The Idol Who Returned from Hell – Chapter 89

Author: Dawn

“My throat hurts.”

“Go to sleep after drinking the honey water I made you yesterday.”

“It still hurts even after drinking it.”

Chae Ha-ru let out a big yawn while rubbing his throat.

The honey water I made him didn’t seem to have much effect either.

Well, he screamed so much yesterday during Silent Scream.

If honey water alone could cure it right away, everyone would be using honey water as a cure-all potion.

Today was finally a day without reality filming.

However, for CENTIX who hadn’t debuted yet, there was no such thing as a day off.

“I’m looking forward to what kind of songs will come out.”

“It’s progressing surprisingly fast! Amazing!”

“I’m finally starting to feel it now, that we’re really debuting.”

As could be seen from Seong-hwi, Yu Ha-woon, and Ma Si-hyeok’s words.

Today was the day we were going to meet with the A&R team to listen to our debut song candidates.

The younger line looked full of anticipation, but Kang Seon-woo and I, who were slowly following behind, maintained quite stern expressions.

“There should be at least one decent one, right?”

“I think as long as they don’t mention self-production, we’ll be fine.”

“Come on, they wouldn’t dump everything on us from the very first release, would they?”

Last night, Kang Seon-woo and I had roughly predicted what the candidate songs might be before going to sleep.

There was one ‘hopeful route’ that both of us had suggested in common.

Concept and choreography? Not that important.

The debut song is truly CENTIX’s first impression that gets imprinted on the public.

No matter how solid the concept is and how expansive the worldview, if the song is too hard to listen to, everything becomes completely meaningless.

So the most accessible song to listen to.

A style that had already been shown through 〈ISL 2〉 and received quite good reviews from people.

Easy to consume and simple to sing along to—we picked deep house genre or dance pop genre as strong candidates.

“Just setting everything else aside, I hope they don’t force some weird concept on us.”

“I completely agree with that.”

Most idol groups coming out recently bring very complex worldviews.

From superhumans who came from space to artificial intelligence.

They establish worldviews with an extremely wide spectrum and clearly divide public opinion into likes and dislikes.

My thoughts on worldviews were… do we really need to do this?

Well-crafted worldviews stimulate fans’ desire to explore and actively encourage secondary creations, giving marketing a boost.

However, this is only possible when that idol’s agency puts several years into constructing the worldview.

Poorly researched worldviews end up being quietly abandoned after fans even call them cringeworthy.

If we apply CENTIX’s situation here, the answer becomes very clear.

And fortunately, Kang Seon-woo was on the same page as me.

“Honestly, I’m fine with worldviews and all that stuff. But we’re not a group that was conceived and selected by one agency over a long time. In the end, Rave also has to look at our image and pick songs, then decide on a concept within a short time. It’s obvious this won’t be enough time to produce good quality.”

“What’s gotten into you, saying proper things continuously?”

“Hey, even though my neighborhood punching bag image was half-forced, I’m pretty smart, you know.”

But no matter how much we two were making these predictions, the other guys’ opinions were also essential.

‘I just hope they don’t give us definitive notification-style announcements at today’s meeting.’

With high probability, the younger guys might just believe whatever Rave says at face value.

While moving to the main office tower, I quietly made a resolution in my heart to ‘cut it off immediately if it seems too excessive.’

After entering the conference room and exchanging greetings with the waiting A&R team representatives, we took our seats.

“Um, first let me tell you about the concept we were thinking of.”

The person who appeared to be team leader level started explaining while putting up a PowerPoint on the screen.

“The group name CENTIX itself contains the word Century, meaning 100 years, right? So we thought about expanding the worldview in this direction, and came up with the concept of ‘6 heroes who came from different times’ gathering in one place.”

“I see…”

I unconsciously turned my head to exchange glances with Kang Seon-woo.

‘We’re screwed from the start.’

“So matching this concept of ‘heroes who traveled through time,’ we thought about doing costumes like this…”

I had hoped that getting much more investment money would make them show a better appearance than before.

Instead, having even more capital became poison, as these crazy agency bastards came bearing a completely unreasonable concept.

No matter how diverse worldviews have appeared in the idol industry, this kind of outdated hero concept would obviously get hit with the triple combo of ‘cringeworthy,’ ‘old-fashioned,’ and ‘what story are they trying to force’ and go straight to failure.

While I was looking at the PowerPoint slides with coldly narrowed eyes, the A&R team leader ambitiously revealed even the debut candidate songs.

“Heroes should have powerful beats, don’t you think?”

The 3 candidate songs they played for us were all composed of powerful beats.

One was EDM modified from rock.

Another was a dance song utilizing trap beats.

And the last was EDM explosively packed with bass beats and synthesizers.

I chewed my lips after listening to the songs.

‘The songs themselves aren’t bad… but I get a strong feeling they picked the songs after already deciding on our concept. Too intense.’

We finally managed to raise public recognition through 〈Idol Stove League Season 2〉 and got to debut.

If we come out with such over-the-top songs as our debut title, we’ll go straight to hell.

I accumulated things to say internally while waiting for the A&R team leader’s presentation to end.

“…That’s roughly the direction the company thought would be good. What are CENTIX’s opinions—?”

“If you don’t mind, may I share my opinion?”

When I immediately raised my hand, the members who had been listening to the concept presentation with blank expressions all turned their attention to me.

Let me tear this apart piece by piece.

“Using the meaning in our group name to construct a worldview was good. However, the ‘hero’ concept has already been criticized as cringeworthy in the idol world. Wasn’t it about a year ago? A group called Rahia came out with a superhero worldview and failed. Even though they were from a major agency, not a small one.”

“Ah…”

After returning from hell, it paid off that I had continuously studied the history of this Republic of Korea’s entertainment industry that I came to live in.

When the A&R team leader’s eyes widened as if he hadn’t thought of that, I calmly added my opinion.

“I don’t think the worldview itself is wrong. However, with idol groups pouring out exponentially right now, the public’s standards have become markedly higher than before. Unless it’s a song of considerable quality, it’s hard to get evaluated as ‘good to listen to.'”

“Mm, mm!”

“So what I personally felt was most important was ‘mainstream appeal.'”

When Kang Seon-woo nodded beside me, his silver hair faithfully reflected the light.

It was tremendous attention-stealing, but I ignored it and steadily continued my explanation.

“Didn’t we show high-quality stages to fans through the survival program? That built-up anticipation will naturally flow toward our debut title song. But if we select songs while thinking about this worldview, it might sound good only to some fans and create stark divisions in preference among the rest. If such a situation erupts, we could lose mainstream appeal and fall behind in album and music sales.”

“So Si-hwan’s opinion is that we should prioritize the song’s mainstream appeal and quality over the group’s concept?”

“Simply put, yes. Before concepts, presenting songs that are good to listen to is an idol’s inevitable duty, don’t you think?”

“Then you think the overall worldview should be scrapped—.”

“Let me say once more, I don’t think the worldview itself is wrong.”

When I, who had been talking about abandoning such elaborate worldviews entirely, said that line, the A&R team leader adjusted his glasses and tapped his laptop.

“Then what approach do you think would be better, Si-hwan?”

“If a worldview exists, it can create good synergy by giving fans one more thing to enjoy. But the problem is getting swallowed by that worldview so that the group’s mainstream image and songs become tiresome. There are many ways besides songs to indirectly convey our unique worldview to fans who like finding so-called ‘Easter eggs.'”

I internally sent thanks to the president of Black Hash Entertainment, who might be alive somewhere.

As a result of spending 6 years as a trainee, I had learned not only simple singing/dancing sessions but also this kind of A&R knowledge bit by bit.

Who knew it would be useful here.

“For example, you could put props that consistently appear in music videos so fans can assign meaning to them. Or instead of melodic parts that affect the overall atmosphere of the song, you could put it in lyrics where there’s high freedom. Rather than blatantly shoving ‘we are this concept’ in people’s faces, I think hiding it throughout the song unknowingly could be much more effective.”

“Ooh…”

“That definitely makes sense…”

After hearing my whole explanation, the A&R team leader kept exclaiming as if deeply impressed.

The staff sitting beside him also whispered to each other and slowly nodded.

On one hand, I was grateful they listened to my story without ignoring it, but I also wondered if people who majored in this field hadn’t thought of this.

‘Were only the higher-ups kept the same while lower staff were filled with experienced hires?’

“Listening to Si-hwan, it definitely seems better to let fans naturally infer rather than forcibly pushing the worldview.”

“I’m just grateful you listened to my opinion.”

“Mm, if we change direction like this, we’ll need to reset the title song candidates, won’t we?”

“Ah, about that.”

I spoke urgently.

If they scrap the currently prepared songs following my opinion, our debut schedule could be delayed.

No matter how tight I thought the one to one and a half month timeframe was, the fact remained that this was the last chance to utilize 〈ISL 2〉’s recognition.

So I had been watching the team leader’s presentation carefully and was confident in speaking up.

“Weren’t there more prepared tracks besides the 3 songs you played?”

“Ah, there are.”

Thank goodness.

When they opened the file to play songs, I remembered seeing at least 10 songs in there.

“Besides the 3 songs we played earlier, we made these as incomplete demos because we weren’t confident they’d make it to title track, but if you don’t mind, shall we listen to them?”

“Yes!”

“Then I’ll play number 1.”

We focused all our attention on the speakers.

Since they were demos, the songs were generally short.

They were made up to roughly the first chorus, so they were easy to listen to and pass.

Before we knew it, we had passed 7 songs, but there still wasn’t a track that gave us that right feeling.

“Hmm…”

“This one’s not good either.”

“Pass, pass!”

The other members were of one mind.

When the end of the file became visible, the A&R team leader spoke in an anxious tone.

“This is the eighth track now.”