After Linton's album was recorded, during Universal Records' internal evaluation, executives and market experts were all stunned by the album's quality.
They unanimously gave it an A+ rating, believing that this album would surely explode in the market.
The album was priced at 16.99 yuan, and a global sales forecast of over 20 million copies was given, with the final decision to use the highest promotional resources for its promotion.
It's no wonder Universal's executives were stunned; consider this: normally, with proper promotion, an average album with two high-quality songs can guarantee sales.
If an album has three strong singles, it has the foundation for a big seller.
If it has five strong singles, it is bound to be a huge hit.
Of course, the singer's fame and promotion also critically impact sales.
Unlike Linton's album, all songs are strong singles.
It can be said that all 13 songs on the album, if taken individually to chart, each has the potential to contend for the weekly championship on Billboard.
No one in the world does it this way; if other singers had so many high-quality songs,
they would undoubtedly use these singles as a base, then collect some decent quality songs from the market, split them into three or more albums, and release them, to maximize profit.
Now that Linton's album is hitting the market, it's an absolute game-changer, a king of kings; it would be strange if sales didn't explode.
Everyone couldn't help but look at Linton like a rare animal; he was so talented, so young, and versatile in style. How much profit could this bring to Universal?
This was simply a money tree, a walking ATM, an angel bestowed upon Universal by Heaven.
"Linton, what should we name this album?"
Generally, a singer's album is named after its strongest single, but all of Linton's album songs are strong singles, making it difficult for the promotion staff to name it, so they sought Linton's opinion.
"From its initial creation to recording, promotion, and now its final form, this album represents my growth. Let's call the album 'Grow Up.'"
Everyone nodded, and Daniel even said, "'Grow Up' is great. This is actually the growth of a Genius singer, a vivid example of a once unknown student rapidly growing into a popular superstar through his hard work and talent.
Isn't this the embodiment of the American Dream? The promotion department must remember to highlight this as a key promotional point."
Daniel was indeed a marketing Genius, immediately coming up with an excellent promotion strategy.
Next, Daniel arranged for the production department to contact manufacturing plants to press album discs, primarily CDs and vinyl records, supplemented by a small number of cassettes, with an initial production run of 10 million copies.
The marketing department implemented channel distribution, ensuring placement in the most prominent locations across all channels, and this time, it would be a simultaneous overseas launch.
They organized a meeting for promotion personnel to discuss specific promotion strategies, ensuring the album's promotion was maximized to ignite the market as quickly as possible.
After recording the album songs, on the 28th, Linton held an MV shooting team meeting with Carson, Zach, and Annie.
He learned about the crew's preparation, shooting plan, casting results, the roles he needed to play in each song, and the dances he needed to prepare.
Linton had already reviewed the MV scripts for 10 songs and offered revision suggestions, and Zach had even sent him the storyboards early on.
Due to the limitations of the era, other songs generally followed Zach's ideas.
However, he wanted to make 'Sugar' a wedding MV hit song. Thinking about how much exposure 'Sugar' MV brought as a wedding hit in his previous life, and the subsequent song licensing fees that would pour in, he had Zach rewrite the script according to his own creative ideas.
Carson, Zach, and Annie's preliminary work was solid; all tasks were prepared. Annie's choreography was largely complete, and all outdoor footage had been shot.
After understanding all the details, Carson gave Linton the profiles of the selected female leads for the other seven MVs (the 'Sugar' and 'Legends Never Die' MVs did not require female leads) for him to review.
Linton had previously given the casting rights for all female leads, except for 'You're Beautiful,' to the three of them.
It was said that the casting competition was exceptionally fierce, and the three of them also benefited greatly from it.
Even Mira exerted her influence, and among the seven selected MV female leads, three were newcomers from WMA Company.
However, after reviewing them, Linton was generally satisfied; all seven MV female leads were youthful and beautiful. After all, MVs don't require much acting; the key is appearance.
Linton had originally wanted to see if there were any familiar names he could pay special attention to or even interact with, and if suitable, he could provide some assistance in the future, cultivating them as cauldron partners.
But after reviewing the information, he found no one he recognized, which meant these people hadn't become particularly famous in his previous life, so he didn't care.
For the next few days, Linton practiced dancing in the dance studio under Annie's guidance. The MVs featured a lot of dance sequences for him, which he needed to master beforehand.
After all, the MV shooting schedule was very tight, but with his Qi cultivation at the 6th layer, dancing posed no difficulty for him; even the most complex movements could be easily completed.
On October 1st, at Universal's studio, MV shooting officially began, with the first MV to be shot naturally being 'You're Beautiful.'
The shooting process need not be detailed. Naomi cherished her time working with Linton immensely. Every day after shooting, Naomi naturally monopolized Linton's free time. She worked hard during the day and fought passionately at night, making the three days exceptionally fulfilling.
After finishing the MV, a fully nourished Naomi left radiant, moving on to her next job.
Due to thorough preparation and excellent coordination from the shooting crew, the MV filming went very smoothly, with each song completed within three days, some even in two days.
Poor Zach, he had to shoot during the day and then edit and do Late Stage production with the editor at night, losing quite a bit of hair.
Because according to the plan, all MV shooting and production were to be completed in October, one can imagine the workload and pressure on Zach.
Of course, during the shooting, all seven MV female leads tried their best to show their charm to Linton, even openly seducing him, hoping to have a deeper interaction with Linton and leave a good impression.
Who knows, there might be opportunities for future collaboration. Even without subsequent collaboration, Linton was so handsome, so popular, and rumored to be incredibly potent; sleeping with him wouldn't be a loss, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say she'd benefit.
Alas, Linton was not moved. Although they were all beautiful, Linton had no interest in cultivating a cauldron partner from scratch.
Wasn't it better to have so many ready-made cauldron partners waiting for him to use, rather than painstakingly cultivating one from the beginning? In the end, they all had to leave, disappointed and resentful.
In fact, there was one person in the crew who was even more depressed than them. Every time an MV female lead left, Carson would pay Zach, which excited Zach so much that he didn't even feel that tired from staying up late continuously.
It turned out that these two were betting again on whether Linton would sleep with the MV female leads. Last time, Carson won, but he didn't expect to lose seven times in a row this time.
Finally, he couldn't help but ask Linton,
"Are you in a relationship? It doesn't seem like it, you haven't announced it publicly (the custom here in America is that if you are married or in a relationship, you should be loyal to your partner and not casually sleep with other people of the opposite sex, otherwise you can do whatever you want).
Are they not pretty? That's not right, we all think they're very pretty, and not much worse than Cameron and Naomi.
Have you changed your orientation, and no longer like women? That's impossible, you're so strong, and I haven't seen you like men."
He asked Linton three consecutive questions and then simultaneously refuted himself, showing how depressed Carson was at this moment.
At this point, the entire crew was listening intently, ears perked up, to hear Linton's answer.
But Linton couldn't tell them the real reason. He just said, who doesn't like beautiful women? But now, work is important. All right, everyone, let's get back to work.