Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter - Chapter 67



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Raising a Neglected Singer-Songwriter Episode 67

67. Total Attack

A week before the initial tally of ‘LOVE CYCLE’.

New Year’s Day, Monday, January 1st, noon.

Sungjun’s first EP has been released to the world.

[LOVE CYCLE – Sungjun] has been uploaded to Kiwi Player’s latest music.

The MV was also released on MXM Entertainment’s official YouTube channel and the newly opened artist ‘Sungjun’s’ channel.

The public’s expectations and interest were focused on the broadcast of ‘Who’s the King’ last Saturday.

The album and music video became huge hits as soon as they were released.

Fans’ reactions to the EP were largely divided into two groups.

First of all, rave reviews about the album quality and track composition.

– The album quality is crazy!!! I really like all four songs!!!!

– At first, I honestly thought all the song titles were exaggerated… After listening to the album, I felt like I was slapping my past self in the face.

– Even better. Just with the ‘LOVE CYCLE’ album, you can listen to all the songs you need while dating. Including breakupsㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

– That’s exactly what Sungjun intended. You got the big picture, really.

Next up is ranking their favorite tracks.

– I think everyone’s favorite songs are different depending on their circumstances. For me, DMLC is 1st, and Jaywalking is 2nd. I recently got a confession from my ex-boyfriend and current boyfriend. Hehe. I love you, honey~

N Please refrain from lying. And stuff this article. You’ll be the one getting teased when we break up.

– My criteria: Eraser > Manual Love > DMLC > Jaywalking

N You··· It hasn’t been that long since we broke up ㅠㅜ

n Even on Christmas Eve. It’s so lonely······.

n How many times have you met?

n We didn’t meet, I confessed to her through text and then got rejected

Nah, you fucking idiotㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ

Reactions like the above spread quickly through communities and online articles, creating a virtuous cycle that brought in new fans.

Following the album, the appreciation for the music video was equally diverse.

– I knew it would be a cafe setting when I first heard ‘DMLC’ haha ​​But the fact that the female lead was Ye-seon was truly a stroke of genius. So awesome!!!!!

n Because the ‘yes’ in the prelude is the ‘yes’ of beauty!!!

n The scene where they change clothes like in cosplay was really awesome. I worship Director Seok-Yong Choi of Wolcl!!!!!!!!!

Starting with a comment on the visuals of Ye Seon-ha, who plays the female lead,

– But didn’t Sungjun’s visuals go crazy? He’s much more handsome than what we saw in ‘Who’s the King’. To be honest, he’s a good actor.

N I admit. I was really impressed by the way he smiled brightly while playing guitar and singing. LOL

N The god of the hat was the best! When I saw Yeseon-ha and Seong-jun looking at each other and smiling, my heart stoppedㅜㅠ

N With that face, he sings well, and his acting is even okay. It’s just a total fraudulent monster rookie.

N Seongjun is a rookie, but his weight class is way too high?

Sungjun’s visuals, acting skills, and the chemistry he showed with Ye Seon-ha were on everyone’s lips.

Among them, there was one particularly notable reaction.

Fans have expressed their expectations and needs for additional music videos!

– Honestly, besides DMLC, they need to release music videos for the rest of the songs as well. Otherwise, there will be a truck protest.

– Truck protest idiotㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋㅋ But I admit it. And I request Ye-sun Ha to appear in the rest of the music videos to have the same worldview!!!

– MXM can do that much! If the production cost is insufficient, we’ll buy the album and make up for it!!

MXM Entertainment, which had been monitoring these reactions in real time, internally decided to produce an additional music video that had been in mind.

one side,

Offline album distribution, which ran in parallel with online sales, was also proceeding smoothly.

The actual album of ‘LOVE CYCLE’ is on display in various record stores and paperback record sections.

And in the process, Sungjun actually witnessed the distribution power that MXM Entertainment had in the industry.

Even the CEOs who didn’t know much about ‘D.Voice’ or ’49’,

“This time, I am a new singer debuting under MXM Entertainment.”

As soon as I heard the introduction, I immediately placed the album in the most prominent place on the shelf.

It was a moment when the power of the four major entertainment companies was demonstrated.

The location of a product on a shelf is incredibly important.

Because exposure to consumers is directly linked to sales volume.

It caused consumers to establish a syllogism formula that was absurd.

A. The albums displayed at the front of the shelf are the most popular albums.

B. Popular albums have a relative advantage in utility over other albums.

C. That is, the act of purchasing this album is valid.

Besides, the public originally had a tendency to prefer first place.

I think that being number one in any field is the trend of the times, and I worry that if I don’t experience or enjoy this, I will be left behind in society.

That’s why consumers willingly opened their wallets and bought Sungjun’s album.

And among them, there was a group that showed particularly overwhelming purchasing power…

It was none other than Sungjun’s ‘fandom’.

Before his debut, Sungjun had been active under various personas.

Youtube cover song Shinsung ‘Nerdy’.

Sound Sky composer ‘Sadi’.

Candidate number 49 on ‘Who’s the King’.

Fans who cheered and supported each character gathered together as one ‘fandom’ with the debut of ‘Sungjun’.

Official fandom name: [MyStarry].

In Korean it’s [My Star].

‘Y’ is silent in pronunciation, like some almond brands.

The name ‘Starry’ was taken from the self-composed song ‘Star’ that was performed on ‘Who’s the King’, meaning ‘starry, twinkling like stars’.

By adding ‘My’ in front of it, they created a fandom name similar to ‘mystery’ of ‘D.Voice’, who was active while hiding their identity.

Well, in general, it can be interpreted as ‘my mysterious and shining star’.

Anyway, those who showed interest in Sung-jun through the webtoon [Cheonma Hwansaeng] OST and the drama [Your House] OST cover joined.

Finally, the fan club of the preliminary round joined in out of loyalty.

The great army thus assembled raised the flag of advance.

– [My Star] Everyone, for a week, I’m going to go all out streaming all of Sungjun oppa’s EP songs and buying the album!

The fandom’s collective attack, the ‘total attack’, has begun to unfold.

*

And today, Monday, a week later.

“20, 200 thousand copies?!”

When I asked him in disbelief whether he had really achieved sales four times the original target of 50,000 copies, the A&R team leader nodded happily.

“Actually, we’ve sold over 50,000 copies since pre-orders began. We sold 130,000 copies on the first day of sales.”

“I checked, and it’s a new initial sales record for the first album by a non-idol solo singer-songwriter!”

“This is really a jackpot!!! Congratulations Seongjun!!!”

Applause and congratulations erupt from the A&R team.

Meanwhile, Cha Seong-jun, who was a business student, was diligently calculating in his head.

The price per copy of this EP is 12,000 won.

When calculated based on sales of 50,000 copies, the target profit was 600 million won.

‘But we sold 200,000, which is 4 times that amount···.’

Achieved a whopping 2.4 billion won in excess profits!

When compared to the typical profit structure of the music industry,

If the selling price per album is 12,000 won, then after deducting all production costs that went into the album, including distribution costs, recording and song costs, and music videos, a profit of 5,000 to 6,000 won per album, which is 50% of the selling price, is generated.

However, as a singer-songwriter, he wrote and composed the song himself, so the song fee is excluded. Therefore, it is estimated that he will make a net profit of about 6,000 won per album.

In that case, the initial net profit is calculated to be approximately 1.2 billion won.

And this is distributed according to the ratio set by the artist and the agency at the time of the contract.

The settlement ratio in Cha Sung-jun’s contract is 7 for the artist: 3 for MXM Entertainment.

If we apply that rate to 1.2 billion won, we get 8.4 billion won.

In addition, the cost of clothing, transportation, and food for this album’s promotions will be reimbursed.

I estimate it will be around minus 50 million won.

So the money that ultimately falls to Cha Seong-jun is-

‘A whopping 790 million won!!!’

If you live in a lower-class area of ​​Seoul, you can even buy an apartment.

‘Heh, heh heh.’

Cha Seong-jun laughs in vain at the unimaginable amount of money.

I was the one whose annual salary was only around 40 million won.

But, he earned 790 million won with just one album.

That’s the kind of money you can earn by working hard for 20 years.

And here’s a creepy fact.

This is the ‘first week’ sales revenue, which is just the sales revenue after release.

In other words, there is still a lot of room to earn more in the future.

Moreover, the current 790 million is money earned only from album sales.

The music revenue settlement ratio from streaming is 10 to 0.

Seongjun has them all.

He didn’t even mention the fees for future advertisements, TV appearances, or event expenses.

Oh, and there’s also YouTube revenue.

‘This is crazy… Is this why everyone is so obsessed with becoming a celebrity?’

I wonder how much I will get in the first settlement…

I can’t figure it out at all.

At this point, an idea comes to mind.

This is about how to use this settlement money.

‘With this level of profit, I think I can actively use the ‘Bangsinki’ store in the future?’

Bronze coins are worth 1 million won each.

Each silver coin is worth 10 million won.

So, honestly, I couldn’t bring myself to buy it until then.

however,

‘If you can make millions, it’s a different story.’

You can buy 10 silver coins by investing just 100 million won.

This is a great opportunity to upgrade stats/skills that have been stagnant at level 10 for a long time.

You can also purchase more expensive advanced stats/skills/items.

Every gamer’s dream. It is now possible to upgrade your specs by spending a lot of money.

‘I can’t wait for the day when I can enjoy FLEX worth hundreds of millions of won.’

Cha Seong-jun’s mouth waters as he recalls the items he had been eyeing.

At that time, the A&R team leader asked.

“Hey, how’s your studio? Have you gotten used to it yet?”

“Oh, okay. Well, I’ve only moved the luggage, I haven’t really experienced it yet.”

“Once the busy times at the beginning pass, you’ll soon be able to use the studio again. Even now, Seongjun’s schedule is really limited to small tasks.”

That’s right.

Contrary to expectations that the past week would be crazy busy, Cha Sung-jun’s schedule was quite relaxed.

The reason is none other than ‘maintaining a sense of mystery.’

At least in the early days of their debut, the intention was to continue the mystique of ‘D.Voice’ and ‘Number 49’.

The faster an image is consumed, the sooner the public becomes tired of it.

So, as part of the marketing, we are also looking at the timing of the music show debut ceremony.

‘But at the same time, you said there has to be a sense of intimacy.’

It’s a new experience, but I realized that creating a celebrity’s image is very complicated.

Well, anyway.

Thanks to that, I had time to move my studio last week.

From Yeokchon-dong to the MXM Enter workshop in Yongsan.

Over the past three months, all of his songs before he debuted as ‘Sungjun’ were created in his studio in Yeokchon-dong.

Because it was a place that had some meaning and that I had grown attached to, a bittersweet feeling remained in a corner of my heart.

However, on the contrary, since he will be working as ‘Sungjun’ from now on, it was much easier to work using the studio within MXM Entertainment.

With the help of Manager Oh Hae-soo, all the equipment was loaded into the van.

And finally, I stopped by the convenience store in front of the studio.

Let’s have a drink too,

It was to briefly say goodbye to the fresh-faced part-timer who had become DMLC’s muse.

However, the meeting with the part-time worker did not take place.

Did you quit your part-time job or change your schedule?

Anyway, there was another part-timer sitting at the counter instead of her.

‘What a pity… I was just trying to buy you a cup of coffee.’

Well, there’s nothing I can do.

If it’s fate, we’ll meet again by chance somewhere.

Meanwhile, on another day, I had an interview with Lee Jun-min, a reporter for ‘The Star News’ who has quite a strong presence in the entertainment department.

Before the interview, Manager Oh Hae-soo gave a warning,

“This guy named Lee Jun-min is a scoop hunter so bad that he’s called ‘Gae-no’, hyung. I think you should avoid sensitive topics when you talk.”

But I suddenly became nervous.

When I actually met Lee Jun-min, all those concerns disappeared.

“I’ve been a huge fan of Sungjun since D.Voice! I’m so happy to meet you like this!”

Because he showed great fandom.

While doing so, he also told me an anecdote about how he had sent an interview request before but had not received a reply, and I felt a little embarrassed and ashamed.

The questions that followed were all friendly ones, and the interview ended up being very friendly.

And again today,

“Haesu. So, is today’s schedule finished?”

“Yes, hyung. And please call me ‘Haesu’ comfortably.”

“Oh, okay. Haesu. Then can I go in a little early today?”

“Of course. Shall I take you home?”

“No. I’m going home today.”

Cha Seong-jun shook his head at Oh Hae-soo’s question.

“I want to see my family’s faces.”

The results of the initial 50,000-ticket bet are out, so I have to go and brag about it.

A 20-year-old immature kid who caused trouble for his family by telling them he would become a singer.

After 10 years, the time has come for the reckless man who achieved his dream to return home in glory.