The system had mentioned before that the entertainment industry in this world was developing rapidly, and every profession related to the entertainment circle was very competitive.
Especially in China, one of the most developed countries in the global entertainment industry, audiences had discerning tastes, the threshold for artists had risen, and fields like movies, TV dramas, music, stage performances, and variety shows were all flourishing.
When Quentin heard this news, his first reaction was…anticipation.
In his previous life, he had witnessed enough musical geniuses and heard countless songs, both stunning or mediocre.
Although people often said things like “the music scene is dead,” “classic old songs are better,” or “what kind of stuff are kids listening to these days,” in Quentin’s view, the music scene was always moving forward with the times.
He could hear vibrant creativity in the music, as well as the restlessness of rushing for quick success, but no matter what he heard, it didn’t affect his appreciation and love for music itself.
Music was his way of communicating with the world, and also his way of listening to the world’s voice.
After arriving in a brand-new, unfamiliar world, of course he would be curious about what the music of this world was like and how admirable the talents of this world’s creators were.
The system watched as its host listened to songs all the way back, and even after returning to the hotel room, continued listening to recommendations from the overall chart.
It waited and waited, then couldn’t help but softly urge, “Host, we still have to film a vlog. It’s due today.”
Then, it quickly added, “Your official photo poster is ready. Would you like to see it?”
Quentin blinked and pressed pause. “Let’s see it. We’ll film the vlog after looking.”
He closed his eyes, and familiar data streams converged in his vision, forming a half-body official photo against a white background.
The young man in the photo wore a dark black uniform with two neatly arranged rows of golden buttons on the chest. The uniform’s material was stiff, perfectly fitted from the collar to the shoulder lines.
The entire outfit had no additional decorations, yet it exuded an eye-catching air of nobility.
However, the most striking thing was still this face.
Quentin didn’t know how the system made the photo look so real. His newly dyed black hair was styled with fragmented bangs.
His skin had always been very good, appearing clear and translucent like porcelain in the photo, so delicate and tender that you could almost see the blue veins beneath.
But…why did he feel like this photo looked a bit fierce?
Quentin stared at the eyes in the photo and thought, it didn’t look much like his current self, but more like the 17-year-old Quentin from his previous life.
The system immediately asked, “How is it, how is it? Is the host satisfied?”
Quentin nodded. “Very good. Let’s go with this one.”
The system happily placed the official photo poster into the show’s promotional materials database and, following the same method, blurred the staff’s memories of taking Quentin’s photo.
“For the vlog about preparing luggage, are we just using a phone to film?” Quentin opened his suitcase and laid it flat on the floor. The suitcase contained all his possessions in this world, all generated by the system by default.
He took out clothes, towels, toothbrushes, and other daily necessities from their packaging one by one and threw them on the bed, pretending to be organizing his luggage. Then, he stared at the various tops and pants on the bed and sighed.
He had already discovered over an hour ago when looking for clothes in the suitcase that the system’s taste in clothes was really very flamboyant. That black hoodie was the only item here that could be described as “low-key”.
In his previous life, he was also quite trendy, after all, it was hard for someone involved in music not to be.
But his preferences were relatively simple: he liked wearing oversize clothes, wearing uniquely designed earrings, rings, and necklaces, and also liked buying various belts, boots, and leather shoes.
His aesthetic was definitely not as…flashy as the system’s.
Whatever, it didn’t matter. As long as there were clothes to wear.
The money for dyeing his hair was exchanged with energy points, so how could he afford to be picky?
The system said it could film the vlog with multiple camera angles. After careful consideration, Quentin decided to just use a phone fixed in one position to film.
Since these “pre-audition preparation vlogs” were to be filmed by the trainees themselves, he didn’t want to deliberately stand out by making a daily shoot look like a blockbuster movie. There was no need.
Five minutes later…
“OK.”
The boy kneeling on the carpet closed the suitcase, quickly fastened the combination lock, and as he leaned forward, the loose neckline of his hoodie drooped with gravity, revealing his cool, fair collarbone and a fleeting glimpse of his chest.
Quentin picked up his phone. “It’s filmed. Should I send it directly?”
This phone had the contact information of the show’s staff, but the chat history was zero. He still didn’t know what impression the show’s team had of him.
The 101st trainee who had parachuted in?
The system’s way of inserting someone was to force it in, a very direct parachuting.
A mysterious independent trainee?
It was indeed mysterious. The past resume was completely blank, there was nothing except educational background.
The system was still obsessed with its blockbuster movie idea: “Okay…whatever you decide.”
Quentin sat cross-legged and stretched. “I’m going to take a nap now. After I fall asleep, can you pull me into the recording studio? Will the energy consumed in the recording studio affect my real body?”
“Okay! And no, it won’t!”
Quentin smiled. “Then let’s do it. Let’s aim to have the initial stage performance ready today. I’ll produce the song in the recording studio, then go to the practice room to rehearse.”
As for the song to perform for the initial stage, Quentin had already decided.
It was a French song he wrote for himself when he was eighteen. The tattoo he had on his lower back, “La liberté,” was the title of this song, meaning “freedom.”
In his previous life, this song wasn’t very well-known or widely sung; its global play count couldn’t break into the top fifty among all his songs. But it held significant meaning for that young boy who yearned for freedom and longed to break free from constraints.
By eighteen, Quentin was already successful in his career, holding fame and wealth, with endless flowers and applause paving a smooth road ahead.
And “La liberté” was a gift for the twelve-year-old Quentin.
That winter, he was forced to attend his biological father and stepmother’s wedding. Standing in a church filled with white roses, he watched the man and the woman embrace and kiss under the priest’s witness.
From then on, he lost the last family member he had in the world.
Quentin chose this song not only because of its inherent meaning but also because he didn’t want to attract too much attention right from the start.
Due to language limitations, “La liberté” was destined not to spread widely in China. It would definitely sound good, but it was really hard to sing. For those who didn’t know French, it would just sound like gibberish.
For the initial stage, he only needed to leave the audience with the impression of “a mixed-race trainee who sang a niche song.”
Quentin worked on the song in the recording studio.
He had the system construct a laptop and a MIDI keyboard, then sat cross-legged in the corner by himself, spending over two hours roughly arranging the song.
Then, he took the lyrics into the recording booth and recorded line by line over and over again.
The system lacked human musical appreciation, but it could use AI algorithms to judge the song’s level.
Including the host’s composition, singing skills, vocal tone, future dance, rap, stage presence, etc., all could be quantified with letter grades from S to E.
S corresponds to world-class, A to national-level, B to expert-level, C to excellent, D to good, and E to beginner.
It told the host about this function. The host raised an eyebrow and told it to just give it a try.
“Song level evaluation in progress…” A calm electronic voice sounded in Quentin’s ear.
After a few seconds, it was replaced by the system’s lively, cheerful voice.
“[La libert] song level rating is…”
“A???”
The system almost cracked: “A? A-level! Host!! You wrote an A-level song!!!”
Quentin was also surprised: “It’s only A-level?”
The system: “…Host, A-level is already very, very high. It means your song has the potential to become famous nationwide.”
The golden-haired boy standing by the microphone stand in the recording booth took off his headphones, raised his hand, and rubbed his temples twice. “Hmm…how can I explain this to you…”
He was always astonished every time he finished writing a song, his heart filled with the lofty ambition of “under the vast heavens and earth, I am the greatest”. This emotion was at its strongest the first time he went to the recording studio to record it.
Only after he repeatedly performed this song on various occasions like concerts, music festivals, and award stages would this arrogant, self-satisfied inflated mentality gradually calm down.
Years later, when looking back on the songs he wrote in his youth, Quentin would often be so disgusted by a certain lyric that his whole body would shudder, or be so startled by a part of the arrangement that he would get goosebumps.
Heavens, just by listening to the song, he could imagine his boastful self back then, desperately trying to cram every little thing he had just learned into the song…so embarrassing!
Strictly speaking, “La liberté” was a song Quentin wrote seven years ago; he shouldn’t have been this confident.
But, even if an original singer-songwriter started from scratch to rewrite a song from the past, it was impossible to guarantee it would be exactly the same from beginning to end.
Moreover, Quentin was a perfectionist when it came to music, how could he control his instinct to revise the song?
The gap between the 25-year-old Quentin and the 18-year-old Quentin was too vast, and “La liberté” had already undergone countless adaptations over these seven years. Each age stage of Quentin had a different understanding of “freedom.”
The “La liberté” he created today, sitting in the corner of the recording studio tapping away at the computer, belonged to the 25-year-old Quentin’s freedom. Of course, he was full of confidence in this song.
However, Quentin’s standard for judging whether a song was good or not had never been about whether it could become popular. Whether it was an A, S, or E didn’t make much difference to him.
Actually, music creation itself was a very personal thing; everyone had their own taste in music appreciation. The main reason Quentin was rated as the “most commercially valuable original singer in the global music scene” in his previous life was because his songs just happened to be appreciated by the masses.
Thus, he never needed to chase trends; he was the trend itself.
This natural talent and genius, a gift that crushed all the industry’s unwritten rules, protected Quentin’s confidence.
Music, only music would never betray him.
Quentin gave up trying to analyze his psychology to the system: “Alright then, A-level is good too.”
He pinched the headphone wire and muttered to himself quietly: “The potential to become famous nationwide? Hmm, just potential.”
A song’s popularity depended on having the right time, place, and people. How could a French song appearing on a talent show variety program become famous in China?
The system said: “A-level is really very high already QAQ.”
Quentin raised an eyebrow: “Okay, I understand. Let’s go to the practice room to rehearse for the initial stage.”
…..
[Next stage] was the first domestic boy group talent show variety program jointly created by Youth TV and Galaxy Entertainment.
Before this, the hugely popular IDOL groups in China had always been produced by various idol labels under BKL Entertainment, launching a new generation of boy and girl groups on average every four years.
The currently popular one was the sixth generation. It was said that the trainees for the seventh-generation boy group were undergoing final selection, expected to officially debut by the end of this year. Calculating the timing, they would coincidentally be going head-to-head with the seven-member boy group formed at the end of [NS].
It was easy to imagine the bloody storm that would happen at the end of the year. After all, BKL family fans and the seventh-generation boy group’s “midwifery fans” were on average crazy, crazy enough to even dare to challenge top celebrities.
**Midwifery fans are fans waiting for a group’s debut.
As luck would have it, Galaxy Entertainment was undoubtedly a soft persimmon that everyone could step on in the domestic entertainment industry.
This entertainment company had almost no famous artists; the most famous thing was the boss’s money. Well, besides money, it had nothing. No good opportunities to offer signed artists, and no connections…the most important things in the entertainment industry.
But fortunately, Galaxy had money, which was how it managed to snatch the opportunity to cooperate with Youth TV to create a talent show variety program right out of BKL Entertainment’s hands.
Galaxy Entertainment: [You had no fate, it’s all depends on me spending money).jpg]
Most casual fans wouldn’t pay attention to the undercurrents between capital; their attention had long shifted to the anticipation for the [NS] variety show itself.
[NS]’s promotional short film had been released half a month ago, the mentor lineup had been officially announced one after another, and the heat brought by the first domestic boy group talent show variety program itself was also not to be underestimated.
The dedicated discussion group for [Next stage] had already been created on the forum. Fangirls and melon-eating onlookers gathered together, waiting for the official photo posters of the 101 trainees to be released in half an hour.
Topic: [101? Didn’t they say 100 trainees before?]
1L: [It seems like there’s a new person added temporarily]
2L: [What kind of background does he have to be able to suddenly parachute in, a royal?]
*A royal is someone that has good resources due to nepotism or strong backing.
3L: […Which family’s royal only enters a week before recording starts, don’t be too sensitive.]
4L: [I hope NS doesn’t have any royals ahhh, last year’s girl group survival show’s royal sister pushed my daughter out of the debut spot, so angry I could die QAQqqq]
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Topic: [Daily question, are there still young handsome boys in domestic entertainment?[knocking wooden fish][knocking wooden fish]]
1L: [There definitely are, but you can’t expect all 101 to be handsome guys [shrugs]]
2L: [This faithful woman doesn’t ask for 101, I only ask that the final 7 who debut don’t have ugly boys [pray][pray]]
3L: [Upstairs speaks the truth, is it so hard to have a perfect face group? The higher-ups at next-door BKL seem to have an ugly fetish, they stuff a few ugly ones in for every generation, it burns my eyes every time I see it [vomit][vomit]]
4L: [……Upstairs dares to say it, someone will come sniffing the scent soon]
5L: [I hope all sisters who see this post can stand tall, don’t vote for ugly people, okay?]
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Topic: [I heard [NS] has many trainees with real skill, true or false]
1L: [This one is guaranteed true, my school’s boy god has piano level 10, saxophone level 10, studied vocal music since childhood, effective vocal range spans four octaves, sang on Spring Festival Gala when he was little, he’s really awesome.]
2L: [Upstairs, you might as well just say his name…]
3L: [Someone spilled the beans that the youngest trainee in this batch is 17 years old, the older ones are 30+, judging by age they probably aren’t going the training system route and are betting on a talent boy group]
4L: [You better not believe it…Trainees with strong skills all signed with BKL, how could they participate in Galaxy’s limited group survival show [speechless] Does anyone really believe this mess can be popular? Galaxy must be buying water armies like crazy..]
Topic: [Announcement!! The official photos have been updated!!!]
