The Road To Glory [EN]: Chapter 421

# 42 WHO IS HALO? (Revised and Re-uploaded)

Halo leaned back on the sofa, crossed his legs, and stretched. His body ached from the long journey. His joints were still tingling, which his mother said might be due to his rapid growth.

*Well, having growing pains means I can grow even more in the future. Even if the process is uncomfortable and painful, I can endure it if it means I can grow.*

However, that doesn’t seem to apply to unpacking.

Halo looked at the suitcase with a reluctant expression.

The suitcase, carelessly tossed in front of the door, was still full of luggage. All he had unpacked was the guitar he had taken with him.

Halo kicked the suitcase and went into the room, sitting down in front of the computer.

*Should I start on the third album soon, or maybe a single first?* Since it’s not a song for a special occasion, he pondered the priority while checking his email.

Click. Scrolling down, the emails that had piled up during his trip formed a tower.

His music had been released on digital streaming platforms, so he knew they would know he had a distribution contract. Yet, emails from distributors still arrived, and, more importantly, offers from major record labels and management companies never ceased.

Distribution, production, and management are distinctly different areas, so it seemed like they were testing the waters.

He also received an email from the UK Copyright Office stating that his copyright registration was complete. Veil had persuaded him, as he had been relying on the Berne Convention [an international agreement governing copyright] and keeping the original only by registered mail. Although there isn’t a separate copyright registration system in the UK, registering is the recent trend for legal presumption. Of course, the standard for ‘recent’ was around the 2000s.

Once it’s done, Veil can handle the registration from then on, so he took care of it while he was in the UK.

Halo then checked the platform report sent by Veil. It showed the previous day’s music revenue, sales trends, and streaming trends for each platform.

On the first day of the music release.

Gradually, as time passed, the sluggish graph exploded upwards at some point. It was about three days after the music was released.

Suddenly, the comments section was flooded with [Hail the Sun] and various emoticons.

*I haven’t even made an announcement on the YouTube community yet, how did they find out?* Halo chuckled at the familiar faces. He figured he didn’t need to write a separate announcement.

Of course, there had been fights about this on the channel. He didn’t pay much attention because viewers often fought among themselves, but while he was enjoying his European trip, a firestorm erupted regarding this.

[Why are you doing YouTube if you’re not going to communicate?]

It was a comment left by someone who was dissatisfied with the lack of communication so far. But the fire was extinguished by 999+ dislikes and comment replies.

└ The Sun has always been silent.

└ Since ancient times, humans have sought the will of the heavens directly.

└ (This comment has been reported)

And back to the platform report, below the comments. A message that there wasn’t much time left.

And there was a comment that seemed to be written by August Veil.

-You’ll be meeting Billboard soon. How do you feel?

Halo put his arms behind his head.

Billboard Music Week? He’s been there so many times he’s sick of it.

He just figured he’d get there faster this time than before.

After checking the annoying tasks, Halo fiddled with his fingers and turned on the MIDI [Musical Instrument Digital Interface].

In the meantime, his phone vibrated.

The caller was,

“He’s still the same.”

Just a series of messages asking if he had arrived in Korea.

Halo swiped the message away.

He was about to close it after a quick glance since it wasn’t anything special, but Halo raised his eyebrows at the last sentence.

[···And I’m sorry]

Halo glanced at the computer screen at the sudden apology. There were no more messages after that.

He didn’t feel the need to ask Jang Jin-soo why. It’s not that he was going to ask his brothers instead of Jang Jin-soo.

He felt like he knew roughly why without asking.

The only reason Jang Jin-soo, who was constantly on TV, would suddenly apologize was one thing.

Halo fiddled with his fingers.

*He must have been eliminated.*

Halo typed ‘show your show 3′ into the search bar. Without searching for other names, all the information was summarized in articles.

He didn’t need to watch the videos to know what had happened and what the viewers’ reactions were.

“Hmm.”

It’s a bit complicated, but he was eliminated.

He got a lot of hate because of that complicated process.

Not only Jang Jin-soo but also his team, the mentor and mentee pair team, were getting hate together.

All of this started from the third episode of ‘Show your show,’ which aired while he was in England.

Around the time Jang Jin-soo’s song Showba Show started to gain momentum.

After announcing the second round of qualifiers in the second episode, they introduced the next competition.

It was a 1:1 competition in the style of ‘You’re Up’ [a competition format where contestants challenge each other].

Jang Jin-soo was the center of attention at the time, so he received ‘You’re Up’ from many people and faced off against one of the championship contenders.

*Ah. So that’s why-.*

Halo suddenly remembered what Jang Jin-soo had said in front of the elevator.

-Hey, Noh Halo. You don’t have to help me anymore.

-I’ll try to do it myself even if it’s hard.

He was probably about to film the third episode at that time.

If he lost in the repechage [a second-chance competition], it would be completely over. He had told him with the determination to accept whatever the outcome was in Soyou, which he wanted to go to so badly.

He vaguely knew something had happened, but now he completely understood. It was different from Jang Jin-soo, who ran out after receiving ‘not good’ feedback.

He realized that calling adolescence a period of growth doesn’t just refer to the physical.

And Jang Jin-soo’s ‘growth’ was revealed in the third repechage. Jang Jin-soo’s skills had noticeably improved, and all the judges acknowledged his growth.

However, other people didn’t stay in the same place either.

Jang Jin-soo had climbed many steps, but he was eliminated by a single rank difference. Everyone acknowledged that he did well, and Jang Jin-soo cried and thanked them, leading to a beautiful ending.

That’s how it should have been.

The final ending of the third episode was not Jang Jin-soo’s tearful farewell but producer Hwang Je-il’s wildcard [a special privilege to save a contestant].

I don’t know what would have happened if the result had been different, but in the end. Since he was eliminated from the competition, Jang Jin-soo was getting hate that he didn’t even need to get.

Suddenly.

*He’s living a life with ups and downs too.*

That’s what he thought.

#

Billboard Chart.

The ‘Billboard Chart,’ which makes someone’s heart race and whose existence everyone knows, was first published in 1936 and has maintained its credibility for over 60 years.

Now, it has become the most popular and credible chart in the world, and the goal of popular music around the world.

Of course, this chart was also embroiled in controversy over its reliability around 2020, but it still has the most powerful influence.

Even in such a Billboard chart, there were two main charts: the ‘Billboard Hot 100,’ which ranks the most popular songs each week, and the ‘Billboard 200,’ which measures physical album sales and album downloads.

Among these, I’d like to talk more about the ‘Billboard Hot 100.’

The Billboard Hot 100, as I’ve already said, ranks the most hit songs of the week.

What is the standard for ‘hit?’

As times changed, Billboard rankings could no longer divide the criteria for popularity solely by physical album or music download volume. With the advent of YouTube, music streaming, etc., everyone was enjoying music without having to own it.

Therefore, Billboard tallies not only music downloads and physical album sales but also the number of streams, YouTube/audio views, and radio airplay.

In fact, anyone who knows these criteria will know the results without having to look at Billboard. That’s because YouTube views and music streaming are visible to everyone.

In particular, for music streaming and download indicators, you only needed to go into digital streaming platforms in the United States to see the rankings.

A blogger who is very interested in Billboard recently observed a suspicious movement on Spotify.

Two albums from the UK, the English-speaking world, and Europe were rising in the rankings suspiciously.

But it wasn’t by a famous singer. He had only seen the name, which consisted of four letters, in science magazines.

The same was true for featuring.

And it wasn’t an album from a major record label like Universal. The cover was typical of an indie album. A personal album made by an artist not affiliated with a production company or record label.

VEIL, a reputable distributor in the European market, was only in charge of distribution.

VEIL wasn’t that class, but he couldn’t help but be suspicious.

He turned on his blog and started typing.

[WHO IS HALO?]

#

Halo clutched his head.

The MIDI program was in front of him, and the songs for the third album, which he was trying to finish in January, were half-finished.

After that, he fiddled with it for about thirty minutes and then gave up.

He knew he had to do it, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it.

It wasn’t that he was excited about Billboard or the charts. If he had been, he would have looked for good songs to listen to and changed the mood.

Well, he’s not at an age to be fussing about Billboard.

However, the reason he couldn’t bring himself to do it was.

First, he didn’t like the session sounds that would go into the third album.

In fact, this was a problem that would happen someday. As much as he chose MIDI instead of session men, no matter how good the digital session is, it couldn’t be exactly the same as a live performance.

Still, this part could be solved. Revenue settlement from YouTube and Subak had begun. It was a matter of finding a digital session he liked or finding an actual session.

So this wasn’t going to be a problem.

Halo tapped his foot.

He just wasn’t having fun.

Going to Billboard was good.

He was happy that his songs were still loved even though the world had changed.

But, on the other hand, he thought it was natural, so it was becoming less fun. As he always said, he wanted to be evaluated with new songs, not songs that had already been evaluated.

He said he would finish up to the 13th album within two years, but when he actually tried to do it, he wondered, *When will it end?* He had that thought for no reason.

Especially that got worse as time went by and as he left his mark on the world.

The distant future that he had never experienced.

From the music that beautifully adorns this world

To the re-experience of his almost forgotten school days

And the music called ‘rap,’ family, which he had only been aware of.

And···.

Even his hometown gave off a heterogeneous feeling, like a reflection in a mirror. Just as the him in the mirror never raises the same hand.

Maybe he had too much fun traveling.

The inspiration from all these experiences filled his head. Even when he took out a few to discharge them, they were so greedy that they weren’t satisfied with just being taken out.

Even the melodies he would leave as exercises forever insist on being released to the world.

So he can’t bring himself to work on the third album.

He knows that if he does it quickly, he can do more fun things sooner.

*Should I upload another song to YouTube?*

Just as he was thinking that.

An email came.

It was from Veil.

He had already received the daily report, so he didn’t think there would be anything else to come, but the email contained something different than expected.

The gist of it was that they would take legal action against speculative articles, so don’t worry about it and just work.

“Article?”

Halo raised his eyebrows.

His life has always been close to articles.

Whether in a good way or a bad way.

So it wasn’t anything new, but he was curious. Since he hadn’t created any special controversy yet, he was personally curious about what kind of article was written. The email told him not to look it up, but he wasn’t the type to get hurt.

It wasn’t difficult to find the article.

When he came to his YouTube channel, where fights always broke out, someone had even written down the address bar.

[WHO IS HALO?]

Just looking at the title, it was something that happened every day in his comment section. But as he scrolled down the article (original, blog), he realized why Veil was going to take legal action directly.

Perhaps conscious of legal action, they didn’t directly say ‘chart manipulation’ towards the singer HALO, but they said it was an unusual rise in the rankings,

Right below, they mentioned recent manipulation issues. So that anyone could be suspicious.

“It’s nothing.”

He thought they had really guessed his identity.

Well, even his fans who listen to his music from the beginning to the end of the day can’t guess his identity, so how could they guess it?

Halo turned off the article and went back to the comments.

He thought Veil would take care of it, so he turned off his interest. He was about to close YouTube as well.

Suddenly, one comment reply caught Halo’s eye.

He doesn’t know how one comment reply in the midst of the chaos was visible, but it was visible.

Well, it might have been more visible because of the ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes.’

The content itself was from a viewer who was inferring and praising Halo’s identity, like other comment replies.

However, what bothered him more than that article was.

└He is also white:)

And he’s white:)

In some ways, it’s a simple inference,

And the reason it received a ‘dislike’ terror was because it was a racist remark.

Well, I don’t know if this person is really a racist. Given that his music retains the feel of old Britpop, he might have guessed it by chance. More than 80% of the people living in the UK are white.

But he can’t help but be bothered.

Halo’s lips pouted.

“If I’m not white. Won’t you listen to me?”