Chapter 104
The Omniscient Parents’ Perspective episode featuring Seo Si-yeon and Kim Seol became quite the national sensation.
In contrast to the criticism in online communities and elsewhere that Kim Seol’s segment was boring, both girls’ segments actually attracted considerable interest.
First of all, Kim Seol naturally draws people’s attention simply by existing.
She is a member of Blooming, which has recently risen to become one of Korea’s top bands, and at the same time the daughter of a Nobel Prize–winning literary giant.
Naturally, people were enormously interested in her private life.
In return for that attention, Kim Seol went all-out with her spending and showed everyone exactly what life as a young lady was like.
Everyone in Korea already knew Kim Seol was rich and born with a silver spoon in her mouth, so everyone knew pretending to be frugal would only get her criticized. She had simply committed fully to the young-lady image.
And that sort of behavior actually appealed to some viewers.
Seo Si-yeon’s veiled daily life also drew people’s attention, and various clips were cut up and spread across the internet as short-form content.
Naturally, the person who had been beside her also attracted attention.
“…Another stare.”
Thus, Kim Byeol had to suffer the karmic consequences of foolishly volunteering to appear on television in full.
For an entire week, she ran into dozens of people recognizing her on the street and had to endure strange gazes following her on her way to and from school.
And whenever she went to school, Seo Si-yeon would giggle and make fun of her predicament.
“Pfft… Think of it as a week-long celebrity experience. The buzz will die down soon anyway.”
“Huh? R-right now, with this whole mess…”
“People forget faster than you’d think. Especially these days.”
Seo Si-yeon paused to choose her words, then opened her mouth with a slightly sheepish air.
“The episode airing tomorrow will probably steal all the attention from every other issue.”
Until then, Kim Byeol had no idea what she meant.
But only after the episode aired the following day did she realize what Seo Si-yeon had been talking about.
* * *
In fact, the band called Blooming has a structure that is not merely quite unique, but downright bizarre.
To begin with, in modern-day Korea, a band gets its songs from someone else?
That alone was enough to spawn a faction that refused to recognize them as a band.
On top of that, every member of Blooming is a beautiful girl, while Bluesky Entertainment is an agency specializing in cultivating idols, not an indie label.
As a result, unlike ordinary bands, Blooming never went through a period of building a foundation in the indie scene, and the company’s way of promoting them was closer to that of an idol group than a band.
Consequently, Blooming occupied a very ambiguous position among band fans.
It was true that Blooming had been sparking a band boom.
Thanks to them, the indie bands those fans loved were gaining popularity and appearing on TV, and it was also true that audiences at band festivals were expected to grow because of Blooming.
They weren’t fools, either; they knew that Blooming’s existence was lifting the entire scene.
Nevertheless, there was one cruel reality they simply couldn’t stomach…
-A band that doesn’t write its own songs, never came up through the indie scene, and is only above average at live performances is a top band??
It was the reality that Blooming itself was Korea’s top band.
They simply couldn’t accept that Blooming was several times—no, dozens of times—more popular than the skilled, story-rich bands they loved.
-Honestly, people in bands should be grateful to Blooming and Seo Si-yeon, for real.
↳If it weren’t for these two, there’d be no band boom or anything, and it probably would’ve remained their own little culture like before lol
What’s more, the internet was full of comments and posts designed to provoke them, and it was only natural that Blooming—already unpopular to begin with—became even more disliked.
Naturally, Seo Si-yeon and Blooming were aware of this phenomenon as well.
At its core, Blooming was a band.
It was true that they had the character of an idol band, but that didn’t mean they could completely ignore what the old hands of the band scene were saying.
That was why Kim Seol had taken full control of lyric writing and started writing the lyrics for every song last year.
Naturally, people responded favorably.
After all, there was meaning in participating in the creative process in itself.
In particular, many people were captivated by the narrative of Blooming, a band that was steadily growing.
Even so, many people remained angry.
They continued to point out that the members still couldn’t compose their own music, insisting that a band like this wasn’t a real band.
It had been several months since everyone had agreed that they should ignore those people, since they would criticize Blooming no matter what they did.
At the same time, it had also been several months since Blooming had stopped promoting.
Noiris was an idol act, so it followed my and Lee Ha-jun’s direction completely, but Blooming was different.
Considering that Yoo Seol-ha, the company owner’s daughter, was a member in the first place, it was more accurate to say that the company didn’t even have the power to force them to promote.
So until Blooming said they wanted to make a comeback, they were effectively being left alone.
In that situation, each member pursued whatever solo activities they wanted or took time to rest.
Still, in the meantime, someone had learned something for the sake of the band.
“…Well?”
This time, it was Jo Na-eun who had done so.
She was someone I could occasionally see at the company, but apparently, without my knowing, she had continued finding a teacher through Park Han-su and learning composition.
“…You really didn’t have to go that far.”
Well, maybe it had been bothering her.
She was at an age when she couldn’t help being sensitive to online opinion.
Even without crawling into online communities, people still went back and forth arguing about Blooming on social media like Instagram.
It would be a lie to say she hadn’t been bothered at all.
Even so, I didn’t think she needed to go as far as learning composition… did she?
“Give it a listen.”
I quietly stared at the earphones lying in front of me.
If she had made it herself and brought it all the way to me, she must have been confident in the song.
It was at least good enough that she wasn’t embarrassed to show it to me.
By now, Jo Na-eun and the members of Blooming knew that I was fairly demanding when it came to music.
“I’ll give it a listen.”
The entire process was being captured on camera.
It had originally just been a light observational variety show, but an unexpected event had suddenly occurred, changing the story somewhat.
Only then did I understand why Kim Seol had so suddenly suggested filming an observational program with me.
She must have already finished talking things over with every member of Blooming.
The plan must have been to capture this entire process on camera and air it on the show.
As if to prove it, the song began with Yoo Seol-ha’s vocals and Kim Seol’s lyrics from the very start.
The reaction they wanted from me in this situation was obvious.
A little admiration and praise.
And if they released an album centered around this song afterward… its sales and chart performance, at least, would surely be guaranteed.
That was probably what they were aiming for by showing it to me like this.
I gently closed my eyes and focused on the song’s progression and melodic structure.
It was clear from the arrangement that she had built solid fundamentals by studying for a long time.
The overall mood suited Yoo Seol-ha’s vocals, while the instruments were arranged with precision to bring out each member’s individual character.
However, the awkwardness in the basic harmonic structure stood out, and the song’s composition clearly revealed that she wasn’t adept at using electronic instruments other than the band’s own.
Yoo Seol-ha’s vocals did conceal that flaw, but… the song was too underdeveloped to release as it was.
“It’s not very good.”
Jo Na-eun’s body trembled at my one remark.
It really wasn’t very good.
Still, it was bad in a way that could be fixed and put to use.
That was a blessing in disguise.
“Still, the idea definitely stands out. It’s also obvious that you wrote it for Blooming in many ways…”
Blooming was, to begin with, a band that couldn’t create music on its own.
The fact that they had brought in their first halfway decent original song was meaningful enough, and there was no question that we had to find some way to use it.
“I’ll arrange it for you.”
When making music, composition and arrangement are often handled separately.
I was skilled at arranging as well, so I had composed and arranged songs on my own, but there were plenty of cases where that wasn’t so.
From the perspective of arranger Seo Si-yeon, the song Jo Na-eun had brought was good enough to be salvaged through arrangement.
“R-really? Then I passed?”
“It’s excellent for a first attempt. Still, I’m a little hurt…”
“Huh? Wh-why?”
“You could have learned from me, so why did you go somewhere else to study?”
That really did hurt a little.
I was right here, so why had she gone to learn from someone else?
“U-Uncle Han-su said you’re not supposed to learn from some genius punk…”
“……”
Should I take that as a compliment?
Well, how was I supposed to take it?
One thing was certain: I needed to pay Park Han-su a visit sometime soon.