Chapter 164. Who Should We Recruit?
What do you mean I'm fighting the country?
Are you Louis XIV or something?
After I boldly hung up the phone, Jung Tae-jin's older brother, Jung Tae-geon, and CEO Lee Jae-gwan both looked curious.
"What did he say?"
Lee Jae-gwan asked.
He'd been feeling a little nervous, as though he had somehow betrayed Hong Sang-hyeok.
"Apparently, he is the country. He'll probably start calling broadcasters and production companies and tell them to exclude every celebrity under our company. Doesn't matter."
At first, I'd called Jung Tae-jin and asked if he might be interested in investing.
He said his older brother would probably be more interested and introduced me to Jung Tae-geon.
Jung Tae-geon wasn't uninterested in commercial holograms in the first place.
And Lee Jae-gwan wasn't stubbornly insisting that he alone had to commercialize the technology either.
They both concluded that sharing their respective research assets and technical capabilities could create strong synergy.
"Anyway, what's important is producing an immediate result. We just need to recreate singer Kim Gwang-yeon using both hologram technology and voice synthesis, correct? That alone should be enough to properly promote WF Media."
Jung Tae-geon summarized the situation seriously.
Lee Jae-gwan answered,
"We can reproduce the hologram immediately, even if we have to move the equipment from our lab. We only need to model Mr. Kim Gwang-yeon's appearance. The problem is voice synthesis. To develop it to the point where people genuinely feel that it sounds like him would probably take around two months."
"It'll be faster than that. ZJ Electronics has already developed a secure program that can isolate and record individual user voices. If we analyze Mr. Kim Gwang-yeon's vocal patterns from every song and surviving performance recording, reconstruct his voice, and layer it over a guide vocal, it should be nearly perfect."
Lee Jae-gwan, whose research had suddenly gained momentum again, spoke with Jung Tae-geon in visible excitement.
At this rate, it felt like we might be able to see a brand-new Kim Gwang-yeon performance as soon as tomorrow.
That was when Anna called me.
"Excuse me for a moment."
I asked for their understanding and answered.
Anna immediately spoke.
"You know what you asked me about? I asked Billy, Emil Lipa, Nick Allen, and Revick."
I'd asked Anna to find out how the artists scheduled for the Super Bowl felt about Blue Moon's participation.
I wanted to know what they thought of us being added to the show.
So I'd told her to use her network of Billboard artists and quietly ask around.
"What did they say?"
"Apparently, they don't like it."
Damn.
Success was always opposed right before it happened.
I'd asked the organizers to make the other singers come to wherever Blue Moon was if we needed joint rehearsals.
But not a single artist had contacted us.
I'd expected something like this.
Apparently, they'd already decided to build the collaborative stage among themselves, people who were already close and worked well together.
After all, the joint stage had been left largely to the artists themselves from the beginning.
"And I heard the stage planners don't really like our stage either. Do we really need to perform there?"
Still, it was ultimately the Super Bowl organizers who had decided to invite Blue Moon.
What the other performers thought didn't matter.
They might not particularly welcome us either, but whether it was the Halftime Show or the opening show, we were going to perform there.
After ending the call, I looked over the list of retired singers we might be able to invite.
Park Gwang-cheol said he could contact all of them for us.
There were plenty of names that would make anyone's eyes widen.
Some were still so famous that it was hard to believe they had actually retired.
Even then, it still felt a little lacking.
So I kept changing search keywords online, trying to find someone suitable.
Eventually, I came across an article.
[Sam Jason, Older Brother of 20th Century's Greatest Musician Michael Jason, Visits Korea to Promote Korean Edition of His Book 〈The Artist Who Refuses to Step Down〉]
The family of the King of Pop, Michael Jason, was currently in Korea.
September 11.
As the new semester began, Daeyoung University of Foreign Studies held a special public seminar.
It was a guest lecture by Sam Jason.
Perfect timing.
The solo concert I'd been eagerly awaiting was still underway, but the moment the sun rose on September 11, I headed straight to Daeyoung University of Foreign Studies.
I'd briefly visited the campus once before to sell tteokbokki.
Daeyoung University of Foreign Studies was famous for having one of the largest lecture halls in Seoul.
Thanks to that, not only university students but ordinary citizens could attend the lecture too.
"K-pop is a new form of global popular culture. It is a substream that quantitatively absorbs the mainstream. At first glance, that sounds paradoxical, but historically, it is an entirely natural phenomenon. Every form of popular culture has evolved in precisely that way. Even if we assume that there exists a single universal culture encompassing the entire world, K-pop would not be an exception. From this, we can conclude that K-pop is likely to become part of the global mainstream in the near future."
I knew Sam Jason was fairly old, but he still had an imposing presence.
He didn't exactly give off an artist's impression.
Still, he seemed very comfortable onstage and behind a podium.
For some reason, he also radiated conviction.
There were more ordinary citizens than university students in the audience.
And more entertainment reporters than ordinary citizens.
The reporters weren't this interested merely because he was Michael Jason's older brother.
There was a particular topic they expected him to discuss today.
"But the universal can only ever be defined through countless acts of exclusion. My younger brother, Michael Jason, who began his career in America as a Black singer, was one of those excluded people."
Sam spoke.
An interpreter translated.
The reporters typed rapidly.
"Everyone here likely remembers two versions of Michael Jason at once. Michael Jason at his most dazzling onstage, and Michael Jason, the Black artist who collided with exclusion in the popular-music industry. What problems do artists in popular music face? Which types of artists are most often excluded, and what forces create that exclusion? I hope my book, 〈The Artist Who Refuses to Step Down〉, can help you search for answers to those questions."
The lecture had been going for quite some time when a man who looked like university staff hurried toward me in a crouched posture.
His knee slammed into a chair with a loud bang.
For a moment, the audience turned toward him.
He ignored them.
"Ow, my knee..."
He eventually reached me and crouched beside my seat.
"A-Aren't you CEO Do Jun-hyeok of Universe? I didn't know you were coming. May I ask what brings you here...?"
Wasn't this open to ordinary citizens?
I'd come because I wanted to meet Sam Jason and secure the Michael Jason hologram.
But there was no need to tell this staff member that.
"I really like popular culture too. Artist exclusion and all that. I love topics like this. I've always attended lectures like these."
"Ah, I see."
The staff member said nothing else and left.
What was that about?
After Sam Jason's opening lecture ended, the audience began applauding.
Then, for a short special lecture in the middle of the program, someone familiar stepped onto the stage.
"Hahaha. Yes, I know. You all came to hear Mr. Sam's lecture. I'll only give a very brief recommendation of 〈The Artist Who Refuses to Step Down〉 and then get out of the way."
The audience laughed lightly at his self-deprecating tone.
It was the CEO of Riven Entertainment, the man I'd often clashed with during 〈Rebooting〉.
The Riven CEO selected one chapter from 〈The Artist Who Refuses to Step Down〉 and began talking about why the entertainment industry and capital inevitably became entangled.
