Become A Music Monster Overnight! [EN]: Chapter 75

Music Monster Overnight! Episode 66

They wouldn’t have been able to bring them in at all if YC Entertainment hadn’t made Blue Rose such a huge success.

In fact, it would have been difficult to even talk to them if the members of Blue Rose hadn’t been in the same situation as they were in the past.

“…It doesn’t work out the way I want it to.”

Youngchan felt frustrated, but on the other hand, he understood their choice.

They had gone through too much to dream of becoming idols again.

At least in the case of Good Night, who were in a similar situation, the president was dedicated. But the representatives of Hello and Lucky Girl weren’t much different from the entertainment presidents Youngchan had in mind.

They tried to save every penny that went into the kids and even pushed them into events like nightclub performances.

They said they sang more trot medleys [a genre of Korean pop music] than their own songs when they were active, so you could understand their situation.

They didn’t even have proper managers, so they must have suffered from all sorts of difficult customers.

But they couldn’t refuse such unreasonable instructions from their representatives.

They knew that even if they made money like this, it would be a drop in the bucket compared to the money the entertainment president had lost.

Like the kids, the president was also a victim who jumped into this industry without knowing anything and lost his assets by getting caught up here and there.

More people than you might think jumped into this industry in this way.

They suddenly jump in without knowing anything about music or the entertainment industry.

It’s not that hard to understand, because unlike in the past, there are now many places that provide consulting services.

In short, if you just give them money, they’ll pick out songs for you and professionally manage your trainees.

The problem is that even if you meet a good contractor and have a decent appearance, it’s not easy to succeed. And the bigger problem is that there are too many scammers in this industry.

They take money from them by showing off their plausible SNS [Social Networking Service] or business cards, or their past experience of just dipping their toes in the water.

If you take a step back while saying “uh oh,” you’ll be scammed out of something ridiculous. Even those who jumped into this industry with a considerable amount of wealth will quickly find themselves in debt.

By the time they realize they’ve been scammed, the scammer has already disappeared, or they’re stuck in a nasty contract and there’s no answer but endless civil lawsuits.

There was a reason why they made their children do such terrible things.

They had no choice because their livelihood was at stake.

Even then, Hello and Lucky Girl weren’t in a very bad situation.

Hello’s contract was naturally terminated during the corporate bankruptcy process, and Lucky Girl’s representative fled overseas altogether.

Even the nightclub scene was so competitive that even that work was cut off, and they ran away because they couldn’t stand the pressure from their creditors.

It’s absurd, but more entertainment contracts end like this than you might think.

Anyway, along with Aria, the two youngest members of Lucky Girl and Hello joined YC Entertainment.

Like Blue Rose, there were six of them.

But unlike Blue Rose, YC Entertainment had no intention of debuting them like this.

“They will debut next year with talent selected through a contest for promising Japanese idol hopefuls.”

There are two advantages to this decision within the company.

One is that they don’t have to compete with Korean idols, who are now over-saturated.

It was more likely to succeed by jumping into Japan, which is still a blue ocean [an untapped market].

The second advantage is that they can create a big buzz in Japan from before their debut through this contest.

Since they plan to increase the proportion of Japanese people, if they can put a Japanese girl group image on them, including Koreans, to some extent, it will be difficult not to succeed.

Japan used to look down on Korea, but even though they try to deny it, they have a lot of feelings like inferiority about K-pop.

In that situation, if a promising Japanese girl group like K-pop appeared, they would definitely push it.

In fact, that’s why they expanded the Japanese branch so much.

Since they would have to spend a lot of time working in Japan, the six new members focused on improving their Japanese, as well as their dancing and singing skills.

“We need to maximize our skills. If that’s difficult, we need to make even the performance aspects flashy so that there are no behind-the-scenes stories.”

One side had fought hard to get to where they were, while the other side hadn’t, so they had to show something to convince them.

Otherwise, regardless of how well they get along internally, it will be a mess externally.

In the worst case, they may have to debut with only Japanese kids.

Fortunately, the six members who joined didn’t have to worry too much about this.

Kim Yuji, who naturally became the leader, was virtually an ideally complete idol.

If you were to rate her, she would be A+A+A+.

Triple A+, even Aria, who has the most outstanding potential in Blue Rose, didn’t reach this level.

The other five are not comparable to Kim Yuji, but they have specs that are no less than those of any top idol.

It would be strange if people were talking about it.

“Still, it would be good to prepare a stage that only they can run to give a strong impression.”

As the saying goes, “seeing is believing,” it’s better to show them once than to tell them a hundred times.

So, through a stage that can highlight their skills, they will show how good it is for the Japanese girls who have passed the final audition to join this team.

They needed a song that would leave a strong impression, but it wasn’t difficult for Youngchan to work on such a song.

In fact, it’s not difficult to work persuasively to match the unique concept of idols, but if it’s just about creating music that gives a strong impression that you’ll think is great the moment you hear it, it’s as easy as blowing your nose for him now.

“This is our song.”

Kim Yuji, who temporarily became the leader of New Daze, didn’t know what to do after listening to the song she received from YC.

The moment she heard it, she knew.

This song was going to be a huge hit, the kind that happens maybe once a year.

She especially liked the fact that it was full of girl-crush elements that have been popular among girl groups recently.

Since the song itself was like that, it wasn’t that difficult to create a dance that matched the song.

Since it was a song suitable for showing a girl-crush performance, there were no parts that they had to refrain from as a girl group.

The person in charge of creating the dance for this song left Kim Yuji’s solo dance part entirely to her.

Section Chief Lee Jiwoo was puzzled by this choice, but she understood the reason after hearing it.

“Kim Yuji has too much talent to be stereotyped. Maybe she’ll break through the wall in the process of thinking about this.”

In other words, just as Aria is looking at S- in singing, Kim Yuji has the potential to rise to S- in dancing.

“…I really didn’t understand it at first.”

He was very negative when Youngchan said he was going to bring in failed idols from the third tier again after Blue Rose.

It overlapped with the narrative aspects of Blue Rose, and he also thought that there was a reason why idols had failed.

It was no different with Good Night and Baby Fox.

Of course, when he learned about their potential, he thought they were really unlucky cases.

“But I was wrong again this time.”

However, his negative thoughts changed in the process of bringing them in.

Like he felt with the kids from Blue Rose, they were all gems with so much potential that he couldn’t understand how they had failed.

“It’s going to be crazy next year when these kids show up.”

Japan was still not easy, but Section Chief Lee Jiwoo was so confident that she thought it would be strange if they didn’t succeed with them.

While preparing for this project, Youngchan has been interviewing many people recently.

It was a step for a full-scale entry into the United States.

To do that, they had to create a US branch, but the problem is that the Korean entertainment model is illegal in the United States.

This was a law created to prevent a structure in which a small number of entertainment companies would monopolize the market, as in Korea and Japan.

That’s why even top stars who are recognized in Hollywood knock on the doors of countless auditions through agencies and gradually rise from extras.

It is a completely different market from Korea, where entertainment companies discover talent, train them for a long time, and push them to be cast.

Stars who succeed in this way hire tax accountants, managers, lawyers, etc. with their own money.

Unlike the acting industry, the recording industry is a little different.

Unlike Korea, which consists of numerous producers and distributors, a small number of large companies such as ‘Universal Music Group (UMG)’, ‘Sony/BMG’, ‘EMI’, and ‘Warner Music Group’ have strong competitiveness, and the eight major companies, including those mentioned above, account for about 80% of the total industry sales.

The profitability of each company was in the discovery of new talent, their promotion and marketing, and the sale of recordings of titles already owned by the studio.

Major record labels sign record deals with numerous singers and invest heavily in concert tours and marketing and promotion through various media each time new albums and new singers are released.

However, the profit model through new albums is always risky, so they often replace profits with sales of past hit albums, which have already proven their sales power and require less marketing costs, rather than producing new albums.

If 80% is like that, the remaining 20% is occupied by small companies called Indies [independent record labels].

They focus on specific market segments or some genres of music.

That’s because the aforementioned large companies have almost all of the marketing and distribution.

However, this structure is changing due to the development of media.

CDs are being sold through discount retailers such as ‘Best Buy’ and internet retailers such as ‘Amazon.com’.

Digital distribution via the internet is also growing at a tremendous rate, and the existing distribution methods and industrial structure are changing at this point in time.

As evidence of this, unexpected success routes have been created as media such as YouTube and SNS [Social Networking Service] have developed.

In fact, there are many people in the United States who enjoy K-pop in this way, although it is only a small part.

What’s more?

Before the craze, the singer of 00 style, a star born from YouTube, whose number of views has not yet been broken, was very famous.

Anyway, Youngchan was well aware that this was a turbulent time, and in fact, he seized this time with amazing luck in his imprinted memories.

And the beginning of that luck was thanks to the agent who first discovered his potential.

“Finally, I get to meet you. My name is Taylor. It’s an honor to meet you.”

Taylor was a middle-aged American with an impressive long brown beard.

He had been on a roll at Universal Music Group, but one day he suddenly decided to resign.

And he created an indie company named Taylor after himself.

It was an agency specializing in rock, which has recently become a minority in the United States.

He succeeded in growing it into a fairly promising indie company in just a few years.

In fact, his eye for talent and connections were at a great level, and he even raised a band to send to Universal Music Group in less than 10 years.

Thanks to this, he didn’t make a lot of money, but he was still able to run an indie company.

It was at this time that Youngchan made an offer to acquire Taylor’s company.

At first, Taylor was negative about this headhunting.

He wouldn’t have left Universal Music Group in the first place if he had wanted money. He was reluctant to have the music market monopolized by large entertainment companies.

He purely loved music and was reluctant to have Taylor, whom he had raised, be tied to capital again.

However, the fact that Youngchan wanted Taylor himself, not the company, and that he later came across Black Tiger’s music, immediately changed his mind.

His first mini-album showed the essence of traditional rock music, which is now hard to find even in the United States.

In particular, he went to find Youngchan’s video, who made the offer to him called YC, and he was completely knocked out.

“Oh, my God!”

He couldn’t help but find God in his solo guitar and piano skills that he showed in Japan.

But what really shocked him was what he learned later.

All of Black Tiger’s amazing songs that had left him speechless were all written by YC himself.

Of course, band music is often created by the band itself, but he was still surprised because the styles of the songs on the first mini-album were so different.

That meant that Youngchan’s spectrum of music was wider than common sense.