That Damned Idol
Episode 7
* * *
Ryan Entertainment.
LPL Entertainment.
Double M Entertainment.
These were the three companies commonly called the Big Three agencies of South Korea.
In fact, aside from Double M, it had been quite a while since the others had failed to rank within the top three in the industry by strict revenue standards.
Nevertheless, the public still valued the brand power of these three companies the highest, so they were called the Big Three.
One of them was Ryan Entertainment, whose CEO, Choi Dae-ho, came up with an ambitious project one day.
"......
What are you trying to do?"
"A company survival show."
Choi Dae-ho.
A guy whose name meant "great tiger," but who acted like a weasel.
No, more like a cat.
At least cats were cute; this guy only caused harm to people.
Is that why it was Ryan Entertainment?
It was inevitable that the planning team leader's mind automatically replayed the fan reactions he had seen while monitoring yesterday.
"CEO. Is that something that makes sense?"
"What's so impossible about it?"
"We've already finalized the debut lineup at five members and are preparing for their debut. The team name is out, and even the debut song is done. And now you want to do some internal survival show out of nowhere?"
Team name, TAKE#.
Debut song, Scene Stealer.
Everything was ready.
And yet, he wanted to cram in a few more trainees and do a survival show?
It made no sense.
Even if an incredible genius appeared and broke through the survival show to join, the team chemistry would inevitably go straight down the drain.
"Competition should be finished before the debut lineup is set. I'm against it."
"Wait, wait. Team Leader Park. Seems you've misunderstood something."
"Please, go ahead."
"We keep our five kids together as they are. How could we stick someone in there after how we trained them and selected them?"
"Then what do you mean?"
"I mean, let's do a five-on-five. Split into Team A and Team B, and the winning side debuts."
"What? Team A would obviously be TAKE#...... Where would we get Team B? If we use trainees who have already been eliminated, wouldn't there be no tension?"
To Team Leader Park's words, CEO Choi Dae-ho replied.
"We'll recruit them now."
"From where? Internally?"
"No. Let's accept applicants for this survival show nationwide. Immediate debut upon winning. There will be plenty of kids tempted by that, right? We're going to broadcast it too."
Team Leader Park blinked.
Park Seung-won, who had started as an inexperienced road manager and become a team leader in seven years.
Though his rank remained team leader due to his overly rapid promotion, his actual treatment was hardly different from the head of a business division.
This meant he was an incredibly competent person, and that he had read the intent hidden between CEO Choi's lines.
"You want to give it a narrative?"
"Exactly. With so many boy groups flooding the market these days, charging headfirst into bare ground is a bit much, isn't it?"
"What if the Team B kids are good? Won't anti-fans attach themselves to TAKE#?"
"Aren't anti-fans a force that unifies the fandom?"
"Hm...... While recruiting survival participants, you also want to scout some top-tier trainees, don't you?"
"As expected. Our Team Leader Park."
In an era of a million aspiring celebrities, trainees were a dime a dozen.
But trainees with truly proper talent were always lacking.
Moreover, even with talent, they needed time to mature, and the more outstanding ones quickly moved to small and mid-sized agencies.
Because they wanted to debut as soon as possible.
Recruiting for a survival show could be a brilliant move in that regard.
For that matter, Team B could even become the follow-up boy group to TAKE#.
While the planning team leader fell into thought, CEO Choi Dae-ho spoke in a casual voice.
"So, what do you think? Not bad, right?"
"If two things are resolved, it should be fine."
"What are they?"
"First, TAKE#'s debut is confirmed, right?"
"Isn't that what I should be asking? Are our kids that bad? You think they'd lose if I gathered five kids who can sing and made them compete?"
Idols were sometimes disparaged, sometimes ignored as a profession.
But the tears and sweat that had to be shed to actually become an idol were by no means a small amount.
The talent of a musician and the talent of an idol were clearly different.
"Still, the kids might take it differently. They could grow tired of the continuous competition."
"Then pass it along unofficially. Just the nuance."
"As a promotional tactic?"
"Yeah. What's the second?"
"What is the justification? To do a survival show like this, we'd need a plausible justification."
There was no crazy person who would say, "Actually, this competition is all fake, and we made the program to show off our kids. Oh, and we'll secure some trainees while we're at it."
So a plausible reason was needed.
At that moment, Choi Dae-ho averted his eyes.
"......?"
"......
I couldn't think of it. Up to that point."
"......!"
"......
I'm counting on you."
"......!!!"
The CEO, whose name was a great tiger but who was worse than a weasel, ended up dumping a ton of overtime work on him.
That was four months ago.
It was planned to be broadcast in partnership with a cable channel called M-Show, with the title—
Coming Up Next.
A program that would shoot off in an unimaginable direction due to Han Si-on's participation.
That was the point when the program was being planned.
* * *
"Yeah, Uncle. I already ate. What about you?"
Speaking with Uncle Hyun-su, he left LB Studio.
He had originally intended to stay only until midnight on Sunday, when his great-uncle would be leaving, but the studio owner said he could stay as long as he wanted, so he stayed another day.
He didn't charge him.
Instead, he asked if he could watch him compose, so he said okay, but......
"Why! Why! Why on earth!"
Later, he cried.
Asking why he wouldn't just become a producer or composer instead of an idol.
Asking why he wouldn't do an idol band if he wanted to be an idol so badly.
Saying he had places he could recommend.
But, he wasn't interested.
From his standpoint, in this life, he had to challenge the most typical style of idol.
If he became an idol with a unique or creative concept, there was a high possibility of errors in information gathering.
So he refused outright and asked him to recommend him for Ryan Entertainment's survival show instead.
He didn't necessarily need a recommendation, but it would make things easier.
After that, from the wailing Lee Hyun-seok, he heard about the planning of Coming Up Next.
That it was a program made to promote a team whose debut was already decided, and that no matter what they did, it would be impossible for them to debut.
That it was a well-known business ploy to anyone in the know, so he should find another way.
But after hearing the explanation, it seemed even more appealing to him.
First, it was a broadcast.
It could inform the world that a product called Han Si-on existed.
He wasn't exceptionally handsome, but he wasn't at a level viewers would find disagreeable either.
He had his own charm.
That wasn't his opinion; it was what he'd heard from a styling team that only handled top-tier Hollywood actors.
So if the broadcast captured even a quarter of his skills, love calls to debut him immediately would pour in.
The recruitment notice said that those eliminated from the survival show were free to choose their path afterward.
Of course, Ryan Entertainment wasn't a pushover and would try to hold onto him as a trainee by any means, but he wasn't someone who'd fall for that.
If there was one thing he'd realized while living a life longer than others, it was that being the one who chose was generally better than being the one who was chosen.
He didn't want to be chosen by a company deliberating whether to debut him or not.
He wanted to directly choose a company that wanted to debut him.
The second appeal was that he could learn about the life of an idol in a short, intensive period.
He didn't know much about idols, and it had been too long since he'd lived in Korea.
He would definitely need an adjustment period, and the program called Coming Up Next would accelerate that adjustment period intensively.
And the last.
This was the most important.
At least Coming Up Next wouldn't be boring.
Even now, he had the confidence to pass if he challenged a trainee audition at an agency.
He was also confident he could debut through trainee life.
But that was far too tedious.
He would be taught things he already knew and be pointed out for things he could already do.
By people even less skilled than him.
He didn't have the patience to endure that.
Thinking about his regression rules, there was no guarantee he wouldn't regress without even realizing it.
That was why he was trying to appear on Coming Up Next.
Of course, Ryan Entertainment might not select him......
If they didn't even have that much discernment, they wouldn't be a place worth learning anything from.
—Si-on?
"Ah, just block my great-uncle's number."
—No matter what, he's family......
"He's trash. Said he lived far away so he never visited me in the hospital, but the moment he heard he could become my guardian, he came rushing over."
—......Alright. I got it.
After ending the call with Uncle Hyun-su, he rummaged through his wallet and pulled out the business card of Seo Seung-hyun from BVB Entertainment.
The total number of songs he had made over the past three days was seven.
Excluding
Would it be accurate to say he had printed out songs composed in the past?
Anyway, all of them were tracks that had entered the Billboard Hot 100, and he had carefully selected songs that had been loved in Korea as well.
Three of them had even reached number one on the Hot 100, and the genres varied from electronic pop to hip-hop.
He was thinking of selling them.
Lee Hyun-seok of LB Studio said he would help if he was selling songs, but the person he would entrust with consignment sales was Seo Seung-hyun.
He wasn't a connection he had made for this purpose, but if something looked usable, he should use it.
'First, I need to lay down the guide vocals.'
He hadn't recorded vocals in the studio.
After pulling all-nighters for nearly three days, he wasn't in any condition to sing.
It would be crude, but he had home recording equipment at home.
Even before the contract with the devil began, he had been an aspiring singer.
Still, he was a bit curious.
How would the Korean music industry, which revolved around idols, arrange his songs, what lyrics would they attach, and to which singer would they give them.
* * *
Seo Seung-hyun, team leader of the A&R team at BVB Entertainment, had returned from a five-day vacation spanning the weekend.
He hated returning to work after a long time like hell, but what could he do.
He was a slave to his paycheck.
So he opened his inbox to take care of the work that had piled up during his vacation and was shocked.
—Hello. This is Dreamcatcher Entertainment......
—Hello. This is TNT Entertainment......
—We are PPN Entertainment......
It was because countless emails from entertainment companies had flown in.
By the nature of their work, the A&R team didn't usually have much interaction with other companies.
When they did communicate, it was usually due to conflict.
'What on earth is this?'
Looking closely at the emails, they weren't just from entertainment companies.
There were some from indie bands active in Hongdae and from advertising companies.
Seo Seung-hyun moved his mouse to check the identity of this inexplicable email bombardment.
Then he tilted his head.
The content of the emails was more or less the same.
They wanted to buy a song he had uploaded to SoundCloud.
SoundCloud.
Shortened to SoundC.
A platform where indie musicians could freely upload their music.
A place that had been hearing the same story for three years now—that it was running deficits every year and would really disappear next year.
A place maintained each time by American SoundCloud-born singers sending in sponsorship money.
An oasis of the indie scene.
But......
'I haven't uploaded any songs to SoundCloud?'
He hadn't even tried composing since getting hired at BVB to begin with.
Wondering if there was some error, he backtracked from the song titles written in the emails.
Clicking on the account that so many companies had contacted, he confirmed the artist's name.
HAN SI ON.
'Han Si-on?'
Where had he heard that......
'Ah? That kid?'
The young, polite, and handsome employee of H&R Corporation.
He had said he was going to settle down in Korea.
But why would emails about Han Si-on's SoundCloud account be sent to him?
Just as he thought that, Seo Seung-hyun soon discovered his own email address written in the artist's account info.
This absurd punk had written someone else's work email on his personal SoundCloud account.
'What kind of mistake is this? No, is this even a possible mistake?'
Having figured out the situation, Seo Seung-hyun was now curious.
Just how good was the music he had uploaded for entertainment companies to be contacting him in droves like this?
There were 12 uploaded tracks, but 6 songs.
He had uploaded each song twice—as an Inst version without vocals and an AR version with guide vocals.
Seo Seung-hyun played the tracks Han Si-on had uploaded on SoundCloud as if possessed.
Some time passed.
After listening to all the songs, Seo Seung-hyun found his business card and called Han Si-on.
—The customer's phone is turned off......
"Ah, why!"
Two of these were clearly made for NOP!
He called again, but it was still off.
It couldn't be helped.
At that moment, Han Si-on was taking Ryan Entertainment's test.