Damn Idol, Chapter 192
* * *
In the past, before an album came out, there was no way to know what songs were on it.
So if you wanted to listen to an album, you had to wait for the release date, buy the physical album, go home, and play it.
That was the era some called the analog age, and others called the age of romance.
But now, things are different.
In most cases, the songs are registered on music sites first, promotions and other activities begin, and then the physical album comes out.
This is not limited to idols or famous K-pop singers.
Indie singers do the same.
Of course, there are cases where additional tracks are released digitally to coincide with the physical album release, and sometimes there are hidden tracks that are never released online at all.
But those are special cases.
And yet…
Sedalbaegil, astonishingly, moved up the release of the physical album ahead of the digital release.
In other words, the music was not available online, but physical albums were already on shelves at offline album retailers.
They also timed it so that those who had preordered would receive their albums as close together as possible.
They could not all receive them at the exact same hour, but every effort had been made so they would arrive on the same day.
Though Jeju Island and other islands or mountainous regions could not be helped.
There were two reasons behind this decision.
First, the unit albums Side A, B, and C were still alive and kicking with vigorous vitality.
And that was not limited to the most recently released unit album by Han Sion and On Saemiro’s unit, On&On.
Masked Robber’s album, now in its sixth week since release, and Choi Jaeseong’s solo album, now in its fifth week, were both still going strong.
Of course, the tracks from Sedalbaegil’s unit albums were not sitting at number one on the daily charts.
After all, many major singers who had released songs at the start of the year were capable of producing excellent results.
But they had formed a “first tier.”
Not even two months had passed since 2018 began, yet people were already saying that 2018 in the music industry was the age of weight class.
If one looked at the daily or weekly charts, Sedalbaegil’s songs were still packed densely between ranks five and twenty.
The short-form videos of people dancing to the chorus of Choi Jaeseong’s were still thriving, despite seeming at first like a passing trend, and other entertainment companies were instead being influenced by it and attempting similar things.
Masked Robber’s may have seen its buzz and topicality drop a little, but it was receiving tremendous support from R&B fans.
There were truly many people saying they would buy the physical album the moment it was released.
On&On’s, released with just a single guitar accompaniment, did not grow old easily.
Even though not much time had passed since its release, variety shows had begun using it whenever a moment called for guitar music.
This aligned perfectly with the interests of broadcasters, because when overseas music was used in variety programs, problems often arose during overseas exports.
The contracts broadcasters signed with foreign music distributors were for domestic use, and worldwide contracts for export had to be made separately.
And those were extremely expensive.
In the case of a song ranking high on the Billboard Hot 100, even a few seconds could require payment of tens of millions of won.
But if they used On&On’s music, that kind of mishap did not occur.
Did that mean the quality of the music was lacking?
Absolutely not.
Even compared to overseas songs, it did not fall behind.
No, it actually seemed better.
Han Sion’s guitar performance shocked even the most outstanding guitarists in South Korea.
They knew about Sedalbaegil, and they also knew about Han Sion’s composing ability.
But since it was known that the guitar riff on the first full-length album had received help from Eric Scott, they could not evaluate how much of it was truly Han Sion’s skill.
There were scenes of him playing guitar in the Color Show video, but they were too short and flashy.
So when the guitarists listened to, they could not help being aghast.
They had never imagined Han Sion would be this good at playing the guitar.
A flashy performance could be created through post-production, but a calm depth could not be produced through post-production.
It was hard to believe, but the depth shown by Han Sion’s guitar stood above that of any guitarist in South Korea.
It was to the point where people even said it would become the guitar audition piece for music colleges for the next five years.
In this way, the songs from Side A, B, and C were still very much alive, roaming freely across music sites.
And people called this a “barrier.”
-The barrier’s freaking brutal lolololol
-Lololol, I wondered how many teams that released this week would break through and climb up, but they got pushed back by the weight-class difference again.
-Tch, so it’s a barrier.
-This pisses me off. Sedalbaegil. Why the hell are those lunatics releasing an album ha…
-Another victim appears lololol
-Streaming offensives don’t work right now lololol
-Come back after building up your weight class lololol
-You’re lighter than us??? Get down.
-Lolololololololololol
To climb above the music barrier Sedalbaegil had formed, one had to possess a proper weight class.
Of course, with a fandom’s streaming offensive, it was possible to line songs up on the real-time charts at dawn.
No matter how well Sedalbaegil’s music was doing, it could not prevent that.
But once the day began again, the songs lined up on the real-time chart were pushed out without a trace.
To break through the barrier Sedalbaegil had built, one needed good music and a broad base of casual fans.
In this situation, the public was also saying that music sites had been good lately.
Because the songs ranked first to fifth on the daily chart, which had broken through Sedalbaegil’s barrier and climbed up, were all good songs.
In this situation, what would happen if the digital music from Sedalbaegil’s second full-length album was released?
There was a high chance it would gather all the vitality from Side A, B, and C and detonate a Spirit Bomb.
It might even be a Spirit Bomb that would be recorded in the history of the music industry, but Han Sion did not want to do that right now.
He wanted the members to enjoy this success a little more fully, and to wait until the unit albums naturally began losing strength.
That was the first reason for pre-releasing the music from through the physical album rather than through music sites.
The second reason was a little more abstract.
He wanted to create a “culture.”
Every platform, market, and content seller devotes tremendous effort to securing the first payment.
Originally, every purchase is all about the first time.
Even someone who has never bought bottled water in their life will have no resistance to buying it again after buying it just once.
Even someone who cannot understand spending money on games will find the hurdle lower after making a payment just once.
That was because once people crossed a psychological line of resistance even once, they no longer felt resistance to that act afterward.
Even crime was like that.
Han Sion wanted to lower the hurdle for buying “physical albums.”
It was true that Sedalbaegil’s first full-length album had sold a tremendous number of copies.
Domestic sales alone had surpassed one million copies.
But that did not mean one million people had truly bought the first album.
Among the second-generation Titis, there were those who believed the fan-sign cutoff would be determined by album purchases, and bought dozens or hundreds of copies.
There were also those who bought Sedalbaegil’s album to obtain the CD player, listened to it a few times, and then stopped.
And though the sales location was recorded as domestic, there were many overseas buyers from China, Japan, and elsewhere.
That meant the number of people in Korea who had bought Sedalbaegil’s album was, at most, six to seven hundred thousand.
From Han Sion’s perspective, needing to sell two hundred million copies, that was not satisfying.
So for this second album, they adopted a promotional strategy intended to let the public experience the joy of buying a physical album.
The album’s composition was solid as well.
It was filled with goods for the fans, but enormous effort had also been poured into the album’s cover design and booklet.
Despite the tight schedule, they had brought in a famous French designer and entrusted the entire project to them.
So that even after people listened to the album until they grew tired of it, it could still be used perfectly well as an interior decoration piece.
Not only that, but this time too, they would provide a CD player.
However, it would only be included in the all-package product that bundled together.
So that the sales revenue from the unit albums could go entirely to the members.
In this situation, Sedalbaegil’s second full-length album and the physical versions of Side A, B, and C were finally released.
And this…
Created a trend.
* * *
HR Corporation’s CEO, Andrew Bryant, and Alex Pereira, the chief manager of management, gathered in one place.
While they were drinking coffee and exchanging light conversation, their discussion arrived at the “album.”
“Have you listened to it?”
“Yes. I listened to it a bit early. Eddie received it in advance.”
“It’s strange, isn’t it? How can so many songs come out of one person’s head?”
“More than the songs, I couldn’t understand how he uses genres. Other than, there isn’t a single song that uses only one specific genre.”
“Even was only tied together under the broad framework of rhythm and blues. It was free.”
“Aren’t the others even more so?”
The subject the two were discussing was Sedalbaegil’s Side A, B, C and the full-length album.
In truth, it was somewhat absurd.
HR Corporation was a giant company that had occupied a certain portion of the Billboard charts for decades.
For the CEO of such a company and the ace of its management team to be talking about an album by a Korean singer who had not even made an overseas advance…
But in another sense, it was only natural.
The music industry was, in the end, a place that sold profitable music.
At times, it sold a singer’s image and story at a higher price than the music.
But the core of the business itself was selling music.
And now, in Korea, a gem had been born that people did not yet know about.
“We concluded the distribution contract without fuss, but the timing is a little awkward. We have to push.”
HR Corporation had decided to push Sedalbaegil’s first full-length album with all its strength.
And it was sincerely aiming for ten million copies.
But this was not a bet that Sedalbaegil’s music would sell ten million copies in the United States.
What HR Corporation and Andrew Bryant had bet on were the masters of Billboard and the Grammys.
Eric Scott, Yankos Greenwood, Mary Jones, and so on…
Stars of the past, representatives of an era, and now Avengers who represented entire genres had gathered together.
The one who had made them gather in one place was Han Sion, but it had ended with merely releasing a single album.
In terms of sales within the United States, it had not even achieved platinum yet.
Andrew Bryant wanted to re-record it in English and sell it properly.
Because he was convinced it could sufficiently target the wallets of middle-aged and older white consumers, HR Corporation’s purchasing base.
But to do that, Sedalbaegil’s image had to be faint instead.
Sedalbaegil were the ones who sang the songs, but the ones who made the songs had to be the masters of Billboard and the Grammys.
Only then would the American consumer base feel no resistance.
It was an extremely stupid prejudice, but American consumers still had a prejudice that content from other countries was inferior to their own.
“For, Sedalbaegil has to be faint, and for, Sedalbaegil has to be intense.”
“If only the second album had been released a little later, things might be different, but my opinion is that right now, we have to focus on the first album.”
It was not something Andrew Bryant and Alex could decide alone, but provisionally, they reached that conclusion.
Of course, since they had taken charge of Sedalbaegil’s overseas distribution, they had to at least do the basics.
If they wanted to maintain a good relationship going forward, should they not do at least more than what other overseas distributors could do?
Thus HR Corporation reached its conclusion, and this conclusion was a decision that would bring about a very interesting future.
* * *
“…?”
“…?”
“Is today April Fools’ Day…?”
Gathered with the members, we simply blinked stupidly.
Everyone was wearing foolish expressions, and I was no exception.
Director Seo Seunghyeon had told us the album sales numbers for Side A, B, and C…
And they had far surpassed even the highest sales figures I had imagined.
“How much did you say?”