Red Star shines bright in anniversary revival

Back in 1994, 24-year-old Zhan Hua, a die-hard music fan who has a bachelor's degree in tourism management from Tianjin's Nankai University, got his dream job: working in the promotion department of Red Star Productions, a Beijing-based indie record label.

Zhan's first task was traveling around the country with Chinese rock singer-songwriter Zheng Jun and promoting the artist's debut album, Naked. As the first artist signed by Red Star Productions, Zheng achieved immediate success with that album, which sold more than 200,000 copies in a month. Within three years, Zhan had been involved with all of the label's best-selling albums, including rock singer-songwriter Xu Wei's first album, Elsewhere, and pop singer Tian Zhen's Perseverance. Red Star Productions I and Red Star Productions II, two albums that are a collection of hits performed by singers under the label, were then milestones of China's music industry.

Twenty years later, Zhan still gets asked about his experience with Red Star. He's not surprised. Now 44, he is the CEO of Taihe Rye Music, one of the biggest indie music labels on the Chinese mainland that bought all the music copyrights held by Red Star when the old label shut down in 2004.