Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter - Chapter 34



Only Krnovel

34. I want to live

Friday noon.

[Yuna – My Name (Covered by D.Voice)]

Yuna’s debut song and the long-awaited final song of the cover song project that has been ongoing for two weeks has been uploaded.

– This song is officially the last cover.

No, already?! Only 6 songs? Yuna unnie has more songs! Aren’t you going to cover them all?

n Factory manager, come back ㅜㅠ

n Cover song project extension day 1

N It won’t work. It keeps repeating infinitely from 26.

Fans expressed regret at the spoiler comments that appeared without fail.

Some consoled their disappointment by repeatedly playing songs covered by DeVoice.

Meanwhile, something strange was happening on the Kiwi charts.

These days, the latest songs are updating the charts every day.

Old songs started to appear out of nowhere.

And those old songs were none other than Yuna’s songs.

To be a little more specific, these are the songs that were recently uploaded on MXM Enter’s YouTube channel. In other words, they were original covers of DeVoice.

Yes, that’s right.

What is happening now is a ‘reverse process’.

One day, the second cover song, ‘Love Potion’, peeked into the top 100.

After that, cover songs were added one by one, pushing and pulling each other and starting to climb the charts.

in result,

[Kiwi TOP100]

1st place. 26 – Yuna

7th place. Love Potion – Yuna

12th place. Dawn – Yuna

15th place. Fireworks – Yuna

49th place. Hello, World – Yuna

77th place. Bitter Words – Yuna

An absurd thing happened where all five of DeVoice’s cover songs, except for the last song uploaded today, re-entered the top 100.

Among them, the three songs covered in the first week all made it into the top 20!

It was the so-called ‘chart lining up’ that was usually seen when global K-pop singers like Yuna and ‘Galaxy Boys’ released new songs.

Reverse driving + lining up.

It could not have been anything other than an unusual phenomenon that had never been seen before in the music industry.

Some people have even called it the ‘Device Syndrome’.

As such, it was previously a device enjoyed only by YouTube users, music communities, and Yuna fandom.

As things turned out, the industry and the media began to take notice of him.

There was one common curiosity.

“””Devoice, who the hell is he!?”””

Since the ’26’ cover came out, all kinds of speculations have been running wild on YouTube and in the community.

Among them, there are three hypotheses that are considered to have some degree of credibility.

First, the ‘new singer theory’ that MXM Entertainment is ambitiously planning.

The opinion is that they are using various promotional strategies for marketing before their debut.

Several male trainees who were leaked to MXM Entertainment fans were also mentioned as candidates.

the other side,

‘No. There was also a hypothesis that said, ‘There’s no way a vocalist with this level of skill could be a new singer. He must be a supporting character of an established singer.’

There was even an online battle where the sub-group listed singers with similar voices and singing styles, and the rookies refuted each other’s differences point by point.

The third and final one is none other than the ‘AI singer theory’.

In keeping with the era of the Great Multiverse, MXM Entertainment is secretly developing an AI singer in collaboration with the IT industry. In fact, ‘D.voice’ is hypothesized to be an abbreviation of ‘Digital Voice’.

Considering that YouTube is already a world where AI vocalists trained on the voices of famous singers are rampant, this is not entirely unreasonable.

In this way, the three-way debate between ‘rookie vs. sub-character vs. AI’ became more intense.

In the end, I came to the conclusion that there was only one way to put an end to it all.

– So when will your face be revealed?

The device just has to reveal its face.

Whether he is a new face, a familiar figure, or an AI created by compiling data from all sorts of handsome men.

Some people even claimed that he sticks to the faceless singer concept because his visuals are ruined.

Then, someone came forward with a new piece of information about the device.

– I found the device on SoundSky. Here’s the link.

His traces were found on online streaming sites.

Netizens flocked to SoundSky like a swarm of hungry locusts, quickly devouring the two songs uploaded by what was presumed to be D.Voice, and then shouted:

– Oh my gosh!!! I just came back from listening to it, this song is freaking good.

n This is one of the best acoustic songs I’ve heard recently. I downloaded it and added it to my playlist.

N It’s incredibly healing. If you listen to it when you’re sleepy, you can fall into a deep sleep for 3 minutes.

ㄴ What’s really amazing is that I didn’t even look at the title but I guessed right that it was the sound of rain. Is that a real expression?

– But why are there no vocal songs? Devoice’s songs are killer.

N Come to think of it, aren’t they just two different people? Maybe their nicknames just happened to overlap.

n The opening dates of Sas and YouTube are similar. They are probably the same person. It doesn’t seem to be a fake account, as Sas was opened earlier.

N Wow. So you sing and compose songs too? You’re a singer-songwriter?

ㄴ Now that I think about it, didn’t MXM say they were having a Sing Song La audition?

n If it comes out, it’s awesome!

Netizens’ expectations have grown so high that they seem ready to burst at the slightest touch.

And there was someone watching all this from beyond the monitor.

“It smells. It smells like a jackpot.”

Lee Jun-min, entertainment reporter for ‘The Star News’.

He is also called ‘dog nose’ among journalists because of his habit of sniffing around whenever he smells a scoop.

He used to visit YouTube, music communities, and Kiwi charts frequently and dig up news topics every day.

It didn’t take long for people to take notice of DeVoice, who had emerged as a rising star on YouTube.

I went straight to the DeVoice channel and played the full version of the popular cover song.

and-

“This is the real deal. It’s been a while since the real thing appeared!”

I immediately became a fan and at the same time, the characteristics of a journalist’s job were revealed.

I want to find out about devices that others don’t know about faster than anyone else!

So, I tried to contact MXM Entertainment, which could be said to have discovered him, to find out more about him.

– I cannot confirm this as I am not an affiliated artist.

The response from the PR team was ironclad.

But that doesn’t mean that Lee Jun-min, the dog-like man, would back down like that.

Even with MXM’s short reply, I was able to make some money.

‘First of all, I’ll say that I’m not affiliated with MXM Entertainment.’

Judging by the nuance, it doesn’t seem to be AI either.

And if they were going to do noise marketing, they would have already quietly spread the word in the media. This is how much of a tiki-taka this world is.

Then, according to the law of elimination, we can conclude that he is an ordinary person.

“Tsk, I guess I have no choice but to use my hands and feet.”

I contacted MXM Entertainment’s personal straw (source) to meet in person.

If you drink a little and ask around, you might get some useful information.

Of course, I’ll look for more before that.

It was when Lee Jun-min, who thought like that, revisited Devoice’s channel.

“Huh? What is this?”

Lee Jun-min blinks.

In the previously blank channel introduction, a new email address that was not there before has been added.

The moment I saw it,

Tata tata tata-

My hands moved faster than my head.

[I would like to request an interview.]

Soon, an email was sent to DeVoice.

*

Friday evening,

Cha Sung-jun and Oh Jin-woo met after finishing their respective jobs and studies.

The location is Cha Seong-jun’s studio.

Jinwoo Oh, who only had morning classes, came to Yeokchon-dong to be considerate of Seongjun Cha, who is an office worker.

Instead, Cha Seong-jun decided to buy dinner.

“Since it’s the day before the competition, how about rice noodles with less fat? And some jjajangmyeon and sweet potato rolls on the side.”

“Two side dishes…! As expected, office workers are different.”

I don’t usually do side flexes, but today was a flex day to celebrate the completion of a cover song project.

While waiting for the rice noodles, I concentrated on finishing the arrangement.

This time, Cha Sung-jun gives verbal direction and Oh Jin-woo takes care of it.

By reflecting in detail the feedback we shared on Wednesday, the level of completion has increased considerably.

After eating rice noodles, I started practicing vocals.

“It seems like each part is roughly done.”

“Then let’s try just the harmony part again.”

After more than two hours of intense practice, this was also completed successfully.

The rest are left to their own devices tomorrow and disband.

And the next morning, Saturday, dawned.

JBS Studio is bustling.

Unlike last week when we gathered half of the participants to film, this time all 49 participants gathered in one place.

Twice the participants, twice the cameras and twice the staff.

Then, of course, it would have been normal for it to be twice as loud, but for some reason, there was a strange tension flowing in the waiting room.

Unlike the previous missions, there will be dropouts from this mission.

Anyway, we sat down in the seats lined up by team and waited, and then Park Hye-shin appeared on the screen.

“Hello everyone, I’m Park Hye-shin, MC of ‘Who’s the King’. I missed you all.”

After a brief greeting, Park Hye-shin goes over the rules of the 2:2 team battle mission that was explained at the end of the last recording.

“Then, we will invite the two teams that will open the door to the first battle. The Saengsaeng Duo Team and the Fortissimo Team.”

And immediately, the two teams were called out and a full-scale 2:2 battle mission began.

The battle was fierce.

It seems like the production team’s strategy of leveling the crowns worked, as each match was a close match.

No one in the waiting room could easily predict the winner.

“You all really came out sharpening your knives.”

“You arranged that song like that?”

“Goosebumps, I have goosebumps on my arms right now, do you see them?”

There was a constant stream of cheers and applause from the judges’ table and in the waiting room.

Since it was a battle between 49 people carefully selected from 50,000 applicants, it was only natural that the level was high.

But no matter how high quality all the stages were,

Since it was a survival program, there had to be winners and losers.

“The winner of this round is the Testos-type team.”

Some teams cheered at the judges’ announcement, while others lowered their heads.

The results of the two losing teams were announced immediately, even though it was brutal. Here, ‘劣’ meant elimination.

24 teams, including one team of three, out of which half (12 people) were eliminated.

Because the rule of this mission is that the three people with the lowest scores lose an additional chance.

“It’s tough.”

As the number of eliminated contestants increases, the smiles on the faces of the contestants who were initially enjoying the show gradually disappear.

Before we knew it, the noisy waiting room was filled with only anxious expressions.

at that time,

“We are revealing the two teams that will be fighting in the next battle!”

The next team to face off appeared on the screen.

The first team that came to mind was the ‘Eleven’ team.

A team consisting of 7 All Crowns and 4 Four Crowns.

The sum of the two people’s numbers is 11, and the sum of the number of crowns is 11.

The team name means that they have a skill level of 11 points, exceeding the full 10 points.

also,

“Wow, we finally have a team that can win.”

“I wanted to listen to number 7’s song. I wonder how good it would be.”

It was the team that included number 7 ‘Zeke’, a former SMP co-composer who was considered a favorite to win among the contestants and whom everyone avoided.

Zick has had an incredible career as a co-composer.

The number of songs he has credited as a composer easily exceeds 50, and many of them have won awards.

He was even known to do the guide recordings of the songs himself.

SMP idols are so talented in vocals that their ultimate goal for recording was to master 90% of his guide.

“I wish that team would avoid it…”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

Cha Seong-jun, who heard this fact from Oh Jin-woo, whispered softly and glanced at him.

at that time,

“Wow!”

As cheers erupt from the waiting room, all eyes fly in and focus on each other.

no way···!

Cha Seong-jun’s eyes were quickly drawn to the screen, and unfortunately, the name of the team that was to become his opponent number 7 appeared there.

[Eleven Crown vs I Want to Live]

A team name combining the numbers 49 (live) and 18 (want).

In other words, it was Cha Seong-jun’s team.

*

After a while,

Cha Sung-jun and Oh Jin-woo.

Zeke and number 4 are standing side by side on the stage.

Ryu Young-seok asks with interest while looking at the four people.

“I heard from the production team that both teams were confident in their ability to beat each other beforehand.”

“I heard that the other team said in an interview that if they met us first, it would be an ‘easy win’. We couldn’t lose either.”

Zeke was the first to respond with a look.

On the other hand, I have never heard of this, but I know what happened.

‘As expected, the interview that day was distorted.’

No, rather than saying it was a distortion, it would be more accurate to say that it was the production team’s original intention.

They must have cleverly conveyed only the words, “It was an easy victory,” without giving any context to the situation.

Well, it’s my fault for responding there to get the system mission reward.

Rather than making a half-baked explanation, he simply brushed it off by saying something like, ‘I just wanted to express my determination to win.’

That’s it for the mic work.

“The heated rivalry between the two teams can be felt here. So what kind of stage have you prepared for an easy victory? Let’s first take a look at the preemptive stage of the ‘Eleven Crown’ team.”

Since I was on the second team, I went down to the waiting area under the stage.

And soon, Zeke’s team started playing.

however···

‘What the heck, of all song choices···!’

The last ‘walk’.

It’s the same as Cha Seong-jun’s team.

This will make the comparison more stark than when they competed with different songs.

I watched the stage till the end with concern.

Zeke’s arrangement was truly an arrangement full of joy.

The song sang with powerful steps and featured a sophisticated composition that fit the current trend.

The epitome of neatness, without any unnecessary frills or excess.

Number 4 supports this and increases the overall completeness.

The judges’ comments were also rave.

“Is there anything more I can say? It was a professional arrangement. That’s all.”

“You did a great job of capturing the modern feel of the original song. I was impressed by how you maximized it.”

“You sang really well. Your vocals and vibrato were just the epitome of classic. Person 4 also did a great job.”

So the judging ended and it was Cha Seong-jun’s turn.

Cha Seong-jun checks Oh Jin-woo’s condition before going on stage.

It was because I was worried that he might be nervous on stage.

however,

‘I guess it was tilted.’

Even though he saw such an amazing stage, he didn’t seem to care at all, whether it was because he was a free spirit or because he had a lot of courage.

On the contrary,

“Hyung. I’m excited to show you our stage soon.”

The eyes are sparkling brightly.

My younger brother is so dignified, so I should follow suit.

“Let’s go. Let’s break the stage.”

I passed Zig, who was coming down the stairs, and went up to the stage.

Oh Jin-woo heads to the keyboard.

Cha Seong-jun stood in front of the microphone holding a guitar.

Then, activate the buff item you will use on stage today in Bangsingki’s item window.

[I used disposable henna stickers – black.]

A black note was imprinted on the back of his hand.

This completes the preparation.

If Eleven Crown Team’s ‘Walk’ had sung a greater hope.

This is the opposite, it’s time to sing of despair.

thud-

The performance began with Oh Jin-woo’s fingers pressing down on the piano keys.

Then, from the mouth of Cha Seong-jun, who lowered his head –

“I walk.”

A voice filled with darkness flowed out.

────────────────────────────────────

────────────────────────────────────