Damn Idol Episode 32 Drop Out’s .
This is a song I don’t know.
I’ve been monitoring K-pop diligently, but I still haven’t listened to all the songs within the music chart rankings.
Just the monthly Top 100 for the last five years is six thousand songs.
Of course, there are many overlapping songs in the monthly Top 100, so in reality it wouldn’t even be half that, but it’s still a lot.
Moreover, Remind was apparently a track included in a Drop Out album—a song only true fans would know.
Come to think of it, I heard Drop Out was trying to set their release schedule a bit earlier…….
Surely it won’t come out while Coming Up Next is airing, right?
While I was thinking that, Gutaehwan’s song began.
Hmm, as expected, the intro feels good.
With his current skill level, it’s a problem that only the intro sounds good, but.
* * *
The location where Coming Up Next was currently being filmed was a mega-sized entertainment facility in Myeongdong.
The first floor housed a café, the second and third floors had karaoke rooms, and from the fourth floor up was a building created targeting foreign group tourists, providing shopping malls and other forms of entertainment.
People started entering the first floor of that building around the time the
“Please sit over here.”
One of the audience members moving under the staff’s guidance, Choe Sehui, looked around her surroundings with sharp eyes.
‘There are way more ordinary people.’
I heard there are exactly fifty audience members today, but at a glance, there are few who look like idol fanatics.
Rather, there are more couples who don’t even know what this is, having come on a date because they won the audience lottery.
In fact, rumors about
Because Ryan Entertainment had recruited people to appear in an in-house survival program to launch a rookie boy group.
The initial reaction from the idol community was ‘???’
Don’t the words not add up?
They’re conducting an in-house survival program with the goal of debuting immediately after the broadcast ends, yet they’re recruiting participants?
Then are the participants going to debut right after the program ends without even going through a proper trainee period?
Are they trying to recruit only people who made an emergency landing from some idol planet?
Or are they scheming to poach debut-ready teams from other companies?
Everyone had these kinds of reactions.
Moreover, although rare, there were fans of ‘Take Scene’ in the idol community as well.
Those who had been drawn in through Ryan Entertainment’s YouTube channel and become fans through the light content that Take Scene had filmed and uploaded themselves.
Upon hearing about Coming Up Next, they even cursed Choe Daeho with blood-vomiting rage.
‘That crazy bastard isn’t just playing around with the kids—if only he had trained them for several years……. It was a long comment starting with that.’
But as a little more time passed, the planning intentions behind Coming Up Next gradually spread.
That it was a format where the already-debut-team Take Scene and newly selected people would compete.
According to rumors, there was talk that Take Scene had fallen out of Choe Daeho’s favor and was on the verge of being cut off, and also talk that it was a program planned to push Take Scene.
But whatever it was, Choe Sehui didn’t care.
Anyway, her main group was Drop Out no matter what anyone said, and no matter what boy group came out, they couldn’t hold a candle to Drop Out.
NOP had tried their hardest to compete, but except for first-week sales, Drop Out was ahead in all indicators.
‘First-week sales are inflated these days anyway!’
It was something that would be cleanly settled once Drop Out made a comeback.
However, if there was one downside to being a Drop Out fan, it was that they didn’t do group activities often.
They already didn’t promote much due to an obsession with musical perfection, and after their contract renewal, they went around doing individual activities before going quiet.
Even so, it was fine.
Because Drop Out fans were used to the parade of masterpieces that suddenly burst out after a hiatus.
Recently, however, Sido, the leader of Drop Out, had fanned the flames of comeback rumors by posting a screenshot of a soundtrack he was working on to SNS.
Thanks to that, Dreaming, Drop Out’s fandom that had been living quietly, began to burn, but…….
‘There was no bait at all—too little, in fact.’
There was no firewood to vigorously burn the blazing passion.
Then, by chance, she came across the audience recruitment for Coming Up Next.
It wasn’t such a big deal for her fan fervor, which had already begun burning but had nowhere to go, to press the audience application button.
It’s only natural that if your main group is solid, you can look around outside a bit.
There was no need to feel threatened by a rookie group at this point, so she could watch them with a fond heart.
This was the reason Choe Sehui could become the first audience member of Coming Up Next.
Around the time Choe Sehui was thinking such thoughts, the audience members finished being seated, and a man who appeared to be the PD opened his mouth.
“From now on, all you need to do is choose the better side among those singing the same song.”
As the PD’s explanation continued, interest stirred on Choe Sehui’s face.
Currently, on karaoke room floor 2, there is a group called
The two groups don’t know of each other’s existence, and the production team received a list of favorite songs from each member.
“We’ll have them sing overlapping songs from there. Simultaneously.”
This meant the songs sung on floors 2 and 3 would be transmitted to floor 1 where the audience currently was.
But she found it a bit strange.
If two people sang the same song simultaneously, wouldn’t it be hard to tell them apart?
Since they weren’t harmonizing, it seemed like it could get noisy.
Someone among the couple attendees threw such a question, but the PD just laughed.
Saying they would know once they heard it.
Remote controls with two buttons were given to the hands of the fifty audience members, and quite some time passed waiting.
Around the time some people yawned from boredom, music suddenly began flowing throughout the first floor.
“Huh?”
Choe Sehui, a Drop Out fanatic, caught what song this was within one second of the intro’s prelude.
This is
A B-side track included on the album, a song impossible to know unless you were a true fan.
‘These punks. Impressive.’
I already like them.
Well, if they’re a rookie boy group, they ought to take Drop Out as their role model.
They’re a team that pushed through all sorts of adversity and hardship with a single stage.
Soon, the first verse spread throughout the first floor.
-“I thought it would be forever. You and I.”
The moment she heard the intro, two thoughts entered Choe Sehui’s head.
The first thought was that the song felt very good.
Originally, Drop Out’s lead vocalist, Day, sings this part, and the feeling of being sorrowful yet in fact already resigned is first-class.
Day played a large role in
However, the person singing it now was also quite excellent.
The second thought was that only one voice could be heard.
They had definitely said two people were singing together.
Then Choe Sehui saw the text ‘
‘Ah, so right now a Sedalbaegil member is singing?’
Sure enough, as it moved to the next verse, the voice changed and the letters on the café monitor changed to ‘
In other words, this battle was a confrontation between participants named Gutaehwan and Redi.
Choe Sehui memorized both of their names.
Because being Drop Out fans who listed
The song continued quite convincingly.
The production team seemed to have prepared quite a bit, as the part distribution was arranged pleasantly to listen to.
Gutaehwan sang one verse, Redi sang one verse, then Gutaehwan sang half a verse and Redi took the next verse.
Since both sang honestly without ad-libs, it wasn’t awkward listening to them alternate.
‘But isn’t the side that takes the chorus too advantageous?’
Choe Sehui thought that, but the chorus was fair.
Both voices were transmitted simultaneously.
Yet what was interesting was that there was a mechanic where voice concentration changed depending on which way you tilted your body.
If you tilted left, Sedalbaegil Gutaehwan’s voice was heard clearly.
If you tilted right, Take Scene Redi’s voice was heard clearly.
She had wondered why there were so many speakers compared to the number of people, but to think such a device was hidden.
‘Is this Dolby Sound, 5.1 channel or something?’
In the continuing second verse, the two voices came out together the whole time.
They probably meant to say, ‘You can tell their voices apart to some extent now, and you know about the left-right device, so just listen through to the end.’
And so the first song ended, and evaluation began.
“The blue button is for Sedalbaegil’s participant, Gutaehwan. The red button is for Take Scene’s participant, Redi. Please vote for the side you prefer even a little more.”
At the staff’s explanation, Choe Sehui fell briefly into thought.
Honestly, when she had only heard the first half, she had thought it was Gutaehwan’s victory.
Not a crushing victory, but a narrow win?
But after hearing the whole song, it had become a bit ambiguous.
Redi was good in the chorus and latter half parts, while Gutaehwan was better in calm parts like the intro and pre-hook.
In the end, she chose Redi.
If this had been a theme like ‘The idol group I make myself,’ she would have chosen Gutaehwan.
Not everyone can take the highlight part, and there would surely need to be someone to take charge of the calm narrative too.
But in this case, it seemed those conditions weren’t necessary.
Because it was simply about who sang better.
Of course, the original was the best no matter which of the two sang it.
And so the voting ended, and before the results were revealed, Gutaehwan and Redi came down to the first floor.
They weren’t wearing name tags, but you could tell at a glance who was Gutaehwan and who was Redi.
‘Both are handsome.’
Gutaehwan had a delinquent look without feeling violent.
He probably has a ton of delinquent friends around him, but is the type who actually keeps to the line while living.
Redi looked trendy, exactly the type to hit big these days.
These days, the idol scene’s trend is a stylish feel that seems like it would lead trends, rather than a frail style.
That weasel Choe Daeho definitely understands hardcore fans’ hearts.
Meanwhile, Gutaehwan and Redi were frozen in surprise—first at the appearance of an audience they had never imagined, and again at the appearance of a rival they had never imagined.
Soon, the two came to their senses, introduced themselves, and exchanged greetings.
‘Cute.’
And so, the revealed vote count was Redi’s victory with twenty-nine votes.
Next, Sedalbaegil’s Onsaemiro and Take Scene’s Juyeon went up against each other, and one side crushed the other.
They sang so well that people were startled.
Sedalbaegil
–Onsaemiro: 14 votes
Take Scene
–Juyeon: 36 votes
It was the victory of Juyeon, Take Scene’s main vocalist.
Juyeon was evaluated as the best singer in Ryan main vocalist history, and proved that skill.
In fact, Redi, who was on the same team as Juyeon, was surprised that a participant named Onsaemiro took 14 votes.
And the next stage that followed was…….
“Wow…….”
“What?”
The protagonist who instantly blurred the affectionate atmosphere of the couples was Iion.
Because the moment the song ended and Iion appeared, exclamations burst out all at once.
Choe Sehui was also startled.
She had often heard that you could feel an aura when seeing an actor in the flesh, but she hadn’t known what that felt like—now she knew.
His features were like a David sculpture.
C.U (Si-yu) of Take Scene, who came down together, was also objectively handsome, but standing next to Iion made him look like a squid.
‘And he even sings well with that face. I wonder if his dancing is stiff?’
The third stage was Iion’s victory with twenty-six votes.
‘Both teams have decent members?’
She had yet to see two members, but the team composition was diverse yet well-organized.
Then the fourth stage was prepared.
It was time for the participant named Han Sion of Sedalbaegil and the participant named Peideu of Take Scene to face off.