Damn Idol Episode 96-?????????????????-???????? Is this edited??
-I thought someone was messing around when it popped up in my algorithm.... But it’s the official channel lololol-No, what the hell, why is Han Sion appearing here? What kind of questions is he planning to answer??-lololololololol what is this? What crime did Han Sion commit?
-The crime of stealing my heart.
-I’m seriously flustered, but am I the only one expecting this to be hilarious?
-Money matters more than the fans’ love lolololol of course it’s money lolol-I’ve been waiting so damn long for Han Sion’s first variety show.... This really isn’t it....-lololol this should be fun. Watching idols fall apart is my hobby lolol-What questions do you predict?
-Which member of Sedalbaegil do you think is the worst!-lololololol Do you think Take Scene’s victory was justified?!-lololololololol my foresight just leveled up.
The overall reaction was basically, “Why is this real?”
As in, why the hell is this real?
For reference, “why is this real” wasn’t something Choi Jaeseong taught me.
I already knew that one.
Judging by how fast the comments were piling up, it seemed the viewers found my appearance really unexpected too.
Well, it wasn’t as if a perfectly normal person had ever appeared on Downfall Detector before.
In any case, I liked that it seemed to have grabbed attention.
Just then, Lee Ion put down his smartphone and tapped my shoulder.
“Sion, did you maybe answer something wrong?”
“No. I didn’t.”
“Not even one? Were they all lies?”
“If you put it that way, there were a few……. But I deliberately worded them so they’d look wrong.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll know when you watch the broadcast. It’s only two days away anyway.”
“But one thing is strange. Why did Ryan leave Downfall Detector alone?”
Unless I was Choi Daeho, I couldn’t know the answer to Gu Taehwan’s question.
But there were two most likely possibilities.
“Two?”
“First, Choi Daeho’s influence didn’t work.”
Because it was the ultimate last resort celebrities floundering in the abyss chose.
On top of that, the very fact that someone had fallen into the abyss meant they had originally been a famous celebrity.
When unknown celebrities caused trouble, the public either didn’t know or didn’t remember.
Naturally, the casting difficulty had to be enormous.
Of course, there had once been a time when Downfall Detector cast unknown celebrities and filmed content in order to lower the casting difficulty.
But those videos all failed miserably.
If people didn’t know who it was, they weren’t interested. That was the format of this program.
Given the situation, there was a chance the production team had ignored Choi Daeho’s pressure.
You had to make sure your own stomach wasn’t hungry before you could care about someone else’s circumstances.
Jo Taehun had said something similar too.
“For us, casting was bleak, so we blew off what Daeho hyung said……. But it won’t be easy for other programs.”
But because I had the feeling Jo Taehun had sounded me out at Choi Daeho’s request, I couldn’t say that for certain.
“Then what’s the second?”
“Choi Daeho might’ve watched the Downfall Detector recording and okayed it.”
“Why?”
“Because he thought I really might fall into the abyss.”
I had definitely dodged most of the questions well.
But in a few parts, I gave answers the public might take sensitively.
“To me, they were intentional answers. But in Choi Daeho’s eyes, they might have looked like a one-way ticket to downfall.”
“……
What kind of question was it?”
Hmm.
Originally, I hadn’t planned on telling even the members until the video was released.
Because I wanted to see their fresh reactions.
But with them this immersed, it seemed like telling them now might be fine too.
“I’ll tell you exactly what the MC asked. With things like this, the flow of conversation leading up to the question is important.”
“Okay. Uh, no. Actually, just ask me the exact same question instead.”
“Should I?”
At Lee Ion’s words, I cleared my throat and recalled Jo Taehun’s voice.
“Mr. Lee Ion. You’re an idol group member, correct?”
“Oh, what? Was that a Jo Taehun impression? It’s really similar.”
At Choi Jaeseong’s words, I shrugged.
I was someone who had experimented with my voice in every possible way.
Right now, there was a tone I ultimately pursued, and I tuned my voice to match it.
But it hadn’t been that long since I’d become this way.
I think I decided on it back before GOTM, when I had pop punk and soul funk as my main weapons.
After hearing advice from Lucid Bean, the number one figure in funk.
Anyway, for someone like me, who had experimented so much with vocal tone, impressions weren’t that difficult.
As long as the vocal range was similar.
Since I was at it, I showed the members something fun.
“I’m Choi Jaeseong.”
“Oh, what.”
“I’m Gu Taehwan. I’ll work hard.”
“Oh!”
Choi Jaeseong and Gu Taehwan, whose basic tones were closer to low-mid, were easy to imitate very closely.
Ion hyung’s tone was strange, so I couldn’t imitate him, and On Saemiro’s basic tone was high, so it didn’t suit me.
“Sion.”
“Yes?”
“Could you stop joking around and do Downfall Detector?”
“Ah, yes.”
He was kind of like a strict kindergarten teacher today.
“Mr. Lee Ion. You’re an idol group member, correct?”
“Yes. I’m a member of Sedalbaegil.”
“Then, among other boy groups, which team do you like the most?”
“I basically respect all of our seniors, but when I was young, I watched Once and nurtured my dream.”
Once?
Once was the idol group Blue had belonged to.
They were a really old group.
“Then which team do you currently think is the number one boy group?”
“…….”
Lee Ion’s eyes shook violently.
If he reacted like that to a question of just this level, Lee Ion definitely shouldn’t go on Downfall Detector.
But soon, Lee Ion regained his composure and gave a plausible answer.
“Being number one is inevitably subjective, but based on objective indicators at the present moment, I think Drop Out is number one. Because they’re first on the music charts.”
“Oh, appropriate.”
“We’d have to see what the lie detector says, but if it’s true, I think that’s pretty good.”
The members gave their overall assessments of Lee Ion’s answer.
For reference, I gave a similar answer.
But this much was probably within the MCs’ expectations.
Because Drop Out had been number one when we filmed too.
“Next week, NOP is making their comeback, so for the first time in a while, the two top boy groups will clash.”
“……
No way?”
Lee Ion seemed to have predicted the question that would follow.
“When the two teams go up against each other, which team do you want to win?”
“…….”
Drop Out and NOP were, in name and reality, South Korea’s top two boy groups.
As such, they had huge fandoms, and there were also many fights between the fandoms.
When Drop Out hadn’t been active for a while, NOP fans worked tremendously hard to frame Drop Out as has-beens.
That was how wary NOP fans were of Drop Out, and how much Drop Out fans despised NOP.
In other words, it was an answer a rookie idol group wouldn’t dare give.
In fact, even the side asking the question would get cursed for it.
“Pass, you have one pass!”
Lee Ion shouted, but no chance.
“I used the pass somewhere else.”
“Somewhere else? There was a question more sensitive and dangerous than this?”
“Yes. There was.”
“…….”
“Your answer?”
“……
I can’t do it. No, I can do it here. But how would I do that on a broadcast?”
Choi Jaeseong, who had been quietly listening beside us, asked with a serious face.
“What did you say, Sion hyung?”
My answer was simple.
“NOP.”
“……
What about the explanation? You must have made an excuse.”
“I didn’t do anything like that.”
“……
We’re finished. Ryan Entertainment might at least get tired. But there’s no way Drop Out fans ever will.”
Dark clouds settled over the faces of all the members except me.
It seemed they were imagining Sedalbaegil’s despair route in their heads.
But it wasn’t as if I had given that answer for no reason.
And I wasn’t trying to get mentioned in articles by drawing aggro from every direction either.
“Actually…….”
When I told the members about my plan, their expressions changed moment by moment.
Shock, admiration, worry, and so on.
All kinds of emotions mixed together.
“Will that work?”
“It might not be as clean as I’m thinking. But it’ll still have an effect.”
If whack-a-mole were free, all the moles would be battered to pieces.
Because people would hit them whenever they were bored.
But in reality, it wasn’t like that.
Because you had to pay a cost to play the game.
What I was about to do from now on was the same.
If Choi Daeho wanted to hit us, I would make him pay a cost.
If that cost grew too great, Choi Daeho would give up on attacking Sedalbaegil.
Because he was a businessman.
But when that time came, the opposite would happen.
I—no, we—would hit Ryan Entertainment.
At this point, Choi Daeho couldn’t even imagine it, but all he had done was start the game.
I was the one who would end it.
And I was someone who had played games like this for a very long time, and with great skill.
Not only in Korea, but in America too.
* * *
For Chris Edward, meeting Han Sion in Korea was the most shocking thing that had happened since he found success on Billboard.
It wasn’t only because Han Sion was good.
Of course, Han Sion was good.
But if asked whether there were no musicians greater than Han Sion, of course that wasn’t the case.
Yankos Greenwood, living pop jazz itself.
Lucid Bean, the number one figure in funk.
Roots Robbie, the reggae musician called the second Bob Marley.
Relax, who handled electronic music more stylishly than anyone in the world.
Eric Scott, the living embodiment of the guitar…….
Aside from them, there were many others who had astonished Chris Edward, and if he included those who had already died, Han Sion’s ranking would fall even lower.
But they were masters of a single field.
People who had dug endlessly into one genre until they naturally became legends.
In other words, rather than saying they made music aimed at popularity, it was more fitting to say they made music and the public became entranced.
Even Eric Scott, whom Chris Edward liked the most, hadn’t been a member of a top-tier band during the age of rock.
If anything, he was a guitarist whose true value had been recognized after the age of rock had faded.
Han Sion, however, was a little different.
At first, Chris Edward hadn’t known the difference between Han Sion and other musicians either.
He had merely sensed instinctively that something was different.
But after spending time with him, he came to understand.
Han Sion was someone who knew how to create exactly what the public liked.
He never said it out loud, but when Chris Edward heard
Because the instant he heard the first riff of the first bar, he thought, “Ah, I should have done it that way.”
The reason that thought came to him was that Han Sion didn’t use difficult skills.
He simply placed the necessary notes and created the most pleasant sound to listen to.
But songwriters who had tried to intentionally create a hit song would know that this was harder than anything else in the world.
Hit songs were almost never born intentionally.
You simply poured in inspiration, and the public happened to like it.
But Han Sion could intentionally create a hit song.
‘How is that possible?’
Chris Edward still couldn’t understand Han Sion’s ability.
So even while working on a project with HBO, he tried to uncover Han Sion’s secret.
Then Han Sion contacted him.
Along with eight tracks he said he had composed not long ago.