Damn Idol Episode 150
Album 1
4. Proliferation
Title: The First Day
Artist: Sedalbaegil
Track: 14
Track List.
0
1. The First Day
0
2. Colorful Struggle
0
3. Freedom is not Free
0
4. Resume
0
5. Survival Tactics
0
6. We made it
0
7. State Of Mind
0
8. Pin Point (Title)
0
9. Holiday
1
0. Summer Cream
1
1. Apiary
1
2. Back in Work
1
3. On & On
Bonus Track.
Colorful Struggle (Kpop Remix)
* * *
The advent of streaming services diminished the value of albums, and the advent of smartphones made albums lose their very reason for existing.
People were no longer interested in albums.
They were interested in songs.
If, in the past, the unit that defined an artist’s music was the album, now the unit that defined an artist’s music had become the individual track.
In this situation, there were only two kinds of people who listened to every song on an album.
The first were fans.
They tried to read the narrative contained within the album, and tried to grasp the artist’s intent.
The fans of Sedalbaegil, who had been waiting since long before midnight, also pressed play the instant the songs were released, without even taking a breath.
Then they screamed.
14 tracks.
A running time of 68 minutes.
A full-length album rarely seen in today’s K-pop market.
And yet, every single song was delicious.
The two versions of Colorful Struggle, along with Resume and State Of Mind, had already been released, but hearing them within a continuous track list gave them a whole different flavor.
-This is insane, it’s so good;
-I was kinda flustered that SoMa wasn’t the title track lol but after hearing the title song I immediately understood!
-Pin Point is crazy. For some reason I feel like they’re gonna perform it in military outfits.
-Is Summer Cream insane???
-2222222 Best moombahton in K-pop historyㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ
-This is what a country should be!
-Iion what what what, I’m infinitely replaying the transition from Pin Point to Holiday
-I looked it up and Apiary means a beekeeping farmㅠㅠㅠㅠ the lyrics hit so hard!
-Are we the flowers, by any chance?
-Isn’t that what it means??
-No, isn’t the intro itself insane?
The real-time chat function on Sedalbaegil’s official homepage began refreshing at an absurd speed.
The fans were throwing out their impressions of every track as they listened to the album.
The reason fans listened to the full version of an album like this was because they loved and worshipped the artist.
So unless the result was fairly disappointing, they rarely drew the blade of criticism.
But the second kind of people who listened to every song on an album were different.
Because if the first kind were fans, the second kind were critics.
At present, not only in Korea but around the world, the role of music critics was gradually shrinking.
To them, Sedalbaegil’s The First Day was quite a welcome album.
Because in a K-pop market where albums were becoming increasingly rare, they had released a large-volume album with as many as fourteen tracks, including the bonus track.
But whether it was simply a work with a large volume, or a high-quality masterpiece, could only be known by listening.
The critics listened to Sedalbaegil’s album with that thought in mind, and……
“What the hell?”
They were impressed.
No, they were dumbfounded.
They already knew that Han Sion was a composer of genius-level talent.
In fact, critics valued Han Sion’s talent even more highly than the general public did.
Because Han Sion showed none of the so-called tics, or habits, and moved freely across a wide variety of genres.
Was that all?
The time it took him to compose was short, too.
When one considered the number of songs Han Sion had poured out after Coming Up Next ended, it was astonishing.
But making good songs and making a good album were somewhat different matters.
Even on Billboard, there were plenty of artists who soared with singles but made a mess of albums.
Arranging tracks while considering the album’s narrative and organic structure, and putting effort into the connections between tracks, was no easy task.
But Sedalbaegil, and Han Sion, had done that part perfectly.
It was a beautiful album.
‘……
There’s nothing to criticize?’
There was nothing to bash.
If there was one thing that felt lacking, it was that the message contained in the album was obvious.
And that there were too many musical genres contained in a single album.
As one could guess from the album title The First Day, this was an album that signified Sedalbaegil’s beginning.
Tracks 1 through 4 showed their hearts after being dropped into a new world.
In particular, the emotional line flowing from track 3, Freedom is not Free, into track 4, Resume, was elegant.
Tracks 5 through 7 showed their spirit of challenge.
Those who liked hard sounds had no choice but to love this part.
Track 5, Survival Tactics, showed their survival strategy, and tracks 6 and 7 completed that strategy.
And with Pin Point, the title track of this album and track 8, they showed their success.
From track 9 through track 11, they showed a brief moment of leisure amid busyness, a short rest after success, through the easy-listening genre.
Then, with tracks 12 and 13, they showed themselves returning to their main job and brought the album to a close.
Considering that the bonus track, Kpop Struggle, was idol music, it seemed to mean that their main job was being idols.
It was a message one could have predicted even before the album came out.
That was a little disappointing.
But that did not make it something to criticize.
Because……
‘It’s their debut album!’
Because this was Sedalbaegil’s debut album.
And so, the critics were thrown into confusion.
No matter how they listened to it, it absolutely did not look like a debut album.
It would be more accurate to say that a seasoned master had written a hymn for modern K-pop.
Each critic had somewhat different tastes, but the albums usually chosen as the greatest masterpieces in Korean history were Yoo Jaeha’s Because I Love You and Deulgukhwa’s Deulgukhwa.
The nature of the music was very different, but that scent could be found in Sedalbaegil’s The First Day.
Like the beginning of a legend.
* * *
[Sedalbaegil’s The First Day, the pinnacle of K-pop idol discography.]
……
This kind of track arrangement could, if handled poorly, have room to appear scattered.
But Sedalbaegil created an organic unity with the ability to depict scatteredness as elegance, and as diversity.
This is a form akin to the pinnacle of the discography that artists collectively referred to as idols can create.
Calling to mind Deulgukhwa’s debut album and N.E.X.T’s second album……
* * *
-No, Ujin hyung. Why are you bringing up Deulgukhwa and N.EX.T for some idol group; kinda disappointed.
-Did he get paid?
-Bullshit ㄴㄴ Song Ujin is a critic who doesn’t compromise. He’s the hyung who gave Drop Out’s 3rd album 2 stars, got terrorized by Dreaming, and still laughed.
-Wasn’t Drop Out’s 3rd album good?
-ㄴㄴ Only the title track was good. The B-sides were trash.
-This hyung isn’t the type to say empty words, though? This album is really 5 stars? Song Ujin has barely given out any 5s.
-I’m going to listen.
-I don’t know about it as an album, but in terms of songs, doesn’t Han Sion have nothing left to prove?
-Who’s Han Sion?
-Did this old man just come down from the mountains?
-But why are there so many co-composers on this lolololol is this really co-composed?
-You think he co-composed with Lucid Bean? He just sampled him.
But such evaluations were the impressions of critics who had no prejudice against idol music and possessed excellent ears.
‘It’s an idol album anyway.’
There were certainly critics who listened to the album with prejudice.
Critics of the present era were not people whose ability had been recognized, who contributed pieces to magazines and newspapers like in the past.
Even if they posted criticism on their own blogs, they could act like critics.
In other words, just because the number of critics had decreased did not mean there had been any qualitative improvement.
Such people focused on Sedalbaegil’s co-compositions.
If one looked at the names of the artists who participated in The First Day, there were many names that were hard to understand.
From Chris Edward to Lucid Bean to Yankos Greenwood, the names of masters were lined up one after another.
This meant that Han Sion had sampled their music.
Sampling was not bad.
As long as the samples were cleared, no legal problems would arise.
But it was rare for someone’s name to be listed as a co-composer simply because sampling had been done.
Which meant……
‘Isn’t this whole sampling?’
It meant that he had taken the original song’s lines as they were, without any particular secondary creation.
Because there was no way he had actually collaborated with them.
* * *
[The First Day, the Context of Idol Diction It Fails to Shed and Parasitic Music]
……
There is no doubt that the sound is of a high level. However, the arrangement of tracks targeting easy listening, beginning from the middle section, collapses the album’s discourse.
Also, if one examines the faces of the artists listed as co-composers……
* * *
-What? Song Ujin gave it 5. Two and a half??
-This bastard seems like he wrote it without listening to the album. It’s definitely not an album that deserves two and a half.
-Idol albums are all the same. Aren’t they made to dance to anyway?
-Two and a half is exactly the right score for this album.
-Bullshit ㄴㄴ The album came out fucking well.
-But if it was made with whole sampling, that’s kinda iffy.
-ㅇㅇ If it’s whole sampling, it’s kinda disappointing. I thought Han Sion was a genius.
-Wasn’t he just sampling all this time too?
At this point in time, criticism of Sedalbaegil’s album was what one might call “criticism that sells.”
The entire nation had heard the name Sedalbaegil all through the previous week.
Hadn’t the issue that began with Han Sion’s parents connected through music show appearances, The Masked Singer, and Stage Number Zero?
Naturally, reporters found criticism standing on opposite sides interesting, and turned it into articles.
People plastered countless comments onto the conflicting critiques, but among them, few actually listened to the entire album.
-Pin Point is fucking good, though?
-ㅇㅇㅇ The backing sound is amazing. Doesn’t it feel kinda like game BGM?
-Oh, right. It has that vibe.
-Bastards who haven’t even been to the army are using gunshots lololololol
-Is the only thing you can brag about being in the military?
Most people only listened to the title track and stopped there.
Even so, Sedalbaegil’s situation was on the better side.
Because people also knew the included tracks Resume, Colorful Struggle, and State Of Mind.
And so, twenty-four hours after the album was released, Sedalbaegil’s songs occupied the charts.
-Sedalbaegil really is an idol group after all, huh. They lined up the charts.
-ㅇㅇㅇ Looking at the critiques, there seems to be some controversy about whole sampling.
-The music is good, though.
-Ah, but lining up the charts is such a fucking deformed structure. The music sites need to reorganize.
-What the hell, are you guys even listening to the music before running your mouths? This is crazy good.
-Stop cosplaying as a normie and piss off lolololol
In the future, the charts would be reorganized, but at present, it was a time when idols occupying the charts was taken for granted.
But unexpectedly, the users of idol communities were accurately recognizing the current situation.
‘This…….’
‘It’s not the fandom lining them up, is it?’
When a fandom lined up the charts, they lined up in track order.
Because they streamed the songs in order.
On top of that, if one assumed the song was good, the firepower of the general public would be added, and the title track would rise to the top.
But the current chart was.
1
- Summer Cream (new)(hot)
2
- Pin Point (new)(hot)
3
- Holiday (new)(hot)
4
- State Of Mind (hot)
The order was all over the place.
Criticism, whole-sampling controversy, or whatever else—songs were king.
One could tell just from the fact that two easy-listening songs placed in the lower tracks were occupying first and third place.
It was then.
One overseas review created a major issue and was translated into Korean.
The person who wrote the review was Donald McGuth, who had formed a connection with Han Sion at Seaside Heights.