Damn Idol, Episode 19
* * *
The stage came to an end.
The contestants applauded according to the production crew’s instructions, but the judges put their heads together and began discussing something.
At the end of their conversation, the one who raised his hand was Blue.
“PD-nim, could we perhaps watch the original stage video once?”
Audition programs are far more planned than the public tends to think.
Many parts have scripts, and even things that appear improvised sometimes have everything decided from A to Z.
In fact, in the later stages, when the competition grew fierce, there were cases where eliminations and passes had already been decided before the stage was even seen.
But that wasn’t the case now.
Because the contestants’ song choices had not been announced in advance.
Even judges did not remember every stage of every song.
“Then would it be all right if we all watched it on the screen? Together with the contestants.”
“Yes. Let’s do that.”
Soon, Way From Flower’s stage began playing on the screen behind the stage.
“Ah, right.”
“It had this kind of feel.”
The contestants’ mouths twitched, but they were careful with their words.
Girl group fandoms tended to be lighter than boy group fandoms, but when you looked at the core fans, that wasn’t necessarily true.
If they said the wrong thing here, they could be torn limb from limb by a top-tier girl group fandom.
Even so, everyone was thinking the same thing.
‘It feels awkward.’
‘Why did they raise the key?’
‘It’s not that they raised it, Han Sion lowered it, but…….’
Han Sion’s version felt like the original, and Way From Flower’s version felt like the cover.
And not even a particularly good cover.
This was quite surprising.
They had only heard Han Sion’s version once, while they had heard the original many times.
In other words, that single performance by Han Sion had a stronger flavor than dozens, even hundreds, of listens to the original.
Meanwhile, the judges looked at one another and nodded.
After the video finished playing, the first to pick up the microphone was his mentor, Blue.
“Contestant Han Sion?”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you say anything? I didn’t know either.”
“You mean the choreography, right?”
“Yes. You took the direction of the dance in the opposite way, didn’t you?”
To be precise, it wasn’t as if Han Sion had danced every move in reverse.
Doing the basic movements in reverse would have been absurd.
But the key movements were clearly carried out in the opposite direction.
The hand gesture that pushed outward and opened was held open, then grasped and pulled in.
The steps that extended from inside to outside were closed from outside to inside.
The upper-body movements that spread the body outward were folded inward while already extended.
What was astonishing was that it all looked extremely natural, and it suited the feeling of the changed song well.
That was why the contestants hadn’t noticed at all, and the judges had only been uncertain.
Even Blue.
Han Sion’s answer to this was simple.
“I thought it would be more entertaining if you watched it without knowing.”
It was an arrogant thing to say.
Because it meant he had seen Blue not as a judge and mentor, but as an audience member.
But when such arrogance was backed by ability, it came across as charm.
Choi Daeho continued.
“You were expressing falling flowers, weren’t you?”
“Yes. That’s right.”
“Why?”
“When I first heard this song, I felt an ambiguous meaning in the lyrics. It suited the perspective of blooming, but it also suited the perspective of falling.”
“Can you explain in a little more detail?”
It was an answer fitted for the occasion, but it wasn’t a lie.
Putting a period on the long night
At last, greeting the world with a Hi
Originally, these lyrics were the greeting of a flower that puts a period on a cold winter night and welcomes spring.
But to Han Sion’s ears, they sounded like a final greeting made just before falling away.
The warm temperature surrounding me
Your hand brushing against my skin, too
All of it, I guess, was for today
The feeling given by the lyric “warm temperature” was the same.
More than anticipation for the warmth to come, he first felt regret over the final warmth.
As though, because he remembered this warmth, he could endure the winter that was to come.
Of course, someone might ask whether there was any need to interpret a song so openly about spring to this extent.
Because it was art.
People who had only just debuted, with an unpolished song, sang it imperfectly……
Even so, it was music, and it was art.
How art was interpreted was entirely up to the consumer.
Even if that consumer was someone trapped in infinite regression, repeatedly blooming in full glory only to fall miserably away.
At Han Sion’s interpretation of the lyrics, Choi Daeho wore a subtle expression, then nodded.
“Did you make the arrangement in order to better express the feeling of the way you interpreted it?”
“There was no arrangement. I only touched the scale.”
To be precise, there were quite a few parts that would have sounded awkward if he had simply touched the scale.
In those parts, Han Sion had slightly changed the expression of the song.
But even that was ambiguous to call an arrangement; it was an acceptable level of rubato, a free tempo adjusted to personal interpretation.
“It’s definitely ambiguous to use the word arrangement. If someone changed only the octave scale and asked for an arrangement fee, they’d get cursed at.”
Composer Lee Changjun, who was in charge of technical comments, chimed in like he was making a joke.
“But even so, it was fascinating how completely the mood of the song changed.”
The two of them then began having an in-depth conversation that would never make it onto the broadcast.
Around the time the production crew listening in began wondering whether they should cut them off, the conversation reached a point usable for the show.
“Wait, Contestant Han Sion. Something feels a bit strange.”
“Yes?”
“Listening to you talk, it sounds like you don’t think you changed anything?”
“Ah, that’s right. I think this was its original form.”
“Its original form?”
“Flowers Bloom was probably a song for a male vocalist in the early stages of composition. Perhaps the singer was decided during the production process, and they changed it to suit a female vocalist?”
“……”
“So I don’t think I changed anything. I simply think I sang it in its early version.”
If you heard a comment like that and just stayed still, you had no sense for broadcasting.
Regardless of whether he liked Han Sion or not, broadcasts always had to create buzz.
Han Sion had probably thrown out that statement because he wanted the question too.
“So, in your opinion, this version is the better version?”
At Choi Daeho’s question, Han Sion shook his head.
“No way. I sang this version because I’m a man. If I were a woman, I would’ve sung the original. I really wanted to sing this song.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s a song I truly like. The lyrics resonate with me.”
“But……”
Choi Daeho got only that far before he flinched in surprise and closed his mouth.
Because he realized Han Sion’s trap.
That bastard was deliberately excluding any mention of the difference in quality between the two songs.
No, he was speaking under the assumption that no such difference existed at all.
To dig into Han Sion’s true feelings here, he would have to ask something like, “But isn’t the difference in quality between the two versions too great?”……
There was no way he could say something like that out loud.
It was an unblockable.
‘Wow, what is this brat?’
There was even a more powerful unblockable.
They couldn’t ask Han Sion whether it had really been necessary to over-interpret an openly spring-themed song as falling flowers.
Not when considering the story related to his parents.
In other words, Han Sion had left no room at all for any unfortunate comments to come out.
And it wasn’t as if they could criticize the stage on the basis of skill either.
Now there was only one thing the judges could do.
“The dance, the vocals, even the interpretation of the song—it was an attractive stage. It even made me think that Han Sion-ssi is already a complete singer.”
“I thought dance might be your weakness, but it wasn’t at all. It isn’t easy to make a solo dance feel this full.”
“If it had been choreography expressing blooming, doing it alone would have been insufficient, but with choreography that felt like a flower falling, I think the fact that you were alone actually brought out its flavor.”
Praise.
‘Is he clever, or is it instinctive?’
He must have a desire to show off his own talent.
But he knew that the moment he bragged about it, the conversation would inevitably turn to the level of the original song.
Choi Daeho found that even more astonishing than Han Sion’s musical ability.
And so, after the critiques ended, the revealed score was 39 points.
Choi Daeho, who had nearly fallen into the trap, was slightly sulky and gave him 9 points.
* * *
After finishing the stage and sitting down, I could feel the contestants glancing at me.
No matter how long I’ve lived, I don’t have the ability to look into someone’s eyes and read their mind.
But if I tried to use a talent I didn’t have…
‘Ah, seriously, why did that bastard have to go first and pull that shit…….’
‘Should I try talking to him? For now, that bastard seems basically guaranteed for Team B.’
‘Fuck, the world is filthy. He can sing well and dance well too.’
Wouldn’t it be about that?
For reference, these inner thoughts are based on the gossip I heard through countless lives.
As I sat there thinking that, Gu Taehwan glanced at me and nodded.
He probably meant that I did well.
I nodded back, meaning he should do well too, then began watching the stage.
The next person after me was a rapper named Park Seongju.
In the preliminary mission, he had tied for last place with Gu Taehwan, but because he lost at rock-paper-scissors, he ended up going right after me.
‘He’s eliminated.’
Next was a vocalist named Choi Jaeseong.
His singing wasn’t bad.
He had a feeling of an all-around vocalist who showed outstanding strengths in every area while not showing any particular weaknesses.
Right now, it was a bit lacking, but it felt like he might become decent with training.
But as I watched Choi Jaeseong, I felt a strange sense of déjà vu.
He was definitely someone I had seen somewhere before, but I had no idea where.
I thought I would remember if I watched his stage.
Even if I forget faces and names, I remember tone.
But I didn’t know.
I was sure I wasn’t mistaken.
I vaguely felt like I remembered him showing an incredibly astonishing stage with that tone.
‘Hmm. For that, his potential doesn’t look very high.’
Did he maybe succeed as something like a musical actor, so I don’t remember?
Out of frustration, I was staring holes into him when Choi Jaeseong, who was singing, glanced at me and suddenly made a mistake.
“……”
You should be watching the judges’ reactions, so why are you watching mine?
For some reason, I felt apologetic and turned my gaze away, and with a slightly more relaxed face, he began singing again.
He seemed like a timid guy.
Timidity doesn’t get fixed.
I hope he gets eliminated so we don’t end up on the same team.
Next, it was the turn of Gu Taehwan, whom I had helped.
Gu Taehwan made an interesting song choice.
Slow Down by America’s R&B superstar, LAZY BOY.
Lazy Boy was a singer no one in Korea didn’t know.
Even people who didn’t know his face would probably nod if they heard his songs.
Because whenever a variety show had a scene where it set the mood, they always used a Lazy Boy song.
Among Lazy Boy’s songs, Slow Down was one that people either loved or hated especially strongly.
It was extremely slow, but it competed entirely on vocal ability.
The structure of the song itself existed for the single proposition of “showing off vocal ability,” so if you lacked vocal ability, it had no flavor whatsoever.
That was why there was a meme calling it a “vocal ability detector,” and because of that meme, the song became famous.
Personally, I don’t think it’s a good song.
In one of my lives, I once talked with Lazy Boy, and he said he made the song thinking people would listen to it and laugh.
But then a YouTube challenge where no one laughed and everyone sang it seriously became popular, so he was flustered.
In any case, it was not a suitable song to sing on an idol survival show, and it didn’t suit Gu Taehwan either.
Sure enough, everyone was tilting their heads.
All of them had expressions that said, “He’s going to sing that?”
Meanwhile, Gu Taehwan glanced at me and gripped the microphone.