On the morning of November 4, Ye Zhao appeared in the recording studio inside BEING.

Just as he pushed open the door of the recording studio, Mika Kawashima, who was sitting on the sofa, waved at him lazily: "Yo, here you are."

"Sister Meixiang?" Ye Zhao was stunned for a moment, "Why are you here?"

Mika Kawashima stood up from the sofa, "I met Mr. Akashi in Shibuya's mixing room yesterday. He told me that you would bring a new song to listen to today, so I came over and joined in the fun."

"Mika has been looking forward to it since yesterday," said Masao Akishi, "Ye Jun, take out the song quickly."

Ye Zhao took out a tape from the pocket of the black motorcycle jacket and handed it to Akashi Masao Akashi, "This is the DEMO of the song." Akashi Masao took the tape, picked up the player on the table and stuffed it in, pressed the play button.

Music magazine gave Ye Zhao the title of "Fukuyama Masaji No. 2". In this matter, although music stakeholders inside and outside the company refuted this, Ye Zhao himself had nothing to say, because "Rainbow" was originally a song by Fukuyama Masaji. Fukuyama's songs are quite obvious in personal style. Even if it was written ten years later when his creative power was more mature, the core components inside remained unchanged. Shortly after this matter, the scandal of Mika Ogawa came, sucking everyone's attention away. Now that the scandal has subsided, this matter has been brought up again, and the outside world has a vague trend of treating him as a B-level character.

If you are a member of the second or successor of someone in the entertainment industry, it would be fine if someone has retired or passed away. If someone is still working on the front line, it will be easy to give the audience a feeling that they are not as skilled as others - if you have enough ability, can you still have to walk the path others have taken?

Later generations, Mai Kuraki debuted and sold her albums, but was named "The Second Utada Ghost" by the media, which even triggered a fan battle between the two sides. In desperation, Mai Kuraki and her team had to forcefully seek transformation when their popularity was not yet stable, which led to the subsequent albums plummeting. From this incident, it can be seen that as an artist, it is very taboo to be plagued by such statements.

Against this background, Ye Zhao's final decision not only is very different from the folk rock style of his first two singles, but also is different from the popular rock produced by BEING assembly line, and is even far from "Go Wandering" provided to WANDS. The name of this song is "WINTER, AGAIN", which is a single released by RB's top rock band GLAY in 1999.

Due to various reasons, in 2017, compared with those evergreen bands, their sales were somewhat unsatisfactory, giving people a feeling that they are very famous but gradually lacking in stamina. Despite this, they are undoubtedly one of the top bands in the RB pop music scene. In addition to ranking seventh in the RB sales ranking with a total sales of nearly 38 million, they also held a super concert of 200,000 people during their peak popularity. This record is unprecedented in RB, and there are probably no more visitors.

GLAY, formed in 1988, was discovered by the drummer YOSHIKI of the legendary band X-JAPAN in 1994. It has been unknown as an underground band. Years of accumulation have made their musical style mature. This is why they quickly became famous after being discovered by the boy YOSHIKI and became a top band.

This song "WINTER, AGAIN" is a winter song as its name suggests. After tasting the sweetness of "Summer Color", Ye Zhao decided to use the weather again and release a winter song. 1999 was the double peak of GLAY's popularity and strength. This song also showed their outstanding talents, which can be said to be impeccable in both popularity and musicality. This single sold 1.64 million copies that year, defeating Ayumi Hamasaki and Hiroshi Utada, two super queens, and ranked second in the single annual chart (in fact, the second place in that year should be Utada's "Automatic/time will tell", but because the ORICON chart divided the 8CM single and 12CM singles at that time, GLAY won the second place. By the way, the first in the annual chart was a nursery rhyme).

To use this song, the biggest problem Ye Zhao faces is that this song is a homesick song written by GLAY, who is from Hokkaido. The lyrics include the words "heavy snow" and "hometown" many times. For Ye Zhao, who was born and raised in Yokohama, it is very strange to have this mood. So when he decided to use it, Ye Zhao tried to make small changes based on the original lyrics. If he didn't care about his behavior of copying and changing it, this could be regarded as his first attempt to write lyrics since he was reborn.

Such an excellent song, even if it is still a simple version that has never been arranged before, just using the guitar as the accompaniment, is enough to shock people. When the song is played, the room even fell into a brief silence.

Akio Akishi hesitated for a moment, "Ye Jun, did you really do this?"

"Anyway, if the teacher compares the music library, he will definitely not be able to find a similar song."

"What a good song!" Akio Akishi said, "I didn't expect you to make such a mature song. It's ridiculous that the media also said that you are "Fukuyama Masaharu No. 2". With this talent, there is no need to be second. If you want to do it, you should be first."

Mika Kawashima joked: "If I hadn't known your background, I would have doubted whether there was a composition team behind you, otherwise how could you be so good at everything from folk songs to pop rock to hard rock?"

Ye Zhao was immediately ashamed. In a sense, what Kawashima Mika said was the real truth.

"Come on, if you write such a good song, you are willing to sing it to others? Ye Jun, you have the main song, are you ready for C/W songs?"

Speaking of C/W songs, Ye Zhao suddenly felt a little embarrassed. After hesitating for a moment, he took out a tape with track1 written on it from his pocket on the other side of the jacket and handed it to Masao Akishi.

Akashi Masao, who was full of anticipation, stuffed the tape in, pressed the play button, and then...

First, there was a climax part of "Don't Give Up" singing a cappella. After singing the line "Chasing a Distant Dream", there were two sounds of hitting the side panels, and then the guitar gradually entered, playing a melody of about one and a half minutes like improvisation. The style of the whole song is light and powerful. Although the lyrics are not filled in, it seems that you can feel the creator's positive mood.

After the short melody ended, Masao Akishi frowned and did not speak. Instead, Mika Kawashima, who was outspoken, blurted out: "Ye Jun, this song is a bit out of standard."

"Sister Mika, teacher, is this song bad?" Yes, this is a song entirely original by Ye Zhao. After being questioned as "Masaharu Fukuyama", Ye Zhao has been reflecting on his own behavior of getting something for nothing. Even if he will not be involved in the plagiarism storm, the changing style of the song will soon dispel this doubt. However, whenever he thinks about everything he has now, he is actually stealing other people's achievements, Ye Zhao still feels like he can't raise his head. So in this "turnaround battle", he wants to come up with his own works no matter what, so that the battle is more reasonable.

After thinking about it, I found out some semi-finished melodies I wrote during the time I started learning to compose, and finally made such a song. The beginning of ZARD's "Don't Give Up" has no strange meaning. I just think that the song is more in line with my current self in terms of background and lyrics.

"How to say it," Akishi Masao grabbed his hair and decided to tell it truthfully. "First of all, I will praise the composition method of the chord combination of this song. There are no routine chords, which is quite innovative in this regard. But compared with the songs you made before, although it is not a useless garbage song, it can only be a second-rate inferior work."

Second-rate inferior, this comment is quite rude. Mika Kawashima glanced at Akishima Masao with some blame and comforted him: "This is what a singer-songwriter is. He may have to write thousands of songs in his life. No matter how talented a composer is, he cannot guarantee that his poems are all fine. It doesn't matter, Ye Jun."

Ye Zhao shook his head, "It's okay, Sister Meixiang." His originally frown also stretched out, and he was even a little happy. The second-rate man was inferior. If he was evaluating a real singer-songwriter, the other party might turn against him on the spot, and even if he didn't, he would be very reluctant. However, for Ye Zhao, who was trying to compose for the first time, this was the highest praise he had received.

Ye Zhao's reaction made Akishi Masao Akishi and Mika Kawashima a little confused. Akishi Masao Akishi asked tentatively: "Ye Jun, you don't really plan to use this song as C/W, right? If you don't have enough inspiration this time, you can also pick one from the company's music library."

"Teacher, is this song so bad that it can't be C/W?"

"That's not the case. It's just that there's only such a short melody and no lyrics. Even if it's not the main theme, it's a bit too perfunctory."

"Since it's not that bad, I won't change my mind." Ye Zhao's tone was firm. Seeing this, Masao Akishi didn't force it. "Forget it, it's C/W anyway, it's okay if you have to be willful. I think President Nagato won't make things difficult for you if he plays such an outstanding position."

After receiving the advice of Masao Akishi, Ye Zhao took two more songs to Nagato Daiyu. Although Nagato Daiyu had basically never participated in his song production, at least in name, Ye Zhao's producer was still Nagato Daiyu, so his consent must be obtained on the direction of the music and some major issues.

Nagato Daiyuki's reaction was similar to that of Masao Akashi, especially when "WINTER, AGAIN" was in front of him, track1 felt that it was difficult to reach the elegant hall. Fortunately, Nagato Daiyuki did not make things difficult for him. When Ye Zhao showed his attitude of insisting on using it as C/W, he acquiesced.
Chapter completed!