Chapter 5. Mango Entertainment (3)
"Ahh, I'm so tired."
Lee Hyun sighed as he tried to stretch his body which was feeling numb. It was because he was sitting in his chair for three hours.
He also didn't have a choice. He was completing the audio clip he had shown to Kim Dongsu.
Making music can take months and Lee Hyun was particularly focused on this one, as it would be his first work after returning back to the past.
'I wished Uncle Dongsu had agreed.'
Lee Hyun thought about the talk he had with Kim Dongsu.
He was rejected and Kim Dongsu had refused to join him in Mango Entertainment.
It was not like he couldn't understand where he was coming from. Lee Hyun's proposal was sudden and Kim Dongsu can't suddenly leave his job for him.
Still, he can't help but be dissapointed.
His work would have become way easier if Kim Dongsu had agreed to his request.
'If you need any help, you can contact me. It's not easier to make your way in the entertainment industry. So, you can ask for help anytime.'
Lee Hyun thought back to the words Kim Dongsu had spoken to him, when they were parting ways.
"If it happened like before, then Uncle Dongsu would start his own agency ten years from now on."
He thought about Kim Dongsu's future.
From what he remembers, Kim Dongsu had failed to become the head of the planning department and the position of the head was given to the nephew of one of the directors.
It was a clear case of cronyism.
Despite that, no one has said anything. Even Bae Hyunsung was silent on this matter.
Now that he thinks about it, corruption was filled everywhere in the top brass of Top Entertainment, but Lee Hyun had ignored it because he was solely focused on making music.
'I was really ignorant of all these things.'
Lee Hyun blamed himself to a certain extent for that.
If he had said anything about it, then maybe Kim Dongsu would not have faced such injustice.
"He started his own agency after that. I can't remember the name but it was focused on singers. It was a pity that it didn't work."
Lee Hyun muttered all that and thought about another one of his memories.
That was the time when he had already received the title of Midas of music and was on his high horses.
Kim Dongsu had come to him, requesting a song for one of his singers but Lee Hyun had not even met him.
He has refused to meet him because he didn't want to waste one of his songs on an unknown singer.
'I was really a bastard back then.'
Lee Hyun frowned thinking about all that. He hated his past self because of all the bad decisions he made.
He disappointed Kim Dongsu in the past just because of his arrogance.
"I made a lot of mistakes in the past. At least, I have a chance to correct them this time."
Lee Hyun muttered and sat back down on his chair.
He shook his head off all these thoughts. There was still work to do. The song was not complete yet. He was still giving the final touches to the song.
Lee Hyun opened the DAW (Digital audio workspace) software and played the song again.
The song started out slow with the sounds of strings of the guitar but it soon catched up on speed and a drum beat followed the guitar strings.
The beat remained constant for some time and the guitar and the drum mixed in to form a completely different synergy.
The keyboard part came out after that and in the end, the sound of bass made a perfect ending.
"It's good but something is missing."
Lee Hyun felt that there was something wrong between the first verse and the chorus.
He wondered if he should add a bridge but decided against it.
The bridge part can make it worse.
He played the song three times more and pondered on which direction he should take the song to.
'Making a song is just like making a straight path.'
Singing a song was just like walking down on a straight road. The song would mess up if you walked in a zigzag way.
The song would become unsightly.
Then, what was making a song? It was just like making a road. A straight road that the singer can follow.
Sometimes, there would be some holes in the road but it's up-to the composer to find those holes and fill it up for the singer to walk properly.
"How to fill the hole?"
Lee Hyun thought about it and tried many different things.
He added the sound of a piano and then followed it up with the sound of a violin and then, a cello.
But nothing worked.
He still didn't give up and continued to add other instruments and melodies. He tried different things and after an hour, he finally managed to fill the hole.
He once again played the song.
The sound of a guitar played out and then, there was the drum. Lee Hyun added a bass sound to mix in with the drum this time.
Then, he added the synthesizer but he kept the melody slow.
It suddenly got picked up after another beat of the drum. Then, the beat just went higher and the feeling it gave increased.
The song ended like that and Lee Hyun can't help but nod in satisfaction.
'It's way better than the flop songs I was making previously.'
Lee Hyun listened to the songs ten more times and everytime, his satisfaction level kept increasing.
He felt the thing that he had missed in all of his flop songs - Emotions.
His current song was filled with emotions. Various emotions were poured in this song, making it richer.
"My music has returned."
When Lee Hyun had returned back to the past, he had tried to make different melodies and had noticed that there was a change in him.
He has instantly realised why he was feeling different.
It was because he had somehow gotten past his bottleneck. He can make good songs again now.
He was not sure what triggered this.
Maybe it was the betrayal he faced? Or it was his wife cheating on him? It can also be the effect of him regressing back to the past.
Nevertheless, he was really happy about it.
Lee Hyun had even jumped around and danced for a while because of that. He had only stopped after he noticed his brother watching him with a weird look.
'My music is back with me. Mango Entertainment would surely become one of the top agencies in the future.'
He thought with a grin.
He not only has future knowledge but also his future songs.
Lee Hyun had made a whopping number of songs for Top Entertainment but this time, he won't join it as a composer.
That means that the hit songs he made for Top Entertainment would never see the light.
It would be too much of a waste if he didn't use it somewhere else.
That's why Lee Hyun would use his hit songs to make a future for Mango entertainment.
'It's not like I'm plagiarising someone else's song anyway.'
Lee Hyun thought about the future of Mango Entertainment.
Currently, there was only him.
Kim Dongsu had refused to join and there were no employees other than him. He doesn't even have a celebrity under the agency.
First of all, he has to get some employees and raise some money to support the agency.
Then, he has to find a talent and cultivate him or her into a star.
'It would be hard.'
This job was definitely not easy. Lee Hyun had to work hard for everything, but he was willing to do it.
It was because of his dream. Not his earlier dream but his new dream.
'The dream to make Mango Entertainment the best agency in Korea.'