Damn Idol Episode 25
* * *
Chris Edwards always thought of himself as a lucky person.
That's how life has been so far.
Opportunities came to me even when I didn't really want them, and if I grabbed that opportunity, something good happened.
It was luck that he, who thought he would live in Denmark for the rest of his life, ended up going to England to study, and it was also luck that his roommate was a guitarist in a fairly famous band.
To go back a little further, I was lucky to have learned piano from my grandfather, who was a children's song composer.
Those fortunes gradually came together and I became a composer.
His roommate's band sang a song he made to seduce women, which made him popular and caught the attention of a promoter.
Needless to say, after arriving in the U.S., we achieved success on Billboard.
However, I felt like nothing was working these days.
The song he worked so hard to create was not good enough, and the promotion of his new song was completely ruined due to political issues in the United States that had nothing to do with him.
After achieving success, my personal and business relationships began to fray, and troublesome things kept happening.
Until now, in situations like this, something always happened and my life started to relax... ... .
I guess not this time.
"Alex, I need to take a vacation."
"Again? You went there not too long ago, right?"
"Not a fake vacation that sticks to schedule. A real vacation."
The manager shrugged and turned the laptop screen he was looking at towards Chris.
"Check this out before going to the airline's website."
"What?"
"This came from a Korean broadcasting station. Is this the song you composed? This is my first time hearing it."
"Korea?"
Chris Edwards had a pretty good image of Korea.
I was captivated by the eloquence of a Korean director I met by chance at an awards ceremony, and impulsively accepted the position of film music director, which was a huge hit.
'I was lucky.'
Especially considering that it was an awards ceremony that I couldn't attend due to my original schedule.
"What song is it? Movie music?"
"no. Kpop."
"K-pop?"
As Chris Edwards tilted his head, the manager played the video.
Korean girls are singing on the laptop screen... ... .
It's the first song I've ever heard.
"This is the song I composed?"
"I heard that's true?"
"What nonsense. I have this code progression... ... ."
But Chris paused without finishing his sentence.
The song of vague quality that plays on the laptop was not created by him.
But I feel like I've heard it before somewhere.
To be more precise, the overall development centered around the highlight melody was familiar.
"Wait a minute, wait a minute."
Chris pulls his laptop closer and starts to focus on the song, but he's still confused.
But the moment I went back to the song's intro to listen to it again, I realized it.
A song that uses the flute as the main instrument and starts with a cold and impersonal melody.
This is a song I composed.
With that confidence as a starting point, he remembered when he made this song and who he sold it to.
I even remembered the working title I had used when composing the song.
<Norway Flower>.
This was a song I composed after seeing flowers blooming among the snow in the extremely cold northern part of Norway.
"that's right. This is a song I made. But why did they change it this way?"
"That's right? Then it's a breach of contract. Does it make sense that there are songs that your agent doesn't know about?"
"No, No. This is a song written by Pele Jörgensen, not Chris Edwards."
Pelle Jörgensen was Chris Edwards' real name.
However, management, who thought that an unfamiliar Danish name would be a negative on Billboard, suggested the stage name 'Chris Edward', and now he is using it almost as if it were his real name.
"I needed money, so I participated in a song camp. But I wasn't good at composing, so I released a song I had written before. It's a Norwegian flower."
"What did you do with the contract? Are you still receiving copyright revenue?"
"I think it was sold as a sellout? Was it ten thousand dollars?"
"You sold the song for only ten thousand dollars?"
"It was a huge amount of money at the time. At that time, there was no one looking for me and I had no money."
"How many years ago is this?"
"Five years? 6 years? I think that's about it."
"Your skills weren't that great back then. The song is so-so."
Chris Edwards got angry at the manager's words.
"What are you talking about. The original song wasn't like that."
"then?"
"That was a song written from the beginning for a male singer. To be honest, I thought it would be nice to get into Hong Kong noir films."
"Jackie Chan?"
"Whatever happened, it wasn't like that. Who touched the musical scale so ignorantly? What is the singer's name?"
"Way From Flower. The track title is Flowers Bloom."
Manager Alex, who was lost in thought for a moment after listening to Chris Edward's story, operated his laptop.
Then, he showed another screen to Chris Edward.
In the frozen screen, a white-skinned boy was standing holding a microphone.
"Then how about this?"
"What is this? Is this my song again?"
"Yeah."
"I don't remember selling any other songs besides Norwegian Flower?"
"well. This is your song."
Chris shrugged and played the frozen screen.
Then, the same intro centered on the flute heard earlier played.
'what? It's the same song, right?'
I wondered if they were showing a cover song, but I focused on the video.
I had trust in Alex because he was a competent manager and a promoter who helped me achieve success on Billboard.
At that moment, the song began to change.
The intro obviously started the same, but the scale was lowered significantly at the beginning.
I think it was lowered by about 8 degrees... ... .
good to hear.
But this wasn't the end.
The scale of two measures changed again.
I'm not listening through a monitoring headset, so I'm not sure exactly, but it's around 11 semitones.
After that, the scale changes again, and then the scale suddenly rises again.
I think it's probably the scale of the song Flowers Bloom, and it's fun to see the boy's song soaring up to the tune.
So Chris Edwards concentrated on the boy's song in the video.
I like it all.
The only thing I don't like is whether there's a need to dance, but when you think about it, that's surprising.
At first glance, it is a live performance without any AR, but more than 80% of the live performance is performed while dancing.
I think he left about 20% empty with the intention of not singing it at all if he had to sing it clumsily... ... .
The point selection is no joke.
He knows exactly where to create blank space so that the listeners feel comfortable.
"wow."
When the song ended, Chris Edwards couldn't help but clap.
"I feel amazing talent. How old is this friend? No, what else does he do? Is he a singer like Korea's Bieber? What is this song? Is this the original song and the girls covered it?"
"calm down. Calm down and watch the interview this Korean boy did."
"Are there subtitles?"
"They sent me both English and Danish subtitles."
"It's serious. It seems like they know me well."
I have a feeling that something is being planned by a Korean broadcasting station whose name I don't yet know.
"Let's watch the English version. So we can watch it together."
"Good."
-I think this was its original form.
-Flower's Bloom would have been a song for male vocalists in the early stages of composition. Perhaps the singer was chosen during the production process and changed to fit a female vocalist?
-So I don't think I changed anything, I just sang the original version.
The manager who saw the interview subtitles asked in a subdued voice.
"I already saw this interview. And I thought it was bullshit... ... . Looking at your reaction, I guess it's bullshit, right?"
"That's bullshit."
"huh?"
Norwegian Flower is a song written for male vocals.
It seems correct that the company that purchased the song changed it for female vocals.
The manager tilted his head at Chris Edward's words.
"Then it's all true, right?"
"You're wrong about the most important thing."
The song that the Korean boy created by touching the scale is not the original version he created.
The feeling itself is similar.
The development that expands around the main melody is similar, and the intention of which melody is used for which expression is also similar.
Even the intended dissonant scale from the interlude to the chorus was used in the same way.
but... ... .
The levels are different.
At that time, I didn't have the skills to make a song like that.
"That's not the song I composed, it's the ideal form I imagined while composing it."
Just because you don't have the skills doesn't mean you lack imagination about the outcome.
It's just that you can't actually output the amazing sound that's stuck in your head.
The song the Korean boy sang was something that only existed in his head.
The song he actually composed was worse than that one.
It was ridiculous.
Listen to a song with the vocalist's gender changed, guess its original form, and then sing it in its ideal form?
Is this possible just through talent?
"But I heard that a boy named Sion only touched the notes and didn't arrange them?"
"Sion? Is his name Sion?"
"Yeah."
"It's a name that goes well with the tone."
"Can you please answer me?"
"Oh yeah. He touched the scale, but he didn't arrange it. So there are some awkward sections in between. But Sion clearly finished arranging it in his head. He sang along to it."
"How do you know that?"
"Don't you know it when you hear it?"
While listening to the song, I could naturally hear the final form of the song drawn by the boy named Sion.
It's definitely a great song, and great talent.
He is clearly a genius.
Meanwhile, Alex was scratching his head.
Chris thinks he got this far because he was lucky, but Alex doesn't think so.
Chris is also a great genius.
However, most of the opportunities for demonstrating his genius came from external stimuli.
like now.
"Hmm hmm-."
Chris, who had been humming and composing a melody for a while, got up from his seat.
"Vacation is canceled."
"Are you planning to go to Korea?"
"Yeah. I need to meet a boy named Sion right now."
Chris Edwards thought he had luck again this time.
I even thought that the reason things weren't going well recently was because I was supposed to meet a boy named Sion.
If the composition was going well and the promotion was going well, there would be no way I would have been watching this video.
"What are you going to do when you meet? Give him a song? Or collaboration?"
"I don't know."
"No purpose?"
Chris Edward grinned at Alex's question.
"When you meet a genius, anything happens."
After Chris said that and left the hotel room, Alex laughed.
What's the point of leaving the room if you're not going to Korea right now?
Alex thought about that and looked at Sion in the still image.
To be honest, he didn't feel the genius in this song that Chris admired.
But he believes Chris Edwards' assessment.
"Oh, that's right. I'm going to forward an email now. Try communicating with the sender broadcasting station. What do you want to do with Chris, and how much are you willing to give?"
If something happens when a genius meets a genius, management's job is to turn that into money.
And Alex was one of the most talented people in a very large management company called HR Corporation.
"Instead, never give a definite answer. Just with the nuance of approaching it out of curiosity."
—