Damn Idol, Episode 134
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No matter what kind of fan you are, it’s impossible to have absolutely no complaints about the thing you love.
Even people who passionately love a particular soccer player shout, “Why didn’t you shoot!” and people who love a certain film will still voice complaints about its story.
The same was true for idol fans, and the fandom of Sedalbaegil was no exception.
They truly loved Sedalbaegil, but of course, they had complaints.
Surprisingly, however, those complaints weren’t about their promotions.
Sedalbaegil had never made an official statement, but they were being pressured by Choi Daeho.
Because of that, they could hardly do the usual activities everyone else did, and had instead done nothing but activities no one else did—or could do.
Guesting at indie performances, appearing on Color Show, and the like.
But that was genuinely an incredible thing.
Until now, there had been no case in the Korean entertainment industry of anyone beating capital, and that was even more true for K-pop idols.
Because idols required enormous initial investment and promotional costs, it was inevitably a capital-friendly, capital-bound profession.
Those who had been around the idol scene long enough knew full well just how difficult a fight Sedalbaegil was waging.
Even this much activity was something to be grateful for.
So unless they were newbies to the idol scene, Titi did not harbor any major dissatisfaction with the direction of Sedalbaegil’s activities.
They believed that since their boys were geniuses, someday they would defeat Lion Entertainment and do everything they wanted to do.
But……
This was precisely where the fandom’s dissatisfaction lay.
What exactly was it that Sedalbaegil wanted to do?
Was being idols even what they wanted?
They were not idol-like.
There had been some signs even during Coming Up Next, but they hadn’t been very obvious.
After all, they had been forming a rivalry with the traditional idol group Take Scene, and they had actively used the time-travel concept.
But from Résumé, which claimed to be bedroom pop, things had started to become a little ambiguous.
Still, there was room to consider Résumé easy listening. It was an unfamiliar genre in 2017, but as the name “music you listen to in your bedroom” implied, it was pleasant to hear.
But no matter how you looked at it, Colorful Struggle was not K-pop music.
The issue wasn’t so much that its genre was rock-based contemporary R&B, but the sentiment the song gave off.
Even the lyrics were entirely in English, and on Color Show, no one danced except Choi Jaeseong.
And even Choi Jaeseong’s dance was closer to a device that made the drum sounds stack up one by one.
Of course, there were people who didn’t particularly complain about such things.
They liked Sedalbaegil itself, not Sedalbaegil doing idol music.
But even those people felt a sense of regret.
Our boys are definitely geniuses.
They are geniuses unlike any who have ever appeared in the history of the idol scene, and perhaps they may even be the first in the Korean music industry.
What would it feel like if people like them made proper idol music?
That was what felt regrettable.
However, because Colorful Struggle had done so well, those complaints only hovered beneath the surface.
Entering the Billboard chart through local word of mouth alone, without any promotion whatsoever?
That was impossible.
How could anyone dare say anything about a song like that?
Of course, strictly speaking, the person who had first uploaded the video of the impromptu performance with Donald McGus to the blues forum was Han Sion.
Even the controversy over whether Zion’s performance was truly improvised or not had been created by Han Sion.
Then he had spread the issue through an Indian traffic company.
So it was not an achievement made through pure word of mouth alone.
But entering Billboard with only that much promotion—something that was embarrassing even to call promotion—was also impossible.
The biggest controversy, “Who did better, Donald McGus or Zion?” was not something Han Sion had been involved in.
In any case, to those unaware of such facts, Sedalbaegil’s entry into Billboard was purely the power of the song itself.
So who could dare say to Colorful Struggle, “It’s a shame it’s not idol music”?
It had already become a sacred territory of the Korean music industry.
The reason this dissatisfaction surfaced again was because of an article about Sedalbaegil’s activities.
More precisely, it was because of other fandoms trying to keep them in check after seeing it.
[Sedalbaegil’s promotional songs? Colorful Struggle + a pre-release track from the album]
There had been many people who found Sedalbaegil, who devoured every bit of noise around them, irritating.
However, because Sedalbaegil had been outside the idol industry, the level of restraint against them had surprisingly not been that strong.
There was also sympathy for the fact that they were being beaten down by Choi Daeho, a notorious villain in the idol scene.
But now, Sedalbaegil was beginning music show promotions.
In other words, they had become competitors entering the idol industry.
And extremely threatening ones at that.
Colorful Struggle was such a successful song that attacking it rashly could draw backlash from the general public.
So……
-They do know how to row when the tide comes in.
-But are they not taking Titi on that boat? lol
-Will there be fanchants?
-Probably not? They don’t suit the kind of music they do.
-If it were me, I’d feel too self-conscious to say anything even at a music show;;
-But why do they insist on being idols? I mean this in a good way, wouldn’t it be better if they just did R&B? lol
-The pre-release track will probably be like that too?
They had begun to attack their attitude as idols while acting like question-mark killers.
From the perspective of other fandoms, this was truly a clever method.
They could keep Sedalbaegil in check, while also naturally positioning them as not being idols.
That way, even if their results fell behind Sedalbaegil’s, they could lay the groundwork.
As if to say, what was the point of comparing them to a non-idol group?
It was an obvious petty trick, but it was also a clever petty trick.
From Sedalbaegil’s fandom’s perspective, that meant it was obvious, but infuriating.
Everyone resolved not to react, knowing there was no point in doing so, but it wasn’t easy.
-It’s better than forcing them to do what you want just because they won’t do it, right? lol
-Oh, so that’s forcing them?
-Was that really something you had to go that far over?
Just as the gunfire-less war that the general public would never know about was beginning to overheat.
[Could you perhaps choose our promotional song for us T.T?]
A piece of bait was thrown.
No, they couldn’t even tell yet whether it was bait or not, but their eyes had spun at the words “promotional song.”
‘Please, at least something like Résumé.’
‘Résumé would be enough.’
‘Something with the feel of Résumé and an appropriate performance……’
Titi, all thinking similar thoughts as they rushed to the official homepage, confirmed that the source of the general notification was the
Were they really asking them to choose the promotional song?
They had said Colorful Struggle + a pre-release track from the album, so……
‘No way, are we getting to listen to the album in advance?!’
The hearts of Sedalbaegil’s fans suddenly began to pound as they clicked the first post on the voting board.
Inside the post was not an audio file, but a video.
It was not even a YouTube link or anything like that, but a direct upload.
‘Can the traffic hold?’
Some thought that, but there were no problems at all.
The background in the smoothly playing video appeared to be a practice room, and the five members of Sedalbaegil stood facing the camera.
Then they began to sing……
‘Huh?’
It was an extremely familiar song.
Colorful Struggle.
Aside from the intro from Color Show, which had started with Han Sion’s guitar, nothing had changed at all.
They didn’t even dance.
The five of them simply stood there blankly and sang, making them look like some kind of a cappella group.
Of course, the level of the singing was extraordinary.
Meanwhile, the fans tilted their heads.
They had clearly asked them to choose a promotional song, so why was Colorful Struggle coming out?
Had they perhaps made a mistake when they were supposed to upload another song?
Or was some kind of device hidden in it?
Just in case, they watched the video until the end, but nothing changed.
It was simply Colorful Struggle.
The moment the video in the first post ended, the smartphone screen flickered.
The screen had automatically moved on to the second post.
This one was also a video, and again, it had the same practice room background.
Though they had no idea what was going on, the fans focused on the video again for now.
But this time, too, it was the same Colorful Struggle.
Sedalbaegil stood in the same formation and began the same song.
Upon hearing the first line of the song, the fans started thinking that it was either an operational mistake or an app error.
There was no reason to upload Colorful Struggle, which had already been decided as a promotional song, to the voting board, and no reason to upload the same video twice.
Just as the deflated fans were about to close the app.
Suddenly, an unfamiliar sound that could not be heard in the original song rang out.
Tak—!
It was a sound just like someone roughly pressing a light switch.
At that moment, the lighting illuminating the screen dimmed another level.
At the same time, Sedalbaegil’s voices vanished as if washed away, and the beat left alone filled the silence.
Meanwhile, those with sharp ears thought that the beat had become strangely slower.
That was not wrong.
But to be precise, it wasn’t that the beat had slowed down, but that the pitch had lowered.
Tak—! Tak—! Tak—!
The sound of the switch rang out rhythmically in time with the beat.
Each time it did, the screen grew darker, and the pitch of the beat dropped.
At last, the beat, slow enough for everyone to feel it now, flowed out heavily.
Then a strange sound, like radio noise and also like the frequency static of a wireless transmitter, slipped into the beat.
Bzzzt.
At the same time, a change occurred in the slow, heavy beat.
Lo-fi.
It was a genre that deliberately degraded sound quality to create a texture that clung to the ear, but in the actual lo-fi scene, the feeling mattered more than the level of sound quality.
Not a prim and proper sound in which every pitch and every note landed cleanly, but the sound of the backside of the city, its necktie roughly loosened.
In that sense, it was also the genre that stood in the greatest contrast to the original Colorful Struggle.
Because Colorful Struggle was a monumental tower built up through calculation of everything.
‘……!’
The fandom of Sedalbaegil, who had been screaming internally as they focused on the video, instinctively felt it.
The beat was complete.
Now something big was coming.
At that moment.
Flash!
The screen, which had grown so dark that only faint shapes could be discerned, brightened in an instant.
But rather than bright, it was bewitching.
That was the feeling that radiated from Sedalbaegil under the reddish lighting, dressed in loose, worn striped suits.
Then Lee Ion took a step forward, licked his lips with his tongue, and asked.
[...Did you rock it?]
Boom!
Along with the sound of a shell falling, a rough synth sound burst forth, as though to sever the last remaining thread of reason.
And so Sedalbaegil’s synchronized choreography began.
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The vote, which had gone on for twenty-four hours, came to an end.
‘Asking us to choose the promotional song……’
‘Meant they were asking which version of Colorful Struggle?!’
The result was obvious.
6% to 94%.
The victory of the second song.
But this wasn’t simply because the second song was idol music.
What kind of achievement had Colorful Struggle accomplished?
If it were altered clumsily, it would become neither one thing nor the other.
But the arrangement was perfect.
It was almost astonishing that rock-based contemporary R&B could be transformed into perfect lo-fi chipmunk soul.
Because there was no sense of incongruity whatsoever.
And yet, it carried over the melody of the original exactly as it was, and did not greatly touch the vocal line either.
In other words, without damaging the excellence of the original song, it had armed itself with freshness.
This would work.