Damn Idol Episode 97
Chris Edward quickly skimmed through the track names, but they were all ordinary titles.
Things like Forever, Wood, and Man in the dangerous.
“What is this?”
-They’re songs I made while thinking of certain people.
“Who? Don’t tell me your girlfriend?”
-Don’t say such horrifying things. One of them was made while thinking of you.
“Oh, shit. So what am I supposed to do? Give you feedback?”
-No.
Han Sion’s request that followed was strange.
-I’d like you to play those songs for the people who inspired them.
“Who are the people who inspired them?”
-You’ll know when you hear them, won’t you? There has to be at least that much fun.
“What if I guess wrong?”
-Then that means I made the song wrong.
There was strong confidence and conviction in his words.
As far as Chris Edward knew, Asians were supposed to be shy, but Han Sion was a little different.
Well, with that level of talent, it would be stranger for him to be shy.
In the end, Chris Edward nodded, feeling a deep curiosity.
“Okay. Hang up. I need to listen to the songs.”
-Wait. I still have something to say.
“Let’s talk about that after I properly figure out who the owners of the songs are.”
After hanging up, he was about to put on his work headset when he paused.
Given that Han Sion had used the phrase “the people who inspired them,” there was a high chance these were songs where the emotional aspect mattered more than the technical side.
Turning on the desktop connected to his speakers, he checked the track information.
None of the tracks were very long.
The shortest was 58 seconds.
The longest was 1 minute and 21 seconds.
It was true that modern music was trending shorter and shorter, but they were still far too short to be considered complete songs.
By then, the desktop had finished booting.
As Chris Edward listened to the first track, Forever, a strange expression came over his face.
He knew the moment he heard it.
‘……
This is my song.’
Rather than a song, it would be more accurate to call it a source for a song.
Because ideas for what kind of song he could make with this source were surging through his mind like mad.
But he could not understand why it felt that way.
Even though he was certain it had been written for him, and inspiration was gushing forth uncontrollably.
In the end, Chris Edward gave up worrying over it and moved on to track two.
Track two. Wood.
About thirty seconds in, Chris Edward looked utterly dumbfounded.
‘This is Lucid Bean playing it himself!’
It had to be a song composed and performed by Lucid Bean, the leading figure of funk.
If not, there was no way it could carry Lucid Bean’s distinctive soul-funk scent this strongly.
But Chris Edward owned every one of Lucid Bean’s albums.
Unless Han Sion had hacked Lucid Bean’s computer, this was a song composed by Han Sion.
And yet there was something odd.
Lucid Bean was a singer-songwriter famous for using his own face as the cover art for his albums.
In an interview at some point, he had said it was because he wanted to show his aging face together with his aging music.
He wanted to be remembered not as a rock star who had burned hot for one fleeting moment, but as a musician who had faded away with the passage of time.
That was why the cover art of his recent album featured his face, now in his late fifties, smiling brightly.
The album title was <50th> as well.
Here was where the strange part occurred.
Chris Edward had definitely listened to Lucid Bean’s recent music, and he had seen the recent cover art.
He could not even remember the last time he had played one of the albums Lucid Bean had released in his youth.
And yet, while listening to Wood, the young Lucid Bean came to mind.
It was not that he could recall the old cover art from his hazy memories with perfect clarity, but that was the image he got.
The same phenomenon occurred with track three.
‘Jankos Greenwood.’
As he listened to track three, Man in the dangerous, he thought of Jankos Greenwood, the living embodiment of pop jazz.
But this time, too, it was a young face.
Even though he did not even know what Jankos Greenwood had looked like in his youth.
“……”
After listening to all eight tracks, Chris Edward immediately called Han Sion.
-How was it?
“The first one was me, right?”
-That’s right.
“The others were Lucid Bean, Jankos Greenwood, Moskos, Eric Scott, Roots Robby, Mary Jones. I’m a bit unsure about the last one, but Donald McGus?”
-Correct. But why were you unsure about the last one?
“I couldn’t picture his younger days.”
-Ah, right. McGus’s music barely changed between when he was young and now. He’s an incredible man. The god of blues.
Through Han Sion’s words, Chris Edward confirmed that his guess had been correct.
Han Sion had expressed the younger days of the deeply rooted giants of the music world.
How? Why? For what purpose?
There was so much he wanted to ask, but he could not decide what to ask first.
In the end, Chris Edward decided to get more hints.
“How should I deliver them?”
-Just let them hear them naturally. But I need one childish story to go with it.
“What is it?”
-Say that some young musician became you in a dream. So as soon as he woke up, he recorded what he had been excitedly playing in the dream, but after that, he couldn’t compose anything beyond it no matter what.
“What do you want as the end result?”
-I want them to make songs using these sources.
“And you’ll sing them?”
-I’ll arrange and sing the Korean versions. Tell them to do whatever they want with the versions in their native languages. They can hand it over to HR if they want.
“So, co-composition?”
-Of course.
“What, are you planning to conquer the world with music or something?”
-With this? No way. I’m just selling a bit of nostalgia, that’s all. Except for Roots Robby, they’re all stars from back in the day, aren’t they?
“What are you talking about? Jankos Greenwood’s latest album is number one on Billboard.”
-It’s not the Album 200, is it? Isn’t it number one on the jazz chart?
Chris Edward laughed out of sheer disbelief.
No matter how much the jazz chart might be a minor chart compared to the Hot 100 or Album 200, among its kind, it was still a major chart.
Han Sion was taking it far too lightly.
What was even more absurd was that this attitude did not feel strange.
-Don’t take it too seriously. Just pass them along casually.
But Chris Edward absolutely did not take it casually.
Perhaps some of these songs could even be nominated for a main category at the Grammy Awards.
That was how good the songs were.
Though it would depend on how the musicians handled these sources.
‘Wait, then what about me?’
How should he handle the song Forever that Han Sion had given him?
The source was clear, but the production had too much freedom.
First, he had to decide on a genre, and he had to redo the instrument selection and placement as well.
It was not exactly sampling, but it meant he would have to go through the process of retaking it.
At that moment, goosebumps rose on Chris Edward’s skin.
He had realized the meaning of the eight tracks Han Sion had made.
“Don’t tell me these are the inspirations from their younger days?”
-Yeah, that’s right.
They said that when soccer players reached their mid-thirties, they thought this way.
Now I finally understand what soccer is, but my body can’t keep up.
How wonderful it would have been if I had known this when I was young.
Musicians were the same.
In their rookie days, they were immature, but they burned hot.
They did not know how to make proper music, nor how to control inspiration.
They simply advanced with a blazing, scorching flame like the sun.
But heat did not last forever, and one day, it cooled.
That was why older musicians longed for the inspiration that had once burned hot enough to sear them.
Now I finally understand what music is, but my inspiration has run out.
If I could only regain the heat of my younger days, I could make an incredible song.
But an adult who had become proficient at everything could not imitate a boy’s fresh, clumsy recklessness.
And yet now.
Han Sion was trying to share that very thing.
“……
How is this even possible?”
-Because I listened to those people’s music and learned from it.
“Then what about my track? What am I? Is this how my childhood feels to other people too?”
-No. Yours was written with a feeling from the future, so you’d grow up a little.
“The future?”
-If you like it, don’t nitpick this and that. Just use it.
Yes, Han Sion was right.
If good music had been born, then he had to use it.
There was no need to dissect it with the logic of reason.
The musicians who received these songs would probably make the same decision as he had soon enough.
Once he made up his mind like that, a mischievous streak came over Chris Edward.
“But you know, these people are huge stars, and they’re rich. Wouldn’t it be too much work for me to deliver these songs to them?”
-Really?
“I’ll have to travel all over the United States. How are you going to compensate me for that?”
-Hmm. I guess I’ll contact Alex, then. In exchange, the first track gets scrapped.
“What? Hey!”
In the end, Chris Edward failed to even break even and promised that he would make it happen.
It was true that Han Sion’s request was an unreasonable one.
But not now.
Chris Edward was working on a project with HBO, a kind of documentary shoot.
It was a format where musicians of the current generation and musicians of the previous generation gathered and held conversations.
So meeting the people Han Sion had requested would not be difficult.
But what was a little strange was that this HBO project was a secret.
Even to Han Sion, he had only said that he had to return to the United States because of a project, without revealing what it was.
‘He definitely seems to know.’
But soon, Chris Edward shook his head.
It did not matter either way.
What mattered were the results this music would create.
Though it had begun with Han Sion’s request, his own heart had started to pound as well.
Chris Edward rose from his seat and checked his schedule, his eyes gleaming.
In two days, he would meet Jankos Greenwood.
How would the living master of pop jazz hear Han Sion’s music?
Would he, too, be made to recall his younger days?
* * *
Choe Sehui, whose main fandom was Drop Out and whose side fandom was Sedalbaegil, had been feeling contradictory emotions lately.
First of all, she was extremely happy.
Because Drop Out’s single was smashing every record with phenomenal results.
Music that sent chills down her spine the moment she heard it.
A music video that fit the song perfectly.
And Drop Out, god-given idols themselves, who pulled it off.
It was a perfect trinity.
So she was truly happy.
Even more so because the NOP fans who had been spouting nonsense about Drop Out being washed up were shutting their mouths.
But on the other hand, she also felt unhappy.
Because Sedalbaegil had been eliminated from Coming Up Next.
Of course, the old hands in the idol scene had more or less accepted Take Scene’s victory as a foregone conclusion.
There was an enormous amount of evidence that Take Scene was preparing for debut.
So the elimination itself was not something to be upset about.
What Choe Sehui was truly upset about was that Sedalbaegil had evaporated afterward.
As soon as Coming Up Next ended, Sedalbaegil could not be found in any article, any media outlet, or any content.
They had even disappeared from the indie scene where they had been active for about two weeks.
‘They’ve definitely been blacklisted.’
They had fallen out of Choe Daeho’s favor.
She did not know what had happened.
That was why Choe Sehui had been desperately waiting for six o’clock today.
Because the Han Sion episode of
When she first saw the teaser video, she was taken aback, but she also thought it was actually a relief.
The fact that he was appearing on the hottest YouTube content meant that his future activities had not been completely blocked.
On top of that…….
‘Considering the nature of the program, they’ll ask sensitive questions without hesitation.’
There might be clues that would allow her to guess what kind of situation Han Sion and Sedalbaegil were in.
And as time passed, the moment the clock pointed to 18:00.
The video was released.