Damn Idol - Chapter 154



Only Noblemtl

Fucking Idol Episode 154

* * *

Yeom Seong-hun was an ordinary man in his fifties.

I’m always fantasizing about being pressured by an incompetent boss, being beaten by a capable junior, and quitting the company…

“Ugh.”

He was an ordinary father who spent his days eating pork belly and soju, thinking of his family.

When I was young, I was a young man with many dreams who hung out with friends and challenged myself with different things, but it’s all just a memory.

Because the person in the mirror was a middle-aged man with a balding head and a potbelly.

Yeom Seong-hun entered the house, feeling unfamiliar with himself for suddenly having such thoughts.

It’s a shame that he doesn’t have much conversation with his teenage daughter, but his wife and daughter are his everything.

“came?”

“What about Joohee?”

“Were you listening to music in your room?”

“okay?”

I was thinking of stopping by my daughter’s room, but I decided to just wash up and come out.

But his daughter was waiting for him in the living room.

“dad.”

“why?”

“Do you know these people?”

“These people?”

What my daughter handed me was a CD case.

“Is it an album?”

“Touch gently!”

“What are you talking about? But who do you know?”

“The people written here.”

Inside the CD case that my daughter carefully opened, there was something like a booklet with credits written on it.

“uh?”

But the name written in the credits is a bit strange.

Eric Scott, Jankos Greenwood, Moscos… … .

Aren’t the names of the heroes who decorated his youth written all over it?

Of course, there were some names I didn’t know, but most of them were very famous musicians.

At first I thought he just wrote down musicians he respected, but when I think about it, that can’t be right.

Isn’t it credit?

‘Is that it? You’re using the melody?’

Seonghun Yeom, who knew the concept but did not know the word sampling, thought about it, but his daughter added to the conversation.

“I heard that the musicians who co-composed the song are really famous people from the past. I was wondering if you knew about it.”

“This is a joint composition?”

“huh.”

“how?”

“huh?”

If it’s just one person, that might be possible.

As far as Yeom Seong-hun knows, idols these days invest a lot of money.

So, the company might pay a lot of money to hire one of the masters.

But not one, but eight.

Moreover, the four that Yeom Seong-hun knows exactly are legendary musicians who shook up American popular music when he was in his 20s.

Of the remaining four, I also know the names of two of them.

“Who is this, three months and one hundred days?”

“You know, Dad. Under the streetlight.”

“Oh, them?”

“huh.”

“What, are they the sons of politicians? No, they can’t become politicians. Then they’re the second generation of a conglomerate?”

This was all my poor imagination could come up with, but I didn’t have to imagine it.

Because the daughter saw her father’s eyes widen in surprise and started explaining excitedly.

Yeom Seong-hun was surprised once again as he listened to the story.

Everyone in the world has a time when they were young.

Although he is now a middle-aged man with a dim gaze, he also had a shining time.

Yeom Seong-hun was in a band before he enlisted in the military.

It wasn’t a job, it was a hobby.

At that time, it was called a group sound rather than a band, and Korean music was always minor.

How envious of Japanese bands making it onto Billboard and spreading city pop that borrowed the image of Tokyo?

After I finished my military service and got a job, I became distant from music, and after I got married, I completely forgot about it… … .

I became curious when I saw the names of the heroes that filled my youth.

“How do I listen to this? Can I listen to it on my computer?”

I asked because we don’t have a CD player at home, but my daughter brought the CD player from her room.

“What is this?”

“It was in the album goods.”

“Goods?”

“If you buy the album, you get it with it.”

“This? How much is the album?”

“Thirty-five thousand won.”

If you only buy the album, it may seem a bit expensive, but if you think that it comes with a CDP, it seems cheap.

Although it is unknown to Yeom Seong-hun, the standard version of Se-dal-baek-il’s first regular album was 13,000 won.

The standard version includes a booklet, album, two photocards, and a lyric booklet.

The limited edition version costs 35,000 won and includes the standard configuration as well as an unreleased photocard and photo album.

And a CD player is even added.

So, not only fans, but also those who bought the Sedalbaekil album without joining the fan club all bought the limited edition.

I’m not interested in unreleased photocards or photo books, but I do covet the CD player.

At first, the prevailing opinion was that they would provide cheap Chinese-made machines, but after seeing the album Kang that Sedalbaekil released on YouTube, such talk disappeared.

It had a clean design in deep blue, and the manufacturer was a small to medium-sized company famous for its audio equipment in Korea.

People wondered if Sedalbaekil had any intention of making money, but from Han Si-on’s perspective, it was a kind of long-cherished project.

He was a man who was desperate to provide CD players to every household in the country.

I was a person who wanted to provide 1 CDP per household as part of national welfare at my own expense, if the government would only allow it.

However, Yeom Seong-hun did not know this fact, and started listening to the album “Sedal Baekil” from early evening on the CDP he received from his daughter.

And then I was moved.

The music of the heroes he loved can be felt everywhere.

Track 1 with the same title as the album.

The moment I heard the enchanting guitar sound that announced the introduction of the song, a curly-haired white man smoking a cigarette came to mind.

Eric Scott.

A man whose name is never left out when talking about the top 3 guitarists or the top 5 guitarists.

An idol of guitarists who are evaluated to have brought solo guitar performance to an unrivaled level.

He may be in his 60s now, but in Yeom Seong-hun’s mind, Eric Scott was always in his 30s.

But Yeom Seong-hun was just as surprised when he heard the guitar in the following song.

This was the introduction of Koo Tae-hwan, who is receiving positive reviews for his performance in this album.

‘what?’

When you’re around Yeom Seong-hun’s age, you don’t necessarily have any prejudice against idols.

People who know the truth say that idols are products manufactured in a factory, and that their vocals are molded through repeated training.

Yeom Seong-hun doesn’t even know about such things, so he doesn’t even have any prejudice.

But the prejudice he had was about the level of Korean music.

When Led Zeppelin played, Korea couldn’t escape the karaoke sound.

When Eric Scott paralyzed Wembley Stadium with his guitar solos, Korean guitar and bass couldn’t escape from expressing rhythm.

Of course, this is a somewhat biased personal opinion.

Because there were some exceptionally talented musicians in Korea too.

This prejudice may have come from the correction of memories of one’s youth when it was incredibly bright.

Because music filled Yeom Seong-hun’s 20s.

That’s why it was even more surprising.

Eric Scott, Moscos, Jankos Greenwood… … .

They are all being used as devices.

They are not the center of the music.

The center of the music was the idol group called Sedalbaekil.

Yeom Seong-hun listened to the album “Sedal Baekil” like that, and when he tried to listen to it one more time, his wife scolded him and he put the CDP down.

Asking how I’m going to go to work tomorrow.

In his dream, he was in his twenties and on stage.

The next morning.

I borrowed the CDP from my daughter and listened to the album again on the subway to work.

At the company he arrived at, Yeom Seong-hun happened to be talking about yesterday.

And then I was surprised.

“I liked Keith Richards better than Eric Scott.”

“Didn’t Keith Richards ride the wave of fame of the Rolling Stones?”

“Hey, boss. What nonsense are you talking about? Keith Richards is a genius.”

“But the guitar is Eric Scott.”

“Isn’t Eric Clapton the epitome of slowness?”

“Ha, this reminds me of the old days. There used to be a teahouse in Dongmyo that played the Billboard charts on a vinyl record… … .”

He wasn’t the only one who idolized musicians of that era.

His colleagues of similar age were all similar.

These were people who had been away from cultural life for a long time, but I had forgotten about them.

“I guess I’ll have to ask my son.”

“You can listen to it directly on YouTube.”

“How do you do that?”

And so lunch time ended.

The next day, most people just talked about it, but the manager really listened to the album.

And then he showered me with compliments until my mouth was watering.

What is corporate life?

It is best to do things together with your superiors as much as possible.

Unless you particularly hate it.

And Yeom Seong-hun witnessed several people buying the album.

I also witnessed people enjoying having something to talk about with their children.

To Han Si-on, the masters of Billboard were nothing special.

These are people I have met countless times while going through countless regressions and have worked with countless times.

So, the reason why we did a joint composition with the masters was simply to gather attention.

I’ve overcome it now, but when I was making the album, it needed to be an issue for three months and a hundred days.

A huge issue that can overcome the pressure of the maximum level.

But the masters familiar to Han Si-on were, for some, a glimpse of their most brilliant moments.

It allowed us to vividly witness those times from which we can never return.

Like the time travel that appears in the world of 3 Months and 100 Days.

And so quietly the album began to sell out.

There were no hot issues.

Because people in their 40s and 60s only acted and didn’t speak.

But it is recorded.

The first edition of Sedalbaekil sold 220,000 copies.

In the second week, sales did not decrease due to a rush of reviews from Billboard’s biggest names.

There were many people in Korea who bought the album late, and group buying also took off overseas.

The sales record for the second week was a whopping 340,000 copies.

It was rare for second week sales to exceed initial sales.

That’s why people thought that album sales would drop dramatically in the third week of Sedalbaekil.

But it wasn’t.

Overseas buyers who reacted to the issue late and the silent purchasing power of the 40-60 generation were added.

Sales for the third week were again 220,000 copies.

Total sales through the 3rd week were 780,000 copies.

From Han Shion’s perspective, it’s not a great record… … .

[The power of pure music! Will Sedalbaekil’s first regular album surpass the 1 million mark?]

[The first regular album, 3 months and 100 days, has established itself as an album to listen to with children.]

[Dads’ wallets open to the music of heroes in their memories.]

In the meantime, Se Dal Baek Il took first place on all three public music broadcasts.

When the situation became like this, some planning companies moved quickly.

They believed that the way Sedalbaekil, or rather Hanshion, recruited Billboard’s giants was not pure music.

This world isn’t one that operates so innocently, and there must definitely be some kind of backroom dealings going on.

But this was a mistake on the part of South Korean entertainment agencies.

The masters are not as pure as they think.

But because they made so much money and had so much fame, they were able to become rather pure in their musical choices.

The masters’ answer was simple.

[Send music.]

But those who sent the music received no response.

The only one who answered was Donald McGrath.

[Isn’t this a worse melody development than the one I made when I was 10?]

All I heard was a scolding.

* * *

No matter how the world goes, musicians must maintain their center.

The most important thing is to be realistic.

Our music has been ringing in South Korea for three weeks now, but we shouldn’t get drunk.

Once released, music has a life of its own.

Nothing you do to it will make the music any better.

There is only one way to make better music.

Making the next album.

While I was thinking about that, PD Kang Seok-woo opened his mouth.

Now, it was finally the M Show’s entertainment meeting where the format was decided.

“The theme of this program is a healing and busking trip. I think I’ll go to Spain.”

“yes.”

“But this is part 2, and part 1 will be filmed in Korea.”

Part 1?

“You have to earn money to travel domestically. Depending on the money, it will either be a super luxurious healing trip or a super cheap and boring trip.”

“Are you saying that it’s like a mission?”

“No. I need to make real money, not money given by the broadcasting station. I need to hide my identity as Sedalbaegil, and only with music.”