Chapter 11: The Album Goes Public (Part 2)

  In such a beehive-like report, various entity channels continue to promote vigorously.

  The internet didn't let up either, An Jun-he's fans were like they were celebrating a holiday, cutting out screenshots from various music charts and crazily posting them to many communities, letting more people know about their idol's achievements. Some netizens who weren't influenced by physical promotions, or didn't watch entertainment news, maybe didn't even know who An Jun-he was, would also be attracted by the fans' behavior, whether out of curiosity or skepticism, and would go take a look at those music websites, and with more people looking, they naturally couldn't help but try listening or downloading.

  Winning a championship is just the beginning, its momentum continues to rise in such fermentation, gradually widening the distance with the second and third places, until they no longer have any hope of overtaking. Meanwhile, following the good reviews from the commentary section, many music communities also started to appear with netizens' evaluations of "1 minute 1 second".

  Nature is also highly praised, perhaps they can't say where the song is good like professional music critics, but it doesn't affect their appreciation and praise. They describe this song as "a representative work that reverses our bad understanding of HIPHOP music".

  This statement is not an exaggeration, as many people did not particularly like HIPHOP music before hearing this song. Prior to this, there was no Korean hip-hop song that successfully incorporated lyrical elements without using profanity or negative emotions, but instead told a sad story in a gentle melody.

  A netizen with the ID "g.hwan1013" recommended it to those who haven't listened before, saying: "Don't be prejudiced against it just because it's labeled as hip-hop music. Once you listen to it, you'll know that it will overturn all your preconceived notions and make you rekindle your interest in the unfamiliar or even annoying hip-hop culture. Of course, this interest may currently only stay with Ahn Jun-hyuk, because he pioneered a new popular style, called HIPHOP, which is actually an emotional style. In this style, you won't see any grandiose and empty sermons about human nature's distortion or the world's darkness, but just a small story waiting for you to quietly listen to it. It's plain yet realistic, able to directly enter people's hearts - at least it moved me..."

  This ID may not be surprising, but people who often hang out in music communities know who it represents - Jin Jianmo, the national singer, Sheng Xun, the emperor of love songs, and even the golden songwriter/producer who can determine a singer's future, Kim Chang-hwan!

  If the initial comments from music critics, starting with Jiang Ming Shi, left a good impression of "1 Minute 1 Second", then Kim Chang Hwan's statement can directly prompt people to buy and download this song.

  As a gold medal songwriter, although he is a behind-the-scenes figure, he also has a large number of fans in the music circle.

  Moreover, "g.hwan1013" expressed his admiration and a little regret towards Ahn Jun-hyuk at the end of the post, just like Jiang Ming-shi used to: "...Unfortunately, I'm not a music critic, and I don't have the repackage version of 'Memory' in my hands for now. I really want to hear how 'The Unsetting Sun', which was highly praised by music critics after '1 Minute 1 Second', sounds like... All along, I've thought that SM Entertainment has ruined the music industry, but it seems that my conclusion might be too hasty. The fact that they can produce a singer like Ahn Jun-hyuk means that this big tree hasn't completely rotted yet."

  The comment was reposted by many communities shortly after it was posted and eventually even made the headlines of several major portal websites.

  When Ahn Jun-hee saw it, he was discussing with Kwon Bo-geun about going on stage a few days later. The moment he saw this comment, Kwon Bo-geun couldn't help but slap Ahn Jun-hee's shoulder hard: "You little devil, you're really amazing."

  Others may not know, but he is very clear that Kim Chang-hwan and the company have never had a good relationship. On a small scale, the other party and the company's gold medal producer Yoo Young-jin have great differences in composition and arrangement ideas, and they have shadowed each other more than once in music magazines. And from a larger perspective, Kim Chang-hwan has always been dissatisfied with SM's market strategy of winning by packaging.

  For example, last year Xu Taizhi's new album did not break 500,000 in sales for the first time, and the total sales of the entire record market in the first half of the year also plummeted compared to 2003. When the media reported on this repeatedly, they said more than once that the Korean music industry was finished. At the time, Kim Chang-hwan angrily pointed out that while the decline of the music industry was indeed due in part to the impact of the internet, it was also because certain management companies prioritized making money over album quality and innovation in music, leading people to be unwilling to spend money on legitimate albums and instead support pirated versions.

  That so-called "certain brokerage firm" is naturally referring to S·M.

  He has always had a strong dislike for SM Entertainment and its artists, except for BoA who was too young when she debuted to be attacked. All the other groups like H.O.T and Shinhwa were criticized by him when they first debuted, especially last year's Dong Bang Shin Ki, who he said was the best example of how SM Entertainment's star-making system harms the quality of its artists - implying that SM Entertainment's artists are getting worse every year.

  Whether the criticism is more subjective or objective, Guan Baogen was unclear and too lazy to care. He only knew that his artist An Junhe had made the company's arch-rivals start praising him extravagantly, achieving what many of the company's singers had not been able to do, and for a time, he felt a sense of satisfaction.

  The internet was also shocked, and many people who knew about Kim Chang-hwan's feud with SM Entertainment thought that April Fool's Day had come a month early when they saw his comment.

  However, not everyone is praising it. There are also many people on the internet who are pouring cold water and speaking ill of it. Some people have commented that "1 Minute 1 Second" is simply inexplicable, with chaotic composition and arrangement, but claiming to be innovative, when in fact it's a messy mix of four unrelated things, and the lyrics are also obscure and difficult to understand.

  Some die-hard HIPHOP fans are the main force, they think this song deviates from the orthodoxy of hip-hop culture: "...... Ballad is ballad, HIPHOP is HIPHOP, what's the combination, no passion at all." They seem to be very dissatisfied with such innovation, and bluntly scolded: "The creation of Ahn Jun-hee is just a clown who deceives the public, those music critics are also bribed, that's why they praise this rotten song so much."

  But no matter how they belittle and insult, whether a song is good or bad can still be faked with chart manipulation, but sales are the most real evidence.

  That night, SM Entertainment's homepage announced a piece of good news:

  As of 8pm today, according to the data from H Chart and G Chart affiliated stores, "Memory" successfully topped the daily sales chart for the first week of March with an initial sale of 40,000 copies on its first day!