The Debut Song Meeting
The afternoon after Tasha returned from her business trip to Hammer Shock for rap training, most of the key people involved with the new girl group Ashy-Bloom gathered in the conference room. From Cha Entertainment’s CEO, Chairman Cha himself, to the real power in the planning department, Director Cha. On the music production side, veteran recording engineer Heo Su-cheol—who practically lived in the studio—and singer-songwriter Oh Seoa. Even PR team leader Yoon Ji-sook had shown up. Add in all five Ashy-Bloom members, and it was easy to guess just how important this meeting was.
Because today’s agenda was deciding our debut song.
Chairman Cha was famous in the industry for his good character and wide network. Naturally, that included plenty of composers. The moment our concept was locked in, he’d gone around calling in favors and collected a pile of tracks. After filtering out the ones that clashed too badly with the group’s concept, seven songs remained. True to Cha Entertainment’s artist-friendly philosophy, they’d decided to let us have the final say in choosing our debut track.
“Let’s listen first,” Chairman Cha ordered.
The evaluation session began immediately. The first song through the last played back-to-back, and not a single sound other than the music could be heard inside the conference room. Once the final track ended, the attendees checked their notes and began voicing their opinions.
“What do you think?”
“It’s a little… ambiguous.”
“How about you, Producer Heo?”
“It’s somewhat difficult to grasp, but I believe Track 3 is the most suitable.”
“Why?”
“It fits the group concept best.”
“Isn’t Track 3 excessively obscure? It’s not just difficult—it’s practically chaotic.”
“Then what does the PR team leader think?”
“I’d rather go with Track 1.”
“Track 1 felt too cliché to me. And if we were going to use something like that, why bother choosing a villain-plus-phantom concept in the first place?”
“There’s a reason people say the old ways are sometimes the best. Something a bit familiar is better than something overly esoteric.”
“It’s not just familiar—it’s straight-up outdated. In today’s climate, releasing an album like that would get it buried in less than a day.”
Sharp remarks flew back and forth. That’s how critical this meeting was. With nothing to add, we simply sat back and watched the exchange.
“What do the members think?”
“Hmm…”
Once the atmosphere had cooled a little, Chairman Cha passed the microphone to us. He seemed curious about our opinions. Well… to be honest, none of them really grabbed me. I was busy trying to figure out how to phrase that without offending anyone when Seong Jiyeong spoke first.
“None of them appeal to me.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. Track 1 sounds like a cheap imitation of ‘Flying Angel’s’ ‘Fly on Fire’ from three years ago. Track 3 feels like something a composition major dashed off without thinking. Everyone seems to agree that Tracks 2 and 4 aren’t even worth mentioning, so I’ll skip those. The only ones that actually resemble proper songs are Tracks 5 and 7, but those aren’t girl-group tracks, are they?”
“Correct. Tracks 5 and 7 were originally intended for a boy group. We requested them because our concept leans closer to boy-group territory than the typical girl-group sound.”
“That explains why they don’t feel commercial at all. The idol scene may be turning into its own private league these days, but shouldn’t we at least secure a baseline level of public appeal?”
“You make a fair point.”
Seong Jiyeong knew more than I’d expected. Was this girl secretly a music nerd? How could she tell boy-group tracks from girl-group tracks just by listening? Especially when the lines between them were blurring more every year. She really was impossible to read sometimes.
Still, I mostly agreed with her. After hearing all seven songs, none of them truly satisfied me. It wasn’t that Chairman Cha had done a poor job gathering material. Our concept was simply too unconventional. Most of the tracks he’d collected were hip-hop-based girl-crush numbers. Since that sound was in high demand among current girl groups, there was plenty of supply. What we wanted, however, was something similar yet distinctly different—which made the search difficult.
In that sense, boy-group tracks might actually suit us better. That side of the industry tended to embrace obscure concepts and elaborate world-building while fiercely protecting their unique color. Deep, dark vibes generally landed better with boy groups than girl groups. The downside, as Seong Jiyeong had pointed out, was that they often completely ignored commercial viability. Boy-group profits came almost entirely from their fandoms. Even if they lost the general public, capturing a small but passionate fanbase was more profitable. In other words, a handful of core fans mattered more than broad public taste. That’s why songs that made normal people tilt their heads in confusion still got released—so long as the fandom nodded along.
These days the idol industry as a whole was shifting toward fandom-first strategies, so even girl groups were focusing more on fan loyalty than mass appeal. The era when a famous female idol’s title track could dominate the charts for weeks was basically over. In that context, we too would probably prioritize fandom over public appeal. But Seong Jiyeong clearly wasn’t happy about it—especially since she kept rejecting songs that actually matched our concept on the grounds that they lacked commercial potential.
Her words must have sounded quite reasonable to Chairman Cha. The problem was that striking the right balance—maintaining decent public appeal while perfectly matching our concept—was incredibly difficult. In the end, a lot of it came down to luck. It wasn’t that some boy groups deliberately ignored commerciality; commerciality was intangible, while fandoms were concrete. So they focused on what they could measure. If they got lucky and the song also appealed to the general public, it would blow up on the charts. Such cases were rare, though.
“I’m against Tracks 5 and 7. They just don’t feel like our song.”
“Could you explain that a bit more precisely?”
“Um… to be completely honest… they kind of suck.”
“…Noted.”
I didn’t claim to be an expert on public taste, but this time I wanted to back Seong Jiyeong up. Tracks 5 and 7 really were terrible. I’d tried to be diplomatic at first, but when Chairman Cha asked for a clearer explanation, the truth slipped out. Apparently my answer had been a little too blunt; the chairman flinched slightly. I’d been so careful choosing my words, but it seemed I’d still blown it.
“Then what about Tracks 1 and 3?”
“Exactly what Jiyeong said. Track 1 is painfully cliché, and Track 3 feels completely unhinged.”
“You’ve gotten very honest.”
“Well… the counselor said bottling things up is bad for you.”
“I see.”
Chairman Cha mulled over our words for a moment before speaking again.
“It’s true that the current idol market isn’t driven by chart performance. Even so, I have no intention of throwing together any random song and calling it a day. Producer Heo. Team Leader Yoon. Do you truly believe these are the best options?”
“…I’m sorry.”
“To be frank, we judged that the chances of receiving significantly better tracks were nearly zero. And even if better ones exist, acquiring them would take far too much time.”
“I thought as much. Still, how can we expect to capture fans with a song that even the members themselves can’t accept? Let’s at least find something the members like.”
“Understood.”
So that was his stance. Of course the executives knew the industry had become a fandom business. They probably hadn’t planned to put much weight on the song itself. Instead, they intended to invest that time into perfecting the performance choreography, stage direction, and member characters—things that actually influenced fandom cohesion. Honestly, I had nothing to say about that approach. Only the results would prove which direction was right. Any prediction before then would just be guesswork.
But one thing was certain: Chairman Cha’s point that we should at least satisfy the people who actually had to sing the song was correct. It felt like a bare-minimum requirement. Most companies wouldn’t give rookies that much say, but since we were under Cha Entertainment, we could afford to ask for it. And it was true that having a song we genuinely liked would give us more energy.
“A song, huh…”
“What are you worrying about so hard?”
“Just thinking that gathering suitable tracks seems harder than expected.”
“That’s true~ And honestly, those songs from earlier were really bad~ If I hadn’t been so busy, even I would’ve stepped in~”
“You felt the same way?”
“Of course. I have ears too, you know~”
After the first song-selection meeting ended without a decision, I couldn’t help but keep thinking about it. It was obvious that finding a genuinely good song wouldn’t be easy. More precisely, finding one that both matched our concept and satisfied our personal tastes was proving extremely difficult.
I was picky enough, but Seong Jiyeong and Yu Hana seemed far more demanding. If a track didn’t meet their minimum standards, they were likely to quietly boycott it. Yu Hana I could ignore, but Seong Jiyeong’s boycott carried real weight. That girl was a major shareholder. She held more than ten percent of the company. At that level, even Chairman Cha couldn’t simply dismiss her opinion.
“Commercial appeal, huh… It would definitely be nice if the song performed well on the charts. Especially as rookies.”
“Right~ And more than anything, it’s kind of annoying not being able to confidently introduce a song you’re singing, don’t you think~?”
“Definitely…”
Having zero ability to read trends, I couldn’t point to any specific song and say it was commercially viable. Still, it was clear our situation wasn’t great. What we wanted was something fairly deep yet reasonably trendy—suitable for a girl group to perform. Even I could see that the bar was set extremely high. Girl groups rarely asked for deep tracks in the first place. Low demand meant low supply, and when supply was scarce, the chances of finding a hidden gem naturally decreased. That was simple logic.
“A composer who can write trendy yet deep girl-group songs… I feel like I might know someone.”
After pondering for a long time, something finally clicked. I remembered how the protagonist Baek Seowu had gone about collecting songs in the original novel, The Retired Superhuman Raises Idols.