr. T admitted frankly. The situation like
has begun to change. On July 24, 2021, the State Administration for Market Regulation ordered Tencent and its affiliated companies to lift their exclusive music copyrights and stop high prepayment and other copyright fees payment methods. On January 6, 2022, the National Copyright Administration of interviewed major record companies, lyrics and music copyright companies, digital music platforms, etc., and asked all parties in the digital music industry to work together to maintain the copyright order of digital music. The "Era of Exclusive Copyright" is coming to an end. Mr.
T admitted that the copyright income and market value of the series songs are gradually returning to the original era. "After anti-monopoly, the music platform will weaken its procurement funds. Whether it is for the film company, it will definitely have a weakening impact on the investment and output of the series music."
3) A large number of creators have poured in, and the mix of fish and dragons has led to a sharp increase in demand for
dramatic songs, which also makes the market a new blue ocean. While providing opportunities for many behind-the-scenes musicians and midfielders, it is inevitable that creators of varying quality will come in, turning the songs of the series into "sacrifices" of the series' industrial assembly line.
In recent years, some unprofessional teams have also poured in, resulting in fierce competition in the entire market and the quality of the songs in the series has begun to be uneven. Lu Hu saw people who "do their jobs" appear in the industry - they are not creating works, but are forced to put melodies into the lyrics. "So when music is not good or unserious, we will be classified as saying that the songs in the series are becoming less and less serious."
Future: creators should pay more attention to the artistic nature of the songs themselves
Now, the drama industry is entering a new stage of stable development, cost reduction and efficiency improvement, and music creators are also thinking about how to make the song market develop for a long time.
Liu Jing, founder of Youth Flower Music, summarized four "good" words for good drama songs. First of all, the project must be good. Directors, actors, scripts, shooting images, editing into films, etc. are indispensable. This is an indispensable soil. For example, the high reputation drama produced by Noon Sunshine has made many drama songs "out of the circle", such as " Beautiful Beauty" (Langya Bang), " Life should always face the brightness " (" Children of the Qiao Family "), "Know or not" ("Know or not, know or not, know or not, know or not, should be green, fat, red and thin"), etc.
Secondly, the song itself must be good. Good to listen, easy to remember, easy to spread. For example, although "Knowing or Not Knowing or Not" is an ancient style song, the melody is catchy; Li Qingzhao 's lyrics also have a certain popularity and dissemination. Taking into account the spread of pop music, the team added a few lyrics in the previous part, resulting in a more exquisite and "crossing the past and present" cooperation.
The songs in the play "Knowing or Not Knowing or Not Knowing or Not Should Be Green and Fat" are widely sung.
In addition, good and well-known singer performances, good communication and operation are also icing on the cake. Liu Jing said that the most popular TV series on the market have higher frequency of clips. This principle is the same as advertising. As long as it appears in the climax of the drama, it will be more likely to be spread. For example, "Wuhua" in the TV series " You Fei " will appear repeatedly regardless of whether the male or female protagonist is sweet or abused. In addition, "Knowing or Not" also put a lot of effort into the dissemination channels outside the film, including national public broadcast channels such as supermarkets and gas stations, national radio three-dimensional publicity and operation, and digital music platform promotion and operation.
But in the ever-changing market, the concept is always on paper. Liu Jing still has a natural attitude towards whether the songs in the series can be "attacked". In his opinion, the development of any pop music is the same, and it requires the right time, place, and people. It is already very difficult for 10 to 20 good songs to "win" one, and the music team can only do their best to do each song well.
Wang Feng repeatedly emphasized that the "artistic" of the songs themselves deserves more attention from creators. Today, they have created every song in the series as an independent musical work. "If the drama is broadcast well, the probability of bringing out the song is higher, but some dramas are not popular, and this is the energy of the music itself."
Nowadays, more and more talented young musicians are paying attention to the drama song market, and Wang Feng is very pleased with this, "There are more and more talents, and we have more and more choices." After the copyright anti-monopoly, the audience can also hear the soundtrack of a drama on multiple platforms, and the chances of a song being heard are multiplied.
"Like this year, I've won two songs, and I'm happy for the creator." Lu Hu admitted. Liu Jing said that ten years later, the audience may no longer remember the plot and details of those popular dramas, but the songs can always be remembered and hummed, which is the symbol of the success of the series' songs. "It can bring more artistic appreciation, or aesthetic value, or longer memory to the public, and this is the most important (value)."
Beijing News reporter Zhang He
Editor Tong Na
Proofreading Zhao Lin
3
