Little Pink Starfish

Director Seo Seung-hyun shrugged his shoulders and said.

“Combined, about 350,000 copies.”

That wasn’t even first-week sales.

Today was only the fourth day since physical album sales started.

Of course, pre-orders were included in that figure.

And Director Seo was only referring to the sales for Side A, B, and C.

He hadn’t yet mentioned the full second album, Stage.

It was a different matter, but he was probably being considerate by not giving the breakdown for each unit album.

From my estimation, Choi Jae-sung’s album, Side B, probably didn’t sell as many physical copies.

I knew “Drop” was incredibly popular, and the tracks were becoming steady sellers in clubs.

But the desire to buy the full album might naturally be weaker.

Club tunes, or party tunes (though not exclusively limited to that), were generally disadvantaged in the physical album market.

On the other hand, Masked Robber’s unit, Side A, would likely sell quite well.

In Korea, there hadn’t been many R&B albums that could seriously compete with originals from the U.S.

Not because Korean artists lacked skill or because composers didn’t study hard.

Blues, being inherently American, is difficult to fully master through study alone.

Like how a Black singer studying pansori would struggle to express its profound “han” spirit.

But I had lived in America for a long time, and my sensibility wasn’t all that different.

So Masked Robber’s unit album would be loved for a long time—mentioned for at least 30 years, until someone surpasses it.

As for my and On Saemiro’s unit album, Side C…

It would do well.

I mean, look who performed it.

That was my evaluation of the unit albums, and I thought it was quite accurate.

But for the full album, Stage, even I wasn’t sure.

It’s not that I wasn’t predicting, but I had no solid basis for my guesses.

Especially since my main focus this time was expanding the physical album market.

Music not available on streaming platforms.

Music that required buying the album to hear.

But the unit albums had done so well, and the fact that these unit albums combined into the second full album was a fascinating selling point.

M Show’s massive TV and building advertisements.

Our own online and offline ads funded by us, and fans putting up congratulatory subway banners for the album release…

With all of that combined, I was confident it wouldn’t fail, but I didn’t know what the results were yet.

At Director Seo’s request, I hadn’t monitored anything for the past four days.

I’d been too busy directing the members as we recorded the English version of The First Day for release in the U.S.

While thinking about all that, Lee Eion raised his hand.

“So we sold 350,000 copies across four days for four albums?”

“Huh? No, for three albums.”

“What?”

“I haven’t mentioned the full album yet.”

At first, I wondered what he meant, but it turned out the members had misunderstood.

They thought the 350,000 was the total combined number.

“Then how much did Stage sell?”

“That’s what I was about to say… but maybe we should film a reaction video.”

“A reaction video?”

Director Seo smiled faintly and linked his phone to the large screen in our dorm’s living room.

Then he opened YouTube and started a video.

The other members might not have realized, but for me, this was my first time checking the internet in four days.

It wasn’t that I avoided it fearing hateful comments—I’d saved it like a treasure chest.

I’d been busy, and Director Seo had also asked me to refrain so we could record reaction footage.

“What about our reaction video?”

There was no camera set up.

Director Seo shrugged.

“This isn’t something we can film.”

“Really?”

Just then, he played the video on his phone.

A man appeared on screen.

He looked vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place him.

“Oh? That’s Potency.”

“Potency?”

“He’s a YouTuber. Has over a million subscribers.”

So I heard.

Potency’s video was simple.

He played track 4 of our second album, Stage, then, timing it carefully, played track 5 from Choi Jae-sung’s album, Side B.

Then, while dancing awkwardly, he played track 1 from Masked Robber’s Side A.

I couldn’t tell whether it was very well-rehearsed or heavily edited, but the timing was perfect.

The hi-hat’s sibilance matched exactly, suggesting it had been edited afterward.

Doing that perfectly on CD audio without a turntable was practically impossible.

Regardless, as the three tracks layered, the combined sound poured out.

The volumes for Side B and Side A were lowered to avoid overwhelming the ears.

But I didn’t understand why he was showing this.

“Why are you showing us this?”

“It’s trending.”

“What is?”

“This trend of layering the unit albums over Stage to create new tracks.”

This is trending?

Besides, the mashup Potency created wasn’t even one of the combinations I had originally designed.

In other words, Potency had just casually mixed three random tracks…

“Hmm?”

But something felt off.

The volumes, compression, and timing weren’t perfect.

Yet for something mixed randomly, it sounded remarkably coherent.

Even though it wasn’t intentional.

It was even… quite listenable.

That was my personal evaluation.

Which meant—

-Wow, what is this lololol

-The vibe suddenly went crazy lol

The public found it very enjoyable.

I rewound the video briefly to figure out why this was happening.

The answer was simple.

Because I had composed all of it.

I wasn’t a composer with a rigid theory. I adapted my methods based on the artist, genre, and purpose.

This should mean each song has a different musical grain—but not entirely.

One way or another, both the composer and the artist leave their imprint on music.

There were similarities in how Han Si-on as a composer and Sedalbaekil as artists utilized their sounds. The “house” was similar; only the furniture arrangement differed.

In that sense, Potency seemed to have a good ear.

He managed to create a listenable blend of three songs with differing BPMs and textures, perfectly timed.

Though, to be fair, the “listenable” part lasted maybe 20 seconds before the drum patterns clashed and everything derailed.

Still…

[See! I’m not tone-deaf!]

Potency looked quite proud.

“He originally started as a movie reviewer on YouTube, got popular by reviewing everything with his humor.”

Ah, now I remembered seeing him review bottled water.

Sedalbaekil’s idea to review water and fresh air on our own self-content came from him.

Well, it was Choi Jae-sung’s idea, since he spent so much time online.

“Sometimes he reviews albums too. His fellow YouTubers often tease him for being tone-deaf.”

“And so he made this?”

“Yes.”

“But why is this trending?”

“Who knows? There’s never a reason for trends.”

Director Seo shrugged at On Saemiro’s question, and I agreed.

Having lived in culture and entertainment for a long time, I knew how absurd trends could be.

Some 10-year-old video with 100 views could suddenly go viral worldwide as a meme.

Still, it was pretty random…

“Ah.”

Now I understood.

Why this was trending.

It was simply a form of purchase verification.

People were showing off that they had bought the physical album and listened carefully, doing it in a creative way.

With a bit of showing off their musical ear thrown in.

Verification is a highly addictive act that satisfies people’s self-esteem.

We live in an era where even voting—a given civic duty—is something people feel compelled to verify publicly.

Which meant that, during my four days offline, it had become standard behavior to verify purchases of Sedalbaekil’s second full album.

I understood Director Seo wanted to surprise us, but I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“So how many did we sell?”

“Should I give you the ballpark?”

“Just tell me.”

Director Seo smiled and cleared his throat.

“350,000.”

“……!”

Stage: 350,000.

Side A, B, and C combined: 350,000.

In four days, we had sold 700,000 copies across four albums.

And judging by the situation, most people bought both the unit albums and the full album together.

“The first-week tally isn’t even done yet. We still have a few days left.”

“So this means…”

“We’re about to set a new first-week record.”

The Sedalbaekil members didn’t know how to react at first, but soon just happily celebrated.

But somehow, their joy didn’t seem overly intense.

The members might not know why—but I did.

Because it didn’t feel undeserved.

They had poured incredible effort, blood, and sweat into this album.

No other artists could follow my direction as perfectly as they did.

When recording albums, I become a monster.

But Sedalbaekil pulled it off. And subconsciously, they felt:

We deserve this.

It’s only right, given our work.

After sharing that joy for a while, Director Seo spoke again, slightly changing his tone.

“But where there’s light, there’s also rain. We have a problem.”

“What is it?”

“Terrestrial broadcasters might boycott us.”

“What? All of them?”

“No, SBN will likely be an exception. Producer Seonumje climbed into SBN’s mainstream ranks. But even there, they’ll be cautious.”

This was surprising.

Could Choi Tae-ho be exerting influence again?

But by now, our weight class was far too big for that.

We’d sold 700,000 copies (though across multiple albums) in first-week sales.

“This is because Sedalbaekil has grown too big.”

“Because of M Show?”

“Yes.”

There was a time when national audition programs were truly watched by the entire country.

That era had been ushered in by a cable channel—M Show.

It sounded laughable in 2018, but back then, cable audition contestants couldn’t appear on terrestrial music shows.

Even with 10% ratings and topping streaming charts, they weren’t allowed.

At that time, terrestrial broadcasters completely ostracized cable due to political tensions with general programming networks.

But times had changed.

Now this kind of exclusion was rare.

Yet terrestrial networks were again moving to exclude us?

That meant…

“This is fantastic.”

“Huh?”

I loved it.