Damn Idol Episode 17
As if he’d read the disbelief in my eyes, Blue shrugged.
“I’ve just seen way too many guys like that. Well, I don’t think you’re one of them.”
“I’ll be careful about the parts you’re worried about as well.”
“Yeah, then that’s fine. I saw your preliminary mission, so I’ll trust you for now.”
“Thank you.”
“Right, Taehwan said he still hasn’t picked a song yet, didn’t he?”
“Yes. He’s still thinking it over.”
“What do you think, Sion? What do you think would suit Taehwan?”
He said he’d bring it up naturally, but why was he asking so directly?
“Hmm… Personally, I think he has an innately good sense of rhythm, so something with a singing-rap feel would be good.”
“Singing rap? He’s not a rapper.”
“I don’t mean that he should rap. I meant it’d be good if he sang a song that lets him show his sense of rhythm. Something like contemporary R&B or trap house.”
“Then what about tropical house?”
What I’d felt while monitoring music all this time was that K-pop was surprisingly good at absorbing subgenres.
It was probably a trend that came about as the industry grew and collaborations with overseas composers became more frequent.
But for some reason, K-pop really likes deep house.
Among those, it especially likes the subgenre tropical house.
No matter how good tropical house is for dancing and easy listening, at this point it was practically obsession-level madness.
“Tropical house is good too, but I think a two-four rhythm would suit him better than a one-three.”
Blue took a sip of water, glanced at Gu Taehwan, and asked.
“That’s what Sion thinks. What do you think, Taehwan?”
“……
I’ll do my best.”
That’s it?
I went out of my way to explain, and that was kind of deflating.
Well, I guess it might feel unfamiliar.
When we did the preliminary mission, it seemed like he liked upbeat ballads, which were pretty far from the distinctive two-four rhythm of Black music.
When I said nothing more, Blue didn’t add anything either.
We finished our meal like that and returned to our respective practice spaces.
The choreography was a bit unfamiliar, so I’d have to get a feel for it and show it to the trainer.
Oh, and there was something I had to ask the arrangement team for too.
As per Blue’s opinion, I’d be using the original song with no arrangement, but there was exactly one thing to do.
With those thoughts, I was watching a YouTube video when I heard a knock.
When I opened the door, Gu Taehwan was there.
“I tried picking some songs with the feel you mentioned.”
“Uh… yes.”
Did he decide to follow my advice because he really couldn’t find anything to pick?
I was flustered, but since the camera was rolling, I didn’t show it and took the song list.
Not bad?
It seemed like he’d understood my advice properly.
“I think these are good.”
“Could you perhaps narrow down the options?”
“Then… this one and this one. Wouldn’t one of these two be good?”
“I’ll do my best.”
Gu Taehwan disappeared just like that.
What did he keep saying he’d do his best for?
He seemed like a pretty unusual character.
After that, I danced in front of the choreography trainer.
“My goodness, you’re good at dancing?!”
And received high praise.
No, but was it really that surprising that I could dance well?
“I thought you wouldn’t be able to dance after only seeing the preliminary mission. Talent usually gets dumped all into one side.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“But your motion base is locking, huh? Can’t you do waacking or voguing? I think they’d go well with a girl group song.”
I’d never learned waacking or voguing, and they didn’t fit the stage I had in mind.
At my tactfully worded answer, the choreography trainer smacked his lips in disappointment.
“Well, I guess there isn’t time for that anyway. In any case, I don’t think there’s really anything to fix? Nice work.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“What do you keep saying you’ll do your best for?”
Wait, that was Gu Taehwan’s way of talking.
It was a really insignificant sentence, but there was something strangely addictive about Gu Taehwan’s particular tone.
“Do my” dropped from F to E, “best” rose in variation from G to A, and then the ending lowered the scale again to create a firm feeling…
What am I doing?
Anyway, this is the problem with regressors.
Once you escape an overemotional state, your emotions bounce somewhere else as though there’s a law of conservation of emotion.
Right now, I seemed to have gotten a bit high.
Scratching my head at the absurdity of it, I came down to the practice room, and Gu Taehwan was waiting there.
Apparently, he’d hit a wall while practicing.
What is he, a tiger?
“What exactly does it mean to have a good sense of rhythm? Does it mean I keep the beat well?”
“No. Keeping the beat is something everyone can do if they try.”
Honestly, if a guy who says he wants to be a singer can’t keep the beat, that’s a problem.
“Then?”
“Sense of rhythm is something you’re born with. It’s connected to the length of sounds.”
“Length?”
“When you sing the lyrics ‘Cause I want you,’ the opening is ‘Caaause,’ right?”
“Yes.”
“Here, regardless of whether you fit the word ‘caaause’ exactly to the beat, how long you sing the ‘ca,’ how long the ‘au,’ and how long the ‘se’ are matters of instinct. It’s also your individuality.”
Gu Taehwan murmured “caaause” a few times, then nodded.
“You’re saying I’m good at that?”
“Rather than good, it’s more that it’s charming. So just keep the beat of the measures and sing the development however you want. It’ll probably be good.”
That was why I’d recommended Black music with the beat on two and four, not traditional pop with the beat on one and three.
Because in two-four rhythms, people tend to use layback a bit more freely.
After thinking deeply, Gu Taehwan nodded and said,
“I’ll do my best.”
Yes, this was it.
This was the taste of the original.
No, but why was this guy actually trying so hard?
Trusting the words of a contestant his own age so completely?
“……”
When I stared at him silently, Gu Taehwan hesitated, then opened his mouth again.
“I’ll devote myself to it.”
Jeongjin starts on D, huh.
After having that pointless thought, I decided to properly help him just this once.
I had time left anyway.
Gu Taehwan was lucky.
When I’m feeling down, I don’t help like this.
“Could you sing the song once?”
* * *
The contestants of Coming Up Next each had their own individuality, but broadly speaking, they could be divided into vocals and dance.
The exact numbers were seven vocals and three dancers.
Since everyone in the dance position was a rapper, it could also be expressed as seven vocalists and three rappers.
In this situation, when the first filming began, every one of the vocalists thought of themselves as the main vocal.
It wasn’t baseless confidence.
Ryan Entertainment had selected the cast of Coming Up Next with great difficulty (excluding Han Sion), and had only picked immediate assets.
They had to compete with Take Scene right away, so there was no time to teach anyone.
So all the contestants had been main vocals, and even those without trainee experience were people who’d won quite a few prizes in local competitions.
Even Lee Ion, whom Han Sion had evaluated harshly aside from his face, had been a main vocal.
It had been a small agency, but wasn’t a handsome main vocal like a left-handed pitcher throwing a 100-mile crossfire?
They had all lived lives of only receiving praise.
But their confidence did not last long.
Because of Han Sion.
‘How are we supposed to beat that?’
‘Should I aim for lead vocal instead…?’
If Han Sion had shown off overwhelming high notes or skills, they might not have felt this way.
But Han Sion had not shown any exceptional strong point.
He just sang ridiculously well.
Far better than them.
That was why the mental states of the vocal majors had been shattered.
“Hey, erase Han Sion from your heads. Honestly, does singing well alone make you succeed as an idol?”
It reached the point where the judges had to say things like that off the record just to lift the vocal contestants’ spirits.
And this method worked.
If you thought about it, it made sense.
Rather than 150 points earned as 100 in singing and 50 in performance, 150 points earned as 75 in singing and 75 on stage was worth more.
Because idols had to become all-around entertainers.
Around then, one of the contestants happened to hear Han Sion’s interview.
“Han Sion, why did you choose the first slot? Isn’t going first disadvantageous in a competition?”
“I just thought it might be better to get the beating over with first.”
This story quickly spread among the contestants.
If you thought about it, it made sense.
The reason Han Sion, who sang that well, would choose the first slot?
There was only one.
He wasn’t confident in his performance.
And not just a little!
That was why he felt burdened by the expectations his singing ability had raised.
“Ah, is that so?”
“It’d be a problem if he dances too badly…”
“Still, with vocals like that, we’d have to take him even if he’s stiff.”
This speculation was even accepted as the accepted theory among the judges.
Except for Blue, who was planning the twist and keeping his mouth shut.
Thanks to that, the vocal-major contestants set their minds at ease and focused on preparing for the main competition.
But what they didn’t know was…
‘I’m not the one getting beaten, though?’
In Han Sion’s interview about getting the beating over with first, the subject had been omitted.
Time passed in an instant, and before they knew it, it was 10 p.m.
The first stage of the main competition to decide the members of Team B began.
* * *
When Han Sion, who was first in order, went up on stage, gazes poured onto him.
The judges, excluding Blue, had not seen Han Sion prepare his stage.
The contestants had peered over one another’s shoulders to watch others practice, but Han Sion was the exception.
After showing his dance to the trainer when no one was around, he had not come out of the practice room.
Aside from the fact that Gu Taehwan had gone in and out of Han Sion’s practice room several times, everything was veiled in mystery.
In this situation, PD Kang Seokwoo showed his sense.
He had changed the rule so that the contestants’ song choices would not be delivered to the judging panel, but revealed right before the stage.
The judges also nodded readily when the main PD said they should do it that way for the fun of the program.
They said Kang Seokwoo wasn’t some inexperienced PD, and he must have his own idea.
As a result, the judges did not know Han Sion’s song choice until the moment he went up on stage.
“Han Sion. Did you prepare well?”
“I tried… to do my best.”
“I’m a little curious. What song you might have chosen.”
Just then, Han Sion’s song choice and information about the song were delivered to the four judges’ tablet PCs.
Thanks to that, the scene PD Kang Seokwoo had wanted came out.
Because composer Lee Changjun’s expression showed ‘??’ before he adjusted his glasses.
“Is this right? This is what contestant Han Sion chose?”
“Really? Why this?”
“Uh… I really don’t understand the intention at all. Blue, you knew, right?”
“Yes. I knew.”
“And you okayed it?”
“Of course.”
With the situation like this, the contestants also began to become extremely curious about Han Sion’s song choice.
Just what had he chosen for the judges to react like that?
Had he perhaps picked a song without dance?
Or maybe something at the level of simple motions?
At PD Kang Seokwoo’s hand gesture as he enjoyed the reactions of the judges and contestants, the song information appeared on the screen behind the stage.
Artist: Way From Flower
Title: Flowers Bloom.
“Huh?”
“Seriously?”
Flowers Bloom, the debut song and title track of the first album by the first-tier girl group Way From Flower.
It was a completely unexpected song choice.