Damn Idol, Chapter 53
Take Scene’s stage was, to put it in a word, well-judged.
They sang Maroon 5’s
But that didn’t mean they had rearranged it into full-on hard rock.
The texture of the drums and the guitar riffs merely called hard rock to mind; they hadn’t drastically altered the original.
Even though they had changed the verse into Korean, the feeling given off by the vocal line was almost the same as the original.
To the point that even when some audience members hummed along and sang the original lyrics, it didn’t feel out of place.
To evaluate it positively, they had raised the tension without damaging the original song’s identity.
To evaluate it negatively, they had simply ridden on the strength the original already possessed.
Of course……
-Waaaaaaaah!
-Wooooaaaaaaaah!
Almost all of the audience members were evaluating this stage positively.
They were idol trainees, after all, and the song had been produced in-house.
At this level, it was excellent enough to exceed expectations, and excellent even by absolute standards.
Perhaps because of that, when Take Scene performed their group choreography during the chorus, the crowd even burst into a sing-along.
-YOUR SUGAR!
-YES, PLEASE!
In truth, Maroon 5’s
It had ranked as high as fifth on Korea’s 2015 annual chart. Before that, no pop song had ever placed in the Top 10 of Korea’s annual chart.
Take Scene’s stage raced toward its climax.
The one who adorned the finale was Juyeon, filling the chorus—now stripped of the arrangement and returned to the original—with his vocal ability.
Pop!
Along with Juyeon’s chorus, confetti burst, and the Take Scene members began running wild onstage without choreography.
In reality, every movement had been calculated, but to the viewers, it looked as if the contestants were unable to contain their excitement and were leaping around.
Thanks to that, the moment the stage ended, an incredible roar of cheers erupted.
Enough that even those who had come to the recording because of Han Sion’s
Some audience members were even calling for an encore.
-It was truly a wonderful stage!
While Blue came up onto the stage and calmed the hall down.
The two most out-of-place people at today’s recording looked at each other.
Chris Edward and his manager, Alex.
The two, who had been sitting alone on the second-floor terrace that had not been planned to open, spoke once the hall settled down.
“Eddie, how did it sound to you?”
“It was fine. The guy who sang the last chorus is quite skilled.”
“Leaving out the performance, how would you evaluate the arrangement of the song?”
“It really wasn’t bad. It was a little tacky, though. If there’s a problem……”
Alex took over.
“It wouldn’t work in the airplay market, would it?”
“Yeah. If you listened to only the audio without the visual performance, you’d get tired of it quickly. It’s noisy.”
If powerful drums and powerful melodic riffs were the answer, why would countless musicians agonize over their choice of instruments?
Why would mixing engineers spend days agonizing over how to set a compressor?
Finding the balance among the countless sounds that compose music and blending them is an extremely delicate task.
In that sense, the
The drums and guitar they had changed to make it more exciting undermined the elegance of the core melody.
They covered that with visual performance, but without the tremendous halo effect of the original song, it would have been worse than it was now.
But Chris Edward did not harshly criticize this stage.
“From the footage, it looked like those boys made the stage themselves, didn’t it? At that level, it’s great. When I was young, I was worse than that.”
Alex gave a faint laugh.
When you looked closely, Eddie had a somewhat innocent side.
What reality show would hand full authority over an arrangement to its contestants?
The engineers and supporters prepared by the broadcasting station had probably intervened countless times.
Of course, Han Sion was the exception.
Because Alex found this point suspicious, he had asked the production staff of Coming Up Next several times whether there had been outside support, but the answer had always been consistent.
Nothing.
They said, staking the entire honor of the broadcasting station, that there had been no help in Han Sion’s work.
Of course, Alex was not the kind of person who believed in things like honor, so he had even had it written into the contract.
If Eddie appeared on the show and found traces of manipulation around Han Sion, they would receive an enormous penalty fee.
Considering that the Korean broadcasting station, which had been fussy about other conditions, had agreed to this part in one shot, Han Sion’s talent was real.
‘The next stage was probably arranged by Han Sion.’
While Alex was thinking that, Take Scene’s judges’ comments seemed to have wrapped up.
Chris Edward and Alex could not speak Korean at all, so they had no choice but to guess from the atmosphere, but it seemed they had probably received favorable reviews.
The number 92 being displayed on the screen looked like their score.
“What score would you have given them?”
“Hmm. Considering the special nature of a competition stage, if they had to beat the opposing team with a single performance, I think I would have given them about 80.”
“If you were evaluating the audio?”
“Without the performance? Then 50? 55? Considering their young age, I could give them 60.”
“That’s harsh.”
“What about you?”
“If this stage makes big money, it’s 100 points. If it doesn’t make money, it’s 0.”
“An assessment worthy of an icon of vulgar capitalism.”
Just then, a new VCR began.
This time, it was footage related to “Sedal Baegil,” the team that included Han Sion.
“Alex. You said Sion’s team name was 3 Months 100 Days, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What does that mean? Isn’t three months about 92 days?”
“Who knows?”
Around the time they were exchanging that meaningless conversation, a melody was heard from within the VCR for the first time.
Alex thought it was a melody he had heard somewhere before, but he could not remember it.
Because it was not the original melody as it was, but a modified version.
But Chris Edward, who had realized it, wore an interested expression.
“Was that intentional?”
“What was?”
“Do you know what rank
“Wasn’t it number one? I know it made an incredible amount of money.”
“No. It was number two. There was an enormous truck running right in front of it.”
“A truck?”
He searched through his memories, but he did not know the Billboard chart rankings from back then.
“What song was number one?”
“
“Ah!”
“That must be the song Sion’s team is going to sing.”
At that moment, the audience let out an enormous cheer.
When he turned his gaze, musicians dressed in colorful, beautiful clothes had already taken their places on the stage.
Eddie and Alex did not know it, but the clothes the musicians were wearing were hanbok, and what they were holding were traditional Korean instruments.
Even the background laid out across the screen was a marketplace that seemed to be from around the Goryeo period.
At that moment, the performance began.
“It’s not drums?”
“Right. They look like old instruments.”
Buk, nabal, taepyeongso.
The performance carried out with three traditional instruments was extremely plain.
The buk merely kept the basic beat, and the nabal and taepyeongso lacked power.
The sound of the audience clapping along to the familiar melody gradually lost strength.
Watching that, Alex and Chris Edward were curious.
What on earth was Han Sion thinking?
* * *
I had lived my whole life as a singer, but in terms of how I thought, I was far closer to a producer.
I hadn’t been like that from the beginning. It was because, after repeating regressions, I had come to think that I could not sell two hundred million records if I went all in on music alone.
But if you asked whether I was exactly the same as an ordinary producer, I wasn’t.
While other producers constantly discover new singers, I have to constantly throw the singer known as “Han Sion” into new environments.
That is why I am here.
An idol.
I had certainly thought of it as a damned idol, but the moment I took a deep breath below the stage, everything changed.
I want to satisfy the audience, and I want to surprise people.
I want to drive people in the same industry into despair, and I want to make everyone talk about me.
I want to occupy the music charts and fill all of YouTube with cover videos of my stage.
In an instant, the producer’s mindset disappears, and I become a singer.
Just like now.
At that moment,
A very basic, plain performance.
Seeing as the faint sound of clapping could no longer be heard, the audience’s excitement must have already cooled.
That was fast.
We were only getting started.
At that moment, a red light turned on in front of the lift where Gu Taehwan was standing.
When Gu Taehwan, whose tense expression was obvious, glanced at me, I nodded for him.
Gu Taehwan would do well.
And people would be surprised by this stage.
Beep
- Beep
- Beep
-The moment the red light blinked three times and changed to green, Gu Taehwan shot up onto the stage with a thunderous boom.
After a brief silence.
Dum
- Dum
- Dum!
The powerful sound of the buk took on the role of percussion and formed an intense sense of rhythm.
This time, it was Choe Jaeseong and Yi Ion’s turn.
The two of them looked at me as well, then rose onto the stage.
At the same time, a chewy rhythm was born in the sounds of the taepyeongso and nabal that rang out.
I think I could hear the audience clapping again.
Were they already getting excited?
Not yet.
On Saemiro headed onto the stage.
This time, hi-hats, claps, and grand brass used in modern music mixed into the sounds of the traditional instruments.
The last one left was me.
A red light appeared in front of my lift.
Once this blinked three times and turned green, I would go up.
Blink.
While I was matching the beat inwardly to the music coming through my in-ears and the red light, my thoughts had returned to the moment we had planned the stage.
Blink.
“How about a school dance club?”
“If it’s a club, I think a basketball team would be better.”
“I’d like it to be more unconventional. What about werewolves?”
“Fantasy? Then aren’t vampires the golden standard?”
The members insisted that our stage needed a concept.
At first, I did not understand their argument, but I had tried to accept it.
Then On Saemiro gave an opinion about “this concept.”
It was the best suggestion among them, so it was adopted unanimously, but strangely, as I made the song, I kept thinking about it.
So I decided to reflect it in the song.
The result was……
“You did it like this?”
“This is insane. How did you think of this?”
“Are you seriously a genius?”
I was extremely satisfied.
It had not been easy work, but even to my own ears, the sound had come out sexy.
And that was not all.
As I made the music, there was also a stage performance that naturally came to mind.
“In the movie Back to the Future, there’s a scene where the protagonist, who has gone thirty years into the past, sings Chuck Berry’s
“You don’t know Chuck Berry? You can think of him as the person who created rock and roll.”
“But in that era, rock and roll didn’t exist yet, and the audience looks at the protagonist like he’s a madman.”
“At that moment, the protagonist says this.”
“I guess you guys aren’t ready for that yet. But your kids are gonna love it.”
“But while watching that scene, I thought this.”
“If it’s a true masterpiece, wouldn’t people from the past like it too?”
That was right.
The concept On Saemiro suggested, and the one we ultimately adopted, was “time travelers.”
The members of Sedal Baegil, living in 2017, headed into the past one by one.
Blink.
Now, it was my turn.
With a pop, the lift led me onto the stage.
The moment I arrived in the past along with the effect of lightning striking.
The sounds of the bass, electric guitar, and electric piano exploded all at once.
And so,