Damn Idol Episode 8
* * *
Coming Up Next became quite a hot topic among aspiring idols.
Even among those who knew the hidden intent behind the program.
“It’s going to be on TV anyway, right? If I get eliminated, whether I stay with the agency or leave is up to me.”
Things in the world didn’t always flow according to reason, but it wasn’t entirely wrong, either.
Amid this atmosphere, applicants for Coming Up Next steadily increased.
Some were confident in their skills, and some were confident in their stories.
But Lion Entertainment’s selection criteria were clear.
Coming Up Next’s Team B was ultimately a supporting cast meant to make Team A (Take Scene) shine.
At the same time, they had to care about ratings, and they also had to consider that these applicants could later become trainees at Lion Entertainment.
So there were a few things more important than skill.
First, a handsome guy.
For an idol, a face was both talent and narrative.
Of course, those who relied too much on their faces without any skill were bound to be criticized, but…
Team B absolutely needed such pretty backdrops.
People who would receive viewers’ support in an instant because they were handsome, but as the missions went on, could not compare to Take Scene when it came to their main job.
Through them, they could give Take Scene a narrative of overcoming hardship.
Because even if Take Scene fell a little short in looks, they would seem like they overcame it through venomous dedication to their craft.
On top of that, if Lion Entertainment trained such pretty backdrops for a few years and debuted them, it would be easy to obtain a self-growth narrative.
—Back when he was on Coming Up Next, I thought he was only relying on his face, but seeing him debut, his skills really improved.
—I’m proud because I can see how hard he practiced.
—During his debut stage, he looked choked up like he was remembering the old days.
The moment comments like that came out, it was game over.
Second, a guy full of individuality.
It didn’t matter if each member of Team B was better than Take Scene.
No, that was actually better.
But Teamwork had to be overwhelmingly on Take Scene’s side.
For that to happen, Team B had to be gathered with people full of individuality, the kind who would have trouble harmonizing.
People who stood out sharply during individual missions early in the program, but weakened once it moved to team missions.
The more people like that there were, the more Take Scene would stand out.
Lastly, people with many stories.
Any kind of story was fine.
It was even better if it was a story that would make viewers cry their eyes out.
They would drive the ratings, and they would drive buzz.
But at the same time, they caused fatigue.
Once, it would become an issue, but if it came out twice, three times, viewers would unconsciously feel tired of it.
And if a little editing magic was added to that?
They could emphasize scenes where Team B members acted overly sensitive or refused to back down from their opinions.
Then the Take Scene members, who had grown up nicely without a crease in them, would gain a contrasting charm.
In other words, Team B’s stories were cards to be used and discarded for the program’s early success.
Choi Suyeon, head of Lion Entertainment’s rookie development team, was in charge of selecting the members for Coming Up Next.
She knew this point clearly.
And…
‘Han Sion. The name’s not bad.’
This guy named Han Sion seemed, at least on paper, to fit all three conditions.
She didn’t trust profile photos completely, but he was handsome.
On top of that, the one who had recommended Han Sion was Lee Hyeonseok, CEO of LB Studio.
He was someone with a good reputation in the industry, famous for pushing promising indie musicians without being greedy for money.
The talent that Lee Hyeonseok had praised to the skies, practically spitting as he did so, was Han Sion.
It was thanks to Lee Hyeonseok that Han Sion had skipped the first round of online applications and the second interview, going straight to the third and final interview.
‘He said he was good at performing and composing, right?’
If CEO Lee Hyeonseok praised him that much, then he really had to be good, and in that case, there was no way he lacked individuality or self-assertion.
Wouldn’t he have that feeling people often called a hip-hop poser or an indie snob?
Lastly…
‘His family history is pretty heavy.’
Apparently, his parents had gotten into a traffic accident not long ago and had become vegetative.
It was hard to believe so easily—among trainees, there were some who fabricated their family circumstances—so they checked with the hospital, and it was true.
They had not yet received a final diagnosis of a vegetative state, but apparently, the doctor in charge, who was close to them, was merely delaying it day by day, and it was practically confirmed.
She could feel it immediately.
A talented indie musician who originally had no interest in idols had experienced some kind of change of heart after his parents’ accident.
Maybe he wanted to earn a lot of money and treat his parents, or maybe he wanted to become famous and let his song reach the heavens.
That was why he had hurriedly applied for Coming Up Next.
‘As long as he isn’t tone-deaf, we can pass him, can’t we?’
If he positioned himself clearly as a composer, it would be fine even if his singing was a little lacking.
Kids who composed had a good sense of rhythm, so with just a little rap training, they could do the basics.
Though looking at his application documents, he had written “vocal” as his position.
“Team Leader. Should I send him in?”
“Yes. Let’s begin.”
And so, with three members of Lion Entertainment’s rookie development department, the third and final interview began.
There were eight people to be interviewed today.
They didn’t necessarily have to pick anyone, but if they did, only one person could pass.
“Hello! I’m Jo Taesu!”
The first applicant’s interview began like that, and when four people had passed.
“I’m Han Sion.”
Han Sion, the fifth applicant they had been keeping an eye on, came in.
* * *
I’d been to far too many auditions.
Now, if I try to jump into a certain field, I think about its future potential.
If I became a rapper, could I sell two hundred million records?
If I won American Talent, could I keep my career as a singer on a steady upward trend?
Where is the peak of this field?
That was the kind of thing I thought about.
But in the early days of my regressions, when I was still a greenhorn, I didn’t think that far.
I just tried to do whatever was the hottest issue at the moment.
In my first life, I had been a solo singer who had gained a decent amount of popularity, and in my second life, I went on
Even thinking about it now, the program name was tacky, but I knew from my memories of my first life.
That Stage Number Zero, shortened to Snumje, would record the highest viewership ratings in the history of public broadcast audition programs, at 17%.
I placed second there.
Honestly, my skills back then were enough to put me in the top ten, but not enough to place second.
But because of the sad family history of both my parents becoming vegetative, I ended up receiving nationwide support.
And then the career of my second life collapsed.
The gloomy, desperate image formed within the program was a chain that bound me.
No matter what I did, I couldn’t surpass the image of Snumje.
I released a gentle spring song to try to change my image, but the top comment on the official music video on YouTube was…
—It feels like they’ll be here forever, but our parents will leave our side someday. This spring, go see the cherry blossoms with your parents.
That.
Damn it. Even thinking about it now pisses me off.
Anyway, what I’m trying to say is that I have a lot of experience with auditions like this.
So I could tell right away what the judges wanted from me.
They wanted my story.
At the same time, they had almost no expectations for my singing ability.
My story?
I didn’t mind selling it.
In the past, I hated mentioning my parents’ story, but now I didn’t care at all.
When I’m only moderately good, my story devours my music, but when I’m extremely, extremely good, my music exists as music.
However, the fact that they didn’t expect my singing ability was a bit of a problem.
“All right, then let’s see your skills. Would you sing first?”
“Sing first? Wasn’t I only supposed to sing?”
“We heard from your recommender that your performance and composition skills are quite impressive.”
“I didn’t really prepare a performance or an original song. I’m sorry.”
“……
All right. If that’s what you say, then that must be the case.”
It seemed the interviewer named Choi Suyeon was a bit offended.
Her words were trailing.
But what could I do?
As long as I did well, that was enough.
“What would you like to sing first?”
There were two songs I would sing today.
One was chosen from among the three songs Lion Entertainment had assigned.
The other was a free-choice song.
“I’ll sing the assigned song first.
Honestly, it wasn’t a song I personally liked all that much.
Korean ballads from the early 2000s had a somewhat similar feel in their chord progressions and sound variations.
From my standpoint, having lived until the 2030s, I should say it was a rather bland song.
It wasn’t a masterpiece that transcended time, either.
Even so, the reason I chose this song was that it was quite decent to sing with my current skill level.
I clearly needed vocal training, and it was currently in progress.
If my singing ability when I was GOTM’s main vocalist was 100, would I even be at 50 right now?
So rather than an overly difficult song, a song I could sing cleanly was better.
I had the experience, so just because I sang comfortably, would I lose out to kids on their first lives?
“We’ll begin.”
When the staff member played the song, a fairly long instrumental intro characteristic of the 2000s flowed out.
A moment later, the song began.
Well, there were no special impressions.
I immersed myself in the song, put emotion into it, and sang with precise pronunciation.
There wasn’t a single place where the pitch was off or the beat lagged.
Just doing the basics, assuming the tone of one’s voice wasn’t bad, was enough to hear that someone sang well.
This was true not only in the realm of ordinary people, but also in the realm of singers.
Because the basics were originally the hardest.
But…
After I finished singing, Team Leader Choi Suyeon’s expression bothered me.
Her face was ambiguous, with a slight frown.
“……
Thank you. We listened well.”
Why?
There’s no way my singing could be ambiguous.
That was a fact proven over a long, long time.
Of course, people’s tastes varied wildly, so it was possible that it only sounded decent to her.
But that decency should have been more than enough to lightly overwhelm the other applicants.
Had I lived in America for too long, so it didn’t fit the K-pop feel?
“You submitted an MR for your free-choice song, but it’s a song I’ve never heard before. ? Whose song is it?”
“It’s a song sung by Melisma. It was released in the 1940s.”
“Is it R&B?”
“The original is Delta blues, but I arranged it with a Chicago blues feel.”
“Ah, yes… We’ll listen.”
As the MR played, an electronic guitar poured over funky drums.
I could guarantee that not a single person who heard this song would remain as still as a block of wood.
They would nod their heads, or at least wiggle a finger.
Sure enough, the interviewers’ expressions changed completely.
It seemed it was very different from the “blues” they had been thinking of.
Delta blues often used slide guitar with strong rhythm and powerful vocals.
I arranged that into a Chicago blues style using an electronic guitar.
I called it Chicago blues, but the sound itself wasn’t much different from modern electronic pop.
I nodded my head to the rhythm and then took the mic.
The gypsy woman told my mother
Before I was born—!
Cutting straight through the electronic guitar sound on the offbeat, I dropped the notes by semitones.
But even while doing so, instead of my breathing getting faster, it grew more relaxed, and at last returned to the downbeat matched with the drums.
I got a boy child’s comin’
He’s gonna be a son of a gun
This time, I raised the notes I had dropped back up by semitones.
The note that had begun on the beat ended again on an offbeat.
The scale rose and fell as if riding an amusement ride, delivering auditory pleasure, and the melody shot from the boundary of the drums created a thrilling sense of danger.
This was what I was good at, and what I liked.
It wouldn’t feel unfamiliar.
The R&B modern people loved was ultimately a genre that had started from the blues.
To begin with, the term R&B itself was short for rhythm and blues.
He gonna make pretty women’s
Jump and shout!
I pulled the note up all at once and reached a high note in an instant, then raised the volume with a low vibrato.
I showed it through these twelve bars.
What kind of song I could sing.
At this level, she wouldn’t be able to feel any more ambiguity…
That was what I thought, but Team Leader Choi Suyeon’s face held not only admiration.
What rose together with admiration was perplexity.
Why that expression?
Could it be that this wasn’t the direction they wanted?
But with my skill, I should be able to lightly ignore something like direction, shouldn’t I?
I might have to show them more properly.
I tightened my grip on the microphone and began to immerse myself even more deeply in the song.
* * *
“……”
“……”
“……”
The trio from the rookie development team in charge of today’s interview fell silent.
It had been since Han Sion, who had left the room with a regretful expression as if something hadn’t satisfied him, walked out.
The same question circled in all three of their minds.
‘That kid….’
‘If we pick him….’
‘Can Take Scene debut…?’