Chapter 357

Chapter 357

Asking to pick up our schedule where we’d left off when it was already canceled was not an option, of course. Not only would it have inconvenienced a lot of people, in most cases the situation simply did not allow for such a thing.

As a result, our schedule on the first day that we resumed promotions was rather light. There were a handful of articles that our group had resumed activities after only two days, and that was all. The members were able to take part only in the items on our schedule arranged directly by the agency for that day, which made for a very easy-going day overall.

“Hmm. I guess I feel bad for and grateful to the staff at the agency,” Big Sejin said.

“Y-yeah. You’re right,” Ahyeon said.

Yeah. Even if we paid the cancellation fees and everything else, the sudden appearance of a problem on the artist’s side must have been quite troublesome. The agency had made itself useful this time around. I was grateful to the staff. There was an issue I was anticipating having to face, however.

This whole thing still probably caused a lot of complaints.

- I mean, come on. All of them taking a break during a promotional cycle because they are ill? This simply isn’t normal

- Someone’s gotten into trouble LOL. The nastier communities are already complaining

- There are some rumors going around that the college festival was moved to Wednesday because of TeSTAR. Then they fall sick the very next day? Pretty sus if you ask me

Big Sejin had been very quick to post to our social media, but it was clear what all the people who were already riled up from the All-Star Music incident would have said.

I’ll have to make handling that a priority. I had triggered the situation, after all, and it was essential that I helped deal with it. After brainstorming a few plans, I opened up my internet browser.

Huh? Surprisingly, I was not greeted with the mess that I had expected. Instead, the SongBoard rankings were the talk of the town, alongside news of our brief hiatus.

“Wow… I forgot about that.”

“Yes. I think they must have confused the movie soundtrack right before this one with the current title track,” Raebin said.

Gosh. They’re doing their best to be positive about this. They could’ve just said that my falling out with Ahyeon had caused a distraction. I shook my head and minimized the window.

First, the album chart, namely the SongBoard 200.

[8. <WEAPON for you> / New!]

We were in eighth place.

“Wow.”

“A-a single digit…?”

The members had learned our ranking pretty late because of the recent situation, and they seemed happy. In truth, this was actually a fairly predictable result. It wasn’t so rare nowadays for a K-pop boy group that was a bit well-known in the US to get fifth place in the album charts.

Even so, I’m really happy with this result. It was a sign that our chronic lackluster popularity overseas had been handled. There was something else we needed to consider, however—the song chart, or the Hot 100 chart.

[15. Savior / new!]

“…?”

“Whoa!”

Our song had landed in 15th place.

What? It might seem surprising that I was so taken aback when the rank was lower than our place on the album chart. But it was many times more difficult for a song in a foreign language to climb the ranks on this chart than it was for English songs. It required a level of popularity that offset the song being in a foreign language, or perhaps a fandom that was so big that such a handicap meant nothing at all.

I find this result rather strange. I expected to land somewhere in the thirties at best. In fact, the thirties would have been completely beyond us altogether if it hadn’t been for the movie soundtrack we’d made.

This is on par with our ranking on the Korean weekly music chart a few years ago when we released a performance focused song. I wasn’t sure what to think. Thanks to this, the internet’s reaction to our brief hiatus turned out something like the following.

- They were about to ride the wave, and their surfboard broke!

- If I was TSuns, I would be so upset right now

- They’re taking a break? I guess they really are ill. LOL

- Is this part of some kind of ruse so they can rush back to America?

They were convinced that we were actually sick because otherwise, it would be completely insane to take a break now of all times. What was more, people were coming up with conspiracy theories that suggested we actually wanted to return to promoting in the US as quickly as possible. As a result, all other nonsensical complaints and opinions were buried. This was a far better result than I’d expected, though I wasn’t quite sure what mechanism had driven this response.

“Is it supposed to be this easy?” Bae Sejin asked the American among us with distrustful eyes, apparently having done his research on WeTube.

Eugene was unable to answer this question. “I don’t know! I don’t follow the SongBoard charts much.”

“What do you follow?”

“Um, Dotify!”

“Dotify?”

It was a global music streaming site that was popular in the US.

Streaming, huh? Then it hit me.

“Oh.”

Right. I should’ve looked into how points are distributed. I immediately checked out the point ratios for the SongBoard chart.

Digital track sales, streaming indicators, on-air radio playtime…

“Hmm.”

We’ve gotten more playtime on the radio stations than expected. American radios probably didn’t play foreign-language songs all that often. Considering this, we’d gotten quite a few plays. It seemed that the agency had put its money where it counted. The digital track sales, driven by our fans, were our strongest category, of course.

The streaming results aren’t bad, either. In fact, our song had gotten almost the same amount of streaming traffic as other songs with a similar rank on the chart. This means…

“Eugene, do you have a Dotify account?” I asked.

“Yeah!”

“Let me see it.”

I accessed his smartphone and checked the rankings.

26th on the global chart. Considering that it had been released about two weeks ago, that sort of staying power was incredible. Then I checked the US chart.

[25. Savior / by TeSTAR]

“Wow! 25th!” Cha Eugene said.

It’s higher than on the global chart? This wasn’t normal, either. With K-pop songs, the global indicators were usually higher than the American ones.

“Moondae, how much longer are you going to use my phone?” Eugene asked.

“One second.” I used my phone to check fan accounts while continuing to use Cha Eugene’s to check the Dotify streaming ranking. I understood what was going on. “It’s a promotion algorithm.”

“A promotion algorithm? So it’s like an ad?”

“Yes,” I said. “It seems that people who listened to the movie soundtrack were also recommended this song.”

The recent TeSTAR title track had been recommended to listeners of “Black Hole” from Cosmic Gunner. It seemed that we had stumbled upon an advertising campaign through the algorithm.

This was really effective. Because the same person had composed both songs, the same group had sung them, and the samples were even similar in feel, people who had liked the first song were sure to like the second. This led to a natural boost in advertising. What was more, the reputation we had earned for ourselves by doing the movie cameo and our appearance on the American variety show were working in synergy.

We are unpredictable, easy-going, and completely random. Apparently, this had led people to interpret even undecipherable lyrics as a charming point in and of itself, cutting through the aversion they might have usually felt toward a foreign language song.

So, all in all…

“It looks like the agency did a great job this time around,” Chungwoo said.

“Yes.”

I couldn’t deny this. In fact, I felt like I could sense a familiar obsession with getting results in the American market. There was only one person who could be responsible for this.

“Here. Thanks,” I said, returning Eugene’s phone.

“Okay!”

I smacked my lips. There was a bitter taste in my mouth.

The director actually did a good job this time? It seemed there was something to be said for his obsession with business in the US. Or perhaps he had learned a thing or two through trial and error with Miry-nay.

This was good for us, but I felt pretty odd about it, perhaps because I had always assumed he was completely useless.

“Moondae, aren’t you going to get out of the van?” Big Sejin said.

“Hmm.”

I got out of the van at the location for our tour concept photo shoot, setting aside my thoughts. For now, I would concentrate on my work. Later, I would have to make a Dotify account for monitoring purposes.

Ignoring Eugene’s rambling, I made an American account that day. The very next day, I very quickly realized that it had been a great idea.

Our schedule had quickly grown more intense, and we had just returned to the dorm past midnight, completely fatigued. I sunk into the tub, trying to loosen my muscles.

[Hey, hey! Did you see this?]

I was checking my status window offhandedly when I noticed that Big Moon was typing away madly.

[A new girl group crashes the K-pop scene… Will Powty take over the SongBoard charts?]

[Youngrin’s agency backs new group Powty “Hope everyone enjoys the double title tracks!”]

[Powty targets the global digital charts. The next Youngrin is here]

I read through all the articles he’d sent to me and then forced myself to ask, “Double title tracks?”

[Yes…]

I accessed the account that I’d made for monitoring purposes and checked the rankings. New songs had just been added to the rankings.

[14. Love Soul / by Powty]

[17. Underwater / by Powty]

There were two songs, both ranked higher than twentieth place. I played one of them, which turned out to be a clean, trendy dance track.

Hey goody, do you want a…

It resembled a track that would be used in an advertisement and was very catchy. It was a bit predictable, but it was a nicely done bit of work that almost everyone would enjoy. I stopped playing the music and massaged my temples.

“No…”

F*ck.

What in the world is this?

[Uh… Teaser parodies that use both title tracks went completely viral on TicTacToe. It seems that people really like it in the US.]

While I was grateful for his explanation, the reason really didn’t matter right now. The problem was that these new idols had hit the jackpot in an unexpected way.

We’re f*cked. I considered what I was going for right now—namely, earning a K-pop record. There was a specific one that I was going for—having two songs high in ranking on the SongBoard Hot 100 chart. Obviously, I had chosen this because our movie soundtrack was sure to still be on the SongBoard charts.

Soundtracks tended to stay popular for quite a while since movies got a lot of long-term exposure from various audiences. I had believed that the goal was achievable if we could make our title track successful enough.

I did my research, and it seemed that not even VTIC achieved such a thing before. Their albums were their strong point, while their songs didn’t do quite as well in terms of mass appeal. The method I was going for was simply not economic, and so they hadn’t bothered trying it. They had their huge fandom willing to put all their firepower behind a single title track. I had believed this was our best chance.

This was supposed to be our breakthrough. With the exception of some long-standing more traditional ones, the public perception of a record tended to be the most important factor. Depending on how much or little the public acknowledged it, a record could become something very meaningful, or end up as nothing more than a lame attempt to make waves through the press.

Seeing the same artist’s name twice within the top twenty tracks was a meaningful achievement.

I’d had Big Moon give my plan his approval, of course.

“I think it’ll work! Cool! So you’ll be the first!”

I’d assumed that we had this in the bag. But now a new group had come along and done something similar. I began to think.

Unless something even more unexpected happens, this new group won’t have as many sales, nor a higher final streaming score than us. In other words, in terms of the SongBoard charts, which calculated weekly performance, we were sure to win.

But that’s not what matters here. Even if their songs ranked lower than ours, the fact that they were completely new was important in the eyes of the public.

- No way. A new group is coming up on TeSTAR?

- What’s happening in the K-pop scene this year?

Their newness would basically give them the win, as far as the public was concerned, which would negate the meaning of our new record.

Darn… But no. We could still salvage something from this.

“Hmm…” Repressing a sigh, I spoke in the most composed tone that I could manage. “In any case, our results for the SongBoard were out first. That must mean the mission’s condition was met. Two songs within the top twenty for the very first time. There’s nothing to worry about.”

We had still done it first, so the mission should be considered a success. Big Moon said nothing. The words soon appeared slowly and awkwardly.

[Well, uh… I think that in the eyes of the public… This doesn’t count as an overwhelming record… People will compare you to this new group, specifically because they are completely new.]

Son of a…

[This really isn’t something that I can decide. It’s my subconscious—my subconscious melded with the system—that makes the calls! T_T]

[I’m so sorry. I really have no idea if it will really work.]

Well, damn it. I suppose I can’t say it’s your fault. Of course, it won’t work. I sighed. Youngrin’s agency was not made of idiots. Given the current situation, they would be sure to have the press compare the group to TeSTAR.

It’s the perfect strategy to boost their reputation. Because they were a girl group, not a boy group, it would seem less openly confrontational. And the end result was any chance of being acknowledged for accomplishing something unique would go down the drain, since a similar case had cropped up right after we’d done it.

“Right…”

I tried to remain coolheaded.

Youngrin… Youngrin’s agency… Then I realized that these were the same people that she had introduced to me during the last awards ceremony season. I smiled bitterly. This industry was so unpredictable, and competitors constantly appeared out of nowhere.

[Gunwoo…]

Right now, however, we really had no use for a competitor. I needed to defeat them soundly. In order to make that happen, we would have to orchestrate a little bit of artificial intervention.

Intervention, huh? I lowered my head, lost in thought. The water was opaque from the bath bomb I’d tossed inside, and rippled outwards from my chin. It reminded me of our current situation, with how murky it was.

Wait. Murky.

“Ah.”

That’s it. I need to muddy the waters.

“All we need to do is make sure that nobody will mention these rookies in the same breath as us.”

[Huh? Is that… possible?]

Why not? I would shift the tone of the argument and pit them against somebody else. All I needed to do was make the situation more fun for the public.

I continued to think this through as I soaked in the bathtub, lingering until the water had gone cold. My brain filtered through every single potential tactic, deciding on the surest way to bring us what we wanted. The very next day, I spoke to the manager.

“Excuse me for a moment.”

“Huh?”

Before we had even departed for our early morning schedule, I requested a meeting with the director. I had never contacted him voluntarily following the meeting we’d had about our new label contract, and I wondered how he would react.

Hmm. One more thing. As I got in the van, I took out my phone and typed up a text.

[Please give me a call if you can when you see this message.]

The phone call came through right away.

“Oh, hello, Moondae!”

“Hello,” I said.

“Yes?”

I hadn’t heard her no-nonsense voice in a while.

“Thanks for calling. I had a question for you.”

I was speaking with Park Minha of Miry-nay, the group that had debuted following our own.

After a pause, I said, “Is there anything bothering you these days?”

“What…?”

“With regard to the general direction of your group.”

Since we have our own label now, shouldn’t we contribute a little to the agency’s work?