Damned Idol Episode 186
* * *
When Episode 4 of Coming Up Next Season 2 ended, the internet was naturally plastered with
It was only natural.
The buzz of a variety show aiming for 20% viewership ratings, the Apple commercial deal, the nationalistic hype stemming from watching the white band BOTY get schooled.
And the anticipation for the music held by the brand that was Sedalbaegil.
It was the result of all these things combined.
Even though the track hadn’t been officially released yet, one-hour loop videos on YouTube were already breaking a million views.
But this was the external reaction; internally, things were murky.
-No, why are only Taehwan and Iion singing?
-The singer name in the credits is Gutaehwan
-Iion came out like this???
-Is the unit coming out because Masked Bandit got popular?
-They said they’re preparing for the second album. But where do they have time for a unit activity?
-It must be a leftover track from album prep. They’re releasing it for the variety show lol
-No. It’s a song that came out while showing the album work process in the program flow;
-It would be such a waste if this didn’t make it onto the album.
-What is this what is this what is this. I’m so curious.
-I asked the kids on the official homepage, and they just said it’s a secret.
-The fact that it’s a secret means it’s not a leftover track in the first place.
This was the reaction of all-fans, those close to all-fans, or moderate TT fans who were solo fans but didn’t hate the other members…….
-Why does Hansion only look after Gutaehwan and Iion all the time?
-Iion is a visual one-trick pony who can’t sing for shit but is fucking greedy for screen time.
-Am I the only one who thinks Hansion is gaslighting the kids?
The solo fans of Onsaemiro and Choejaeseong were in an uproar.
They distorted the names so they wouldn’t show up in searches, but it was a reaction that those in the know would recognize.
Up until the recruitment for TT’s second generation, Sedalbaegil hadn’t been a group with many solo fans.
Because Coming Up Next, the start for Sedalbaegil, had banded them together against external foes like team battles and Take Scene.
Next, they had banded together due to Ryan Entertainment’s filthy attacks.
But the trend after the enormous success of
Naturally, noise and issues related to solo fans that hadn’t existed before were multiplying.
K-pop fans aware of this fact (not necessarily Sedalbaegil fans) thought Sedalbaegil wouldn’t release
Even if they did, they thought the timing wouldn’t be right.
But they were wrong.
[Unit Masked Bandit
– Separate Official M/V]
Absurdly, the music video dropped the very next day.
Originally, the unit name for Gutaehwan and Iion hadn’t been Masked Bandit.
But because it was a name the two had been using for months, they had grown fond of it, and it was changed at the last minute.
Hansion showed disapproval, saying the name was too weird, but.
‘It’s better than Sedalbaegil…….’
‘Sedalbaegil or Masked Bandit…….’
Having long since abandoned any ambition to come up with a better name themselves, the Sedalbaegil members were all too aware of their own naming sense.
Besides, considering the fame the name
The problem wasn’t the name; it was the music video.
When the public saw the sudden music video release, they assumed it would be a Frankenstein MV stitched together with scenes from Self Made.
But it wasn’t.
If you don’t need me anymore
why did you give it to me
What you had
why did you share it
It was a music video using a drama tie-in technique often seen in R&B.
The content was Gutaehwan and Iion each courting one bad woman in their own way.
The plot itself was clichéd, but the visual beauty and scale were no joke.
And the contrasting cuts of Iion, who was unrealistically handsome, and Gutaehwan, who exuded a thrillingly dangerous vibe, struck a chord.
Especially with teenage girls.
Sedalbaegil was a group with more fans in their 20s than teens, and a boy group with an overwhelmingly high ratio of male fans compared to others.
This was all due to the music colored by Hansion’s style, but there is no content in the world that satisfies everyone.
It wasn’t always the case that the more refined and differentiated music Hansion pursued worked out.
That was why, unexpectedly, they hadn’t been the one-top with the teenagers who made up the majority of idol fandom, yet Masked Bandit worked.
To be exact, it was the vibe given off by Iion and Gutaehwan.
Moreover, Hansion had taken all the rhythm and blues that unit Masked Bandit would sing and pushed it to the extreme of easy listening.
It hooks you instantly, it’s pleasant to listen to, and it doesn’t get old easily.
It was called easy listening, but it wasn’t the moombahton feel of Summer Cream; it was closer to
In fact, the person on Earth with the deepest understanding of easy listening at the present moment was likely Hansion.
As of 2018, easy listening was closer to a category than a music genre.
It simply referred to music stripped of force and made easy to listen to.
But after the pandemic that caused a great shift in the music and entertainment industries, the term easy listening changed.
Singers grew to hate having their music evaluated as a genre.
In particular, they hated the biased perspective that defined contemporary R&B as hip-hop if a Black artist performed it, and classified emo hip-hop as post-rock if a white artist performed it.
One by one, singers began saying, “My music genre is easy listening,” and after the 2020s, easy listening became a genre.
A music genre that pursues the most pleasant sound and melody.
A music genre that pierces through the tastes of the masses in the streaming era.
Hansion was someone who had lived through that era and enjoyed it for a long time.
Its very essence was contained within the unit Masked Bandit’s album.
Which meant—[Unit Masked Bandit
– Courtship Official M/V]
—they had revealed to the world that the unit activity was not a single, but an album.
The double title tracks
Thus, aside from the scale (
And so, just three days after Episode 4 of Self Made Season 2 was released, the album dropped.
---------------------
Title : Stage Side A
Artist : Masked Bandit
Track : 08
Track List
0
1. Separate (Title)
0
2. Courtship (Title)
0
3. Last Night
0
4. Chicken Game
0
5. If We Look Elsewhere
0
6. Shower
0
7. Vitamin D
0
8. Stage
---------------------
There was hardly any promotion.
Thinking back,
Rather than promoting before release, it felt closer to promoting after release.
But while they had faced restraint from Choedaeho and Ryan Entertainment when releasing TFD, that was no longer the case.
Sedalbaegil had firmly risen to the mainstream.
It was absurd to say, but these days Ryan Entertainment was slyly avoiding Sedalbaegil.
They tried not to enter the radius of Sedalbaegil’s appearances, activities, or movements.
Because it was obvious that their company image would suffer if they were lumped together with Sedalbaegil.
So there was a distinct lack of promotion in a situation where they could have promoted plenty.
Even if it was a unit album.
This also created dissatisfaction among Gutaehwan and Iion’s solo fans.
-No, the song is so good, but they just released it without any promo like this;
-You think they did this half-heartedly?
-Hansion seems like the type to shut off his interest unless he’s the one leading it;
From Hansion’s perspective, it was absurd.
Because the effort he had invested in making this album was greater than
Rather, TFD had been easy.
Because he had arranged songs by masters from whom even Hansion had much to learn.
But the fans of Gutaehwan and Iion harbored dissatisfaction, and this also provoked the solo fans of Onsaemiro and Choejaeseong.
Whether there was promotion or not, it was an album produced based on the sacrifice of the other members, so there was no way they would like it.
Of course, the angriest of all were Hansion’s solo fans.
-No, our Sion writes them good songs, releases albums, pushes all the members, and only gets hate. Does that make sense?
In some ways, Hansion’s solo fans might have been the ones seeing the situation most accurately.
But either way, this was an insider story, and the outside perspective was entirely different.
-Yo, this is crazy, the song is fucking good hahaha
-It’s just proper R&B. Not some half-assed rock ballad, not cheap imitation.
-hahaha wow, I mean hahaha honestly, Korean R&B is all just Rock&Ballad hahaha but this is rhythm and blues.
-No, crazy, why is Iion so good at singing?
-Gutaehwan wasn’t the intro artisan... he was just an artisan...!
-Every section Gutaehwan sings is pure drugs;
-Isn’t track 5 fucking awesome. If We Look Elsewhere.
-Yesssss they should’ve just made this into a music video.
Top star, superstar, trend leader, trend setter…….
These titles ultimately referred to the celebrity with the highest brand image at the present time.
So what effect could singers with high brand image obtain?
The answer was simple.
When they released a song, people listened to it at least once.
This was truly a tremendous thing.
Getting the public to evaluate music positively, addicting everyone, or creating sustained buzz was not the marketing department’s job.
It was the A&R team’s job, and something only the composer and singer could do.
So what did the marketing team do?
They made people listen to the music.
This was the marketing team’s absolute commandment, and a terribly difficult one.
However, for singers with high brand image, the marketing team’s job was omitted.
When the Beatles were at their peak, they needed no prior promotion.
Because when a Beatles album dropped, everyone in the world listened to their songs.
If the LP was sold out, they sought white-label pressings; if there were no white-label pressings, they sought bootlegs.
Why?
Because they wanted to listen.
Sedalbaegil could not be compared to the Beatles, but those who had listened to TFD couldn’t help but feel the same emotion.
If Sedalbaegil released a song, they just wanted to listen to it.
Among listeners in Korea, quite a lot had encountered a full-length album for the first time thanks to Sedalbaegil.
And they had their eyes opened to the pleasure a long album provided.
They became addicted to the fun of tracing the narrative embedded in the album, running from track 1 to the final track.
But there weren’t many singers who could provide this kind of joy, and it was always a shame.
Since they could satisfy that craving, there was no reason not to listen.
And so, Masked Bandit’s
The physical release wasn’t out yet…….
But it took no time at all for all eight tracks to dominate the top of the charts.