Chapter 114
Chapter 114
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 115
Chapter Title: Olivia Snow
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Olivia Snow.
Seventeen years old, a singer-songwriter who burst onto the scene like a comet at such a young age. That year, she swept the Best New Artist award in the General Field and the Pop Vocal Album at the Grammys, heralding the arrival of a monster rookie.
Her second album then shattered records with the longest-running number one on the Melboard Hot 100 and clinched Album of the Year at the Grammys, cementing her status as one of America's top singers. From then on, she was dubbed the Grammys' darling, America's greatest diva, and the finest genius in the history of U.S. popular music.
Kim Beomsin had notched third place twice in a row on Melboard, sending all of Korea into a frenzy, but for her, number one on the Melboard Hot 100 was routine.
From her debut to now, she had never once failed.
If there was anything remotely close to a failure, it was her fourth album from three years ago, which didn't win a single Grammy.
That was it.
Musically speaking, she was an existence utterly without flaws.
Musically speaking, that is.
In the industry, anyone in the know called her "princess" for her notoriously picky nature.
These days, with her experience piled up, some even called her "queen," but anyway.
You could tell just from the demands she made to concert organizers for her waiting room.
- Keep the waiting room temperature cool at 23 to 23.5 degrees Celsius.
- Provide Haagen-Dazs of every flavor, slightly melted.
- Hibiki whiskey, San Pellegrino sparkling water, ice frozen from Evian spring water.
- Frozen tangerines (must be from Jeju in Korea or Matsuyama in Japan).
- Black silk shower robe.
- A kitchen facility next to the waiting room, staffed by a chef with at least one Michelin one-star award, and the highest-grade beef for that chef to cook.
- Handmade nachos with warm, freshly made handmade cheddar cheese sauce.
- Waiting room door with iris-recognition lock, registered only to her iris. Absolutely no outside visitors.
- If waiting from the morning, prepare a hot Americano and an iced Americano from Starbucks precisely at 11:25 a.m.
- Nail artist on hand for nail art right before the show.
And that wasn't all—depending on her mood, a few more items would get tacked on.
America's countless singers made all sorts of wild and bizarre demands, but lately, that trend had been dying down a bit. She, however, was still in a league of her own.
Especially the mood-based additions—they drove the venues handling her orders insane.
Sometimes she'd suddenly demand to watch a live fish being filleted for sashimi and eat it as sushi on the spot. Other times, claiming she needed fragile emotions for her singing, she'd request five mosquitoes caught and released inside.
Yeah, so some people called her the "crazy bitch who sings."
"Yeah, I'm a crazy bitch."
The important thing was that she owned it.
"Good thing you know. But this time was extreme. Why a three-year-old Shih Tzu all of a sudden?"
Olivia Snow—the Grammy darling who was self-aware of her own madness—had apparently made another outrageous demand today.
"I've gotta sing with sad emotions today. The dog I raised starting when I was twelve was a Shih Tzu, you know? Died at three. Nothing's ever hurt as much. Ah, just talking about it makes me miss that baby and get all teary. My Billy was such a good boy."
As she said this, Olivia Snow popped a frozen tangerine into her mouth, crunched it down, and then chugged a highball made with Hibiki like a champ.
She looked the type to delicately wet her lips with fine wine and meticulously slice her steak with a knife, but her actions were pure macho.
"Just think about it... don't beg me to get you one. Keep this up, and you'll get blacklisted."
At her closest aide—the manager's—words, she glanced around.
"Whose gig are you saying will get cut? Whose? Mine? Me? No way."
"......"
"You know there's no chance of that."
With that, she pulled out her tablet.
A luxurious case encrusted with diamonds and all sorts of jewels caught the eye.
"Jessie, you seen this?"
Olivia Snow handed the tablet to her manager, Jessie.
Jessie took it gingerly, terrified even a diamond might fall off the case.
A YouTube video was playing on the screen.
"oh!!! so cute!!"
In the video, an incredibly adorable child sat at a piano.
But Jessie's expression quickly hardened.
The tiny kid was delivering a performance straight out of divine inspiration.
"Riding swing?"
Incredibly, the child was swinging with utter soul.
Jessie knew her jazz. The kid was swinging like a Black pianist pouring his very spirit into the keys.
In the world...
"She's Asian, right?"
At Jessie's unwitting words, Olivia Snow furrowed her brow.
"That's racist?"
"No, not like that. What the hell is this kid?"
"It's written right there."
"YU...... IN? Yuin?"
"Yep."
"This kid is Yuin?"
"Oh my god, Jessie. You don't know who Yuin is?"
Olivia Snow's question prompted Jessie to shoot back incredulously.
"How would I know some random kid from another family?"
"Melboard Hot 100, number three."
"Rhythmical?"
"Yuin composed that."
"Yuin...... what? So this kid is?"
"Yep."
"oh, my gosh...!"
Olivia Snow watched the stunned Jessie with amusement.
"Isn't it insane? This little thing is shaking up the Melboard charts. Seven years old now, right? What were you doing at that age?"
"Me? Probably getting my ass beat black and blue by Mom. I was a total troublemaker. What about you? You're a genius—bet you were doing something extraordinary at that age."
Olivia Snow shook her head firmly.
"At that age, I was just a normal kid nagging my dad to take me to Disneyland."
"Huh...... so this kid really is something else?"
"Yeah."
"What if this little genius blows past you and snags number one this time?"
Olivia Snow scoffed with a look of disbelief.
"Hmph, not a chance. Not yet."
"Not yet?"
Jessie was shocked.
Olivia Snow had never used words like "not yet" when sizing up anyone.
No singer, composer, or producer could ever surpass her—that was Olivia Snow's creed.
"You're saying she could someday?"
"Hate to admit it, but the odds are high. For a kid like this."
With that, Olivia Snow summoned the chef and ordered a steak.
An hour before showtime, devouring a ten-ounce medium-rare steak was her ritual.
As she had a fresh highball made to pair with the steak, a sudden thought struck her.
"By the way... am I heading to Korea this time?"
She had held exactly one concert in Korea so far.
Having experienced Korea's unique concert culture—infamously known as "wall of sound" sing-alongs—she loved the memory so much that she'd specially slotted Korea into this world tour lineup.
"Why?"
"Next month, right? Yeah?"
"Yeah."
"Ask that kid if we can meet up when I hit Korea. I'd love to see her in person."
Jessie was shocked again.
This was the first time she'd seen Olivia reach out to another musician.
Aside from her debut producer, she'd never mingled with any other singers—or even composers or producers, for that matter.
She'd even clashed with that debut producer over creative differences starting from her second album, so they'd split long ago. In truth, she now had zero musical peers she interacted with.
"This kid must really have you hooked, huh?"
"Find some time to dig into her company's channel and watch her videos. You'll want to meet her too."
As Olivia Snow began tucking into her steak, Jessie did just that—and had no choice but to concede the point.
The child played piano like Art Tatum, wielded the guitar with Wes Montgomery's touch as if channeling Jimi Hendrix.
And the songwriting? Well...
Jessie didn't say it outright in front of Snow, but the originality surpassed even hers.
Now, it wasn't just Snow's whim—Jessie herself wanted to meet this small, pretty kid.
* * *
Just as someone was zeroing in on Yeonwoo, scrutinizing him, Yeonwoo was now seriously sizing up America.
The more he delved into the U.S. music scene, the more convinced he was that making his first Melboard-targeted song country had been the right call.
Awards shows aside from the Grammys loved to declare, "This is America, and this ceremony's American," handing out plenty to country artists.
It showed not just their popularity, but how much America cherished and nurtured country music.
Still, even that beloved country genre wasn't as dominant as before.
In the last ten years, only two country acts had snagged General Field awards at the Grammys, and right now, the Melboard Hot 100's top ranks had just the one country song: Kim Beomsin's.
At this point, you could say Kim Beomsin had perfectly raided an empty house where country was absent.
With "Homeward" crushing it, other country singers were bound to poke their heads back out soon.
'Number one, though......'
Yeonwoo checked out Olivia Snow too.
Impossible not to, with her absolute grip on the top spot.
America rated her a once-in-a-decade genius. Or, for some, once in half a century—or even a century.
Yeonwoo listened through her entire career and tilted his head.
Not quite that level, in his eyes.
She didn't deliver the shock of Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin, or Jimi Hendrix by those standards.
Just, oh, she makes good songs.
Her music did produce blue light, of course—but overwhelmingly, yellow fairies exploded out, far eclipsing the blue.
According to the fairy of Shunji, who had mastered Melboard alongside him, that meant insanely mass-appeal, commercial tunes.
Yeah, exactly that level.
"What do you think? Does she strike you as a genius?"
Yeonwoo even asked Jimi Hendrix's avatar. Jimi's face twisted in disbelief before he burst into laughter.
"You don't think so either, huh?"
Yet America painted her as a genius for the ages.
Was that the American flair for bravado people talked about?
"Hmm, that much?"
He asked himself again. No matter how he sliced it, absolutely not.