Damn Idol, Chapter 139
* * *
It seems our music video is causing quite a stir.
Even outside idol-related communities, there was a considerable amount of talk about the State Of Mind music video.
In particular, there were a lot of comments discussing what people thought the story in the music video was.
The concept for this music video was something I came up with together with the members.
Among them, Choi Jaeseong’s influence was especially strong.
He was the member who had thought the most deeply about our time travel concept.
But I was the one who took that setup, made a story out of it, and turned it into a storyboard for the video direction.
It goes without saying, but I know a thing or two about music videos too.
How many music videos do you think I’ve shot over the course of my life? Did you really think I just left all of that to other people?
I think it was probably after I was inspired by Eminem’s <8 Mile> and tried making an autobiographical film that I seriously started studying video.
Not studying how to shoot.
Studying how to direct.
In other words, our music video was something I had carefully selected and put together from the opinions I received from the members.
-If you think there’s probably no meaning at all and they’re just pretending to be cool, upvote lol
-They just threw in stuff that looks moderately deep lol What, are you writing a thesis? Go study with that passion lol
So comments like these on the internet were all wrong.
I had given meaning to every movement path and every symbol.
If not for the tight music video shooting schedule, there were parts I could have emphasized even more, so that was a bit of a shame.
But that didn’t mean I was going to step forward now and reveal what meaning our music video had.
“Wow, a reaction video’s already up.”
“Already? It’s only been an hour.”
“Yeah. But the subscriber count is super low, and there’s no editing. They just did the reaction raw.”
“Still, the views are pretty good.”
“I think it’s because it was the first one. But the comments are full of hate saying it’s boring. I feel kind of bad, like they’re getting cursed at because of us.”
“Right…”
I laughed in disbelief while listening to On Saemiro and Choi Jaeseong talk.
Why would we feel bad about that?
Anyway, I’d open my mouth around the time people had enjoyed interpreting it enough.
Giving away the answer to a quiz too quickly was a mood killer too.
“Let’s all sleep for now. It’s almost two.”
“Shion hyung, our music show is in two days, right?”
“So what?”
“So, can’t we push back our bedtime a little? We’ll have to be active from dawn that day anyway.”
“Stop talking nonsense and sleep.”
I snatched Choi Jaeseong’s phone away as he looked at YouTube comments while saying ridiculous things.
No matter how good the content you make is, you can’t avoid hate comments.
I’m someone who’s detached from hate comments, but it’s not good for the members to see too many of them.
“Yeah, Shion’s right. Everyone, let’s go in.”
Under Ion hyung’s lead, the members split up in pairs and went into their respective rooms.
I use a private room, but the other members share one room between two people.
For reference, Gu Taehwan and Choi Jaeseong, who won at seotda for the room assignment, are using a four-person room between the two of them.
On Saemiro and Lee Ion are using a two-person room.
Once the members went in, I also entered my room and sat down on the edge of the bed.
I feel good because I achieved what I wanted.
The music video came out well, we’ll be doing music show promotions, and the album will be coming out soon too.
It seems there’s already quite a lot of talk about our album, and people will faint when they see that it’s a full album with 13 tracks—14 tracks if you include the hidden track—and the names of the co-composers.
In fact, some people were already talking after seeing the co-composer for State Of Mind.
-Hey, the co-composer on Sedalbaegil’s new song is Lucid Bean?
-Who’s that?
-Wtf, you don’t know Lucid Bean? He’s the absolute number one in funk right now. He’s won 8 Grammys. Two of those are in the general field.
-It’s a sample, idiot. You don’t know sample clearance?
-It’s someone with the same name. What sample clearance? If you want to clear a sample from someone like Lucid Bean, it’d cost a shitload lololol
-True. It’d probably cost more than the music video.
Those netizens would flip out if they found out that the Lucid Bean they were talking about had participated in our album, and that it wasn’t a sample clearance but an original composition.
And if they found out Yankos Greenwood, Moscos, Eric Scott, Roots Robby, Mary Jones, and Donald McGus had participated too?
Ah, I left out Eddie.
Chris Edward too.
Korea would be turned upside down.
So I should feel good, and I actually do feel good.
But.
I think I’ll have nightmares today.
It’s always like this.
The moment I take a proper first step, I always get depressed.
The greater the joy and happiness, the greater the emptiness and sense of loss.
Because I know all too well what I’ll feel when all of this turns to foam and disappears.
Some people might say I should just imagine the joy I’ll feel when I succeed…
But that’s impossible.
Because I have never succeeded even once until now.
The end of countless spans of time, so many I don’t even know which round this is, was always failure.
How much closer was our step today to the goal of 200 million copies?
One centimeter? Two?
…
Damn it.
This isn’t anyone’s fault.
It’s not Sedalbaegil’s fault, who did their best, and it’s not the fault of the Time Travelers who love us.
It’s just my fault.
Because I’m a regressor whose mood changes like boiling porridge.
“…”
I guess I just won’t sleep.
I’ll monitor the music charts instead.
* * *
As of 2017, most singers release their songs at midnight and place importance on their real-time chart results up to 1 a.m.
From midnight to 1 a.m. is when the chart influence of the general public and idol fandoms is balanced.
You can’t get first place with only the public, and you can’t get first place with only the fandom.
So if you carefully examine the data from that time, you can predict what results the song will achieve going forward.
‘But Resume wasn’t like that.’
Just as Han Shion thought, when Sedalbaegil released Resume, it wasn’t a situation where that kind of analysis would work.
There was no teaser, no music video, and no articles.
Aside from the content they produced themselves, there was no way to let the world know that Sedalbaegil’s song had been released.
The reason Resume was able to take first place at the time was because the fandoms of NOP and Drop Out, exhausted after three straight weeks of streaming, clicked on the song.
What fanned that spark was the issue related to Han Shion, and what kept the flame alive was the fact that the song was good.
But this song was different.
1. State Of Mind (new)(hot)
Sedalbaegil’s song, released at midnight on Monday, had instantly risen to number one on the real-time chart.
In truth, considering the impact of the music video that had continued from the teaser and the quality of the song, it was only natural.
But what happened next was a little confusing.
From 1 a.m. to 6 a.m., when the public is asleep, is fandom time.
From 1 to 2 it’s a bit less pronounced, but once it passes 2, fandoms dominate the chart.
Here, Sedalbaegil’s new song dropped quite a bit in ranking.
It wasn’t pushed out of the top ten, but it fluctuated between sixth and ninth.
This meant two things.
First, Sedalbaegil’s fandom had not yet properly become a core fandom.
Han Shion had once asked Choi Jaeseong and Lee Ion for their opinions on this, and the answer that came back was that their image as “our kids” was a little weak.
“You don’t have any weaknesses. Especially you, Shion hyung.”
“Having no weaknesses is a problem?”
“Of course it is, Shion. The moment someone is completed thanks to support is what makes it thrilling.”
In truth, from Han Shion’s point of view, it was something that made him tilt his head.
By his standards, the members of Sedalbaegil were not people without weaknesses.
Choi Jaeseong, who had no distinctive characteristics whatsoever.
Ion hyung, whose tone color was disastrous.
Gu Taehwan, who couldn’t carry an entire song on his own.
As an exception, On Saemiro’s form these days was at its peak.
Because when he was given his part, he was working hard to use the best sound and the best expression possible.
However, because there was a limit to his innate talent, he couldn’t enter the ranks of the GOATs.
Still, Han Shion thought that On Saemiro was a better vocalist than he had been in his first round, and that if he regressed only about ten times, he could enter the ranks of the GOATs.
Like this, in Han Shion’s eyes, the members’ shortcomings were clear, and he was working tremendously hard to cover them through producing.
It was true that Lee Ion had recently learned how to overcome the limits of his tone color.
But that was only possible in songs Han Shion made.
It wouldn’t work if he received and sang an ordinary song.
‘Then does that mean it would actually be more advantageous to show these shortcomings to the fandom in a raw way?’
But both Choi Jaeseong and Lee Ion shook their heads at that.
If they had been like that from the very beginning, maybe, but now it wouldn’t work image-wise.
They had even charted on Billboard, after all.
“The only way is to do as many fan activities as possible and narrow the psychological distance.”
If the first meaning was the issue of the fandom becoming core, the second meaning was a little different.
Sedalbaegil was receiving tremendous checks.
At the present moment, there was no hit song that could compare to State Of Mind.
The only thing close was a song recently brought out by a five-member unit from a group called TENX10N (Tension), which had fairly decent results.
Han Shion had also evaluated it as a song that was listenable enough.
But aside from that, most of the results were dreadful.
To the point that people on the internet were saying it was a boring period for the idol scene.
However, on the dawn real-time chart, songs like these began to stack up above Sedalbaegil.
The checks against Sedalbaegil, who had begun activities that were extremely K-pop-like, had started.
But the moment fandom time ended, the situation changed rapidly.
From 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.
The time when music consumption by the general public surges, and interest in new songs released overnight rises.
1. State Of Mind (new)(hot)
Sedalbaegil reclaimed first place here and maintained the very top spot until 6 p.m., when volatility was high.
Then they also rose to first place on the daily chart, which symbolized the public’s pick.
At that exact moment, the camera installation in Sedalbaegil’s living room was completed.
“Shion, you look tired.”
“I’m not.”
“Couldn’t sleep?”
“I always sleep and wake up on and off, you know.”
In truth, Han Shion hadn’t slept a wink, but there was no need to make the members worry for no reason.
As Han Shion shrugged like that, the members of Sedalbaegil gathered in the living room.
7 p.m.
It was the scheduled time for the live broadcast.
* * *
This wasn’t the first time Sedalbaegil had turned on a live broadcast.
They had done it a few times after Resume reached number one on the chart, and they had done it when Yang Seokhun’s annotated version gained popularity too.
They had even structured episode 3 of their self-produced content based on the live broadcast they did then.
But today’s broadcast felt strangely different.
‘Right, it feels like a promotion period.’
Until now, when Sedalbaegil turned on a live broadcast, it felt like they were communicating during an off-promotion period, but now it felt like a promotion period.
You could tell just by looking at the broadcast title, couldn’t you?
K-Pop Struggle and SOM’s fanchant!
On top of that, they said they would also talk about things related to music show activities.
‘Please talk about the lightstick!’
The moment those who had won a spot at Wednesday’s pre-recording thought that—
The broadcast turned on, and five men appeared on the screen.