#fmdos1

What are your opinions of all of the other competitors? What did you think of what you got to see of their audition cover videos?

“I’m really impressed to see the rest of the cast. They’re all really talented, and I was flattered some of them had mentioned I was someone to look up to. I’ve heard at least one song from each of them, and I’ve been lucky enough to work with several of them before. Their cover videos were, of course, good. The ones that stood out to me? Joohwan’s cover wasn’t what I expected from him, so I’m interested to see what he plans to bring to the show. Jaewon’s was really cool, too, but I’ve worked with him a lot, so I already knew what he was capable of.”

Now that you’ve met your competitors, who are you most afraid to compete against?

“Hmm? It would be the cast members I know the best, right? They know my weaknesses already.” Ash laughs to make it clear he’s not taking the competition that seriously. “Sun is a real force as a songwriter. He doesn’t get enough credit for how much work he puts out or the diversity of what he’s written. He’s the one I feel is most prepared to compete in the competition. But I’m not afraid to compete against anyone. If I get eliminated, it will have been a learning experience regardless.”

What strength do you have that will make you stand out from your competitors?

“I think all of the competitors have their own sound, so I don’t know that having my own sound is anything special but I’m confident in my independence? I work on music a lot on my own these days, so I’m confident in my ability to approach songmaking without much help. That could be my weakness as well, though. I’m not very good at asking for help when I do need it.”

What are your immediate thoughts on how you plan to approach your first task?

i. alarm by jaewon

(wc: 547)

shakes amongst his bones felt almost like an ache. a near pain. sometimes, when sung had songs released, this feeling had flipped on its head, to the other side of the coin, bringing energy and endorphin raising excitement to his every move. this feeling was blackened with worry. for hours, he’d been flipping between wanting to completely avoid public reactions, and furiously seeking them out.

our songs wasn’t just about him. it was about his value as a songwriter, as element’s songwriter, and member, as an employee under gold star. he knew he’d worked himself up more than usual with those kinds of thoughts.

sung got into the sun’s goodnight studio early, fearing that his nerves might get the best of him and leave him messing up. after nearly two years on air, he didn’t want to be a disappointment now. he’d readied his papers, checked over his equipment again, and again, then again once more, before finally sitting down to wait out his signal.

his lungs filled, expanding his ribcage forward, and on its way out, his head swum.

“welcome to sun’s goodnight. i’m dj sun, and i’ll be spending the next while with you, as we chat, listen to music, and wind down our day. please listen well.” a brief pause, as he transitioned out of his opening statement. “today is a big day for dj sun. for those who don’t know me,” he said, though he hadn’t looked into the statistics in a while, it was likely still that many of the listeners weren’t directly his idol fans, “my name is choi joosung, and outside of this studio, i’m largely referred to as element’s sun, an idol. i have always hesitated to call myself a songwriter. up until about a year ago, the majority of my songwriting had been done alongside other, much more experienced writers, who helped me come to where i am now. where i am now, is, participating in a competition show called our songs, which is all about songwriting. today, our first songs were released.”

he took a deep breath, and let it out with a soft laugh. “i have been so terribly nervous about this release all day. there are not many released songs of mine that have been completely penned by me. and so, i hope that the reception turns out kind. in times like these, i turn towards music, as i believe many people do. a song from one of my competitors continued on repeat for me, today, as i dealt with this anxiety.

jaewon is someone i feel grateful to call a friend, and am lucky to be competing against. his song from the show, called alarm, gave me the feeling of being understood. our situations were not the same, and yet, this song gave me a peacefulness i would not have been able to get otherwise. the message is something i believe sun’s goodnight listeners should listen closely to, and take to heart. when you are tired, please rest. this, is jaewon’s alarm.”

as the song began to play, sung leaned back, and took deep breaths, eyes closed. he’d have to play smile after this song, and be in real time for his listeners’ reaction. this was the least he could do for himself. release.

ii. blink by kevin abstract

“ah this next song, it’s quite different with the version i can play on radio. one of the nice things about not understanding english in music too well is i can focus more on the sound of it. this is, mm, one of those songs that can be felt without understanding what’s being said. the composition is very disjointed in a way that sounds like it might almost fit.”

iii. two time by jack stauber

“to me, there are artists with music i’m not sure if i’d ever feel comfortable enough to try out myself, but they continuously inspire me nonetheless. jack stauber is like that. i’d originally heard him on the app tiktok, and i’ve been fascinated ever since. his music is something completely different from anything i’d ever heard before. this song tonight, is one of my favorites from him.”

iv. shadow by taemin

a breathy laugh. “i hadn’t realized it until now, but i’ve managed to pick quite a few songs for the earlier part of the show that express my feelings of this day. in it’s lyrics, it can be quite dark. it reminds me of a song by the same name from the group f(x), actually. in a strange way, they’re both comforts to me. --i might be biased for being a fan of both artists, however, i hope that this song can give you comfort as it does for me.”

v. mirotic by tvxq

“let us begin to let the worries of our days pass, shall we? this song, i believe is a good place to start for that. even my grandmother knows this song. there’s something beautiful in nostalgia, don’t you think? a comfort that can only be brought on by the fickle nature of memory. i’d like for this time, this night, to be like that for you.”

vi. now that i found you by carly rae jepsen

“the next track up is one that makes me particularly happy. love is a common theme in music, from the beginning of time. i believe part of that is because of how powerful the feeling of love is. this applies to family, friends, pets, lovers. finding those that you don’t want to let go of is magic, and i hope you all have or find people like that.”

vii. velvet by silhouette (sohee)

saying that she was shocked from the moment she stepped into the studio was perhaps not one of the biggest understatements of the century when it came to youngjoo coming to participate in our songs. she’s still stunned at the appearance of ash in the studio, carrying with her that vaguely dumbstruck aura with her as she’s guided away for her first interview for the show. 

What are your opinions of all of the other competitors? What did you think of what you got to see of their audition cover videos?

it takes more than just a little time for her to recover from her surprise, though years of experience have given her more than enough energy and wise ideas on playing it off as simply thoughtful thinking rather than just completely spacing out after a question is asked. 

“ah..my opinions?” she wonders if others had anything good to fractionally say about her, since there was pretty much nothing special in that whole cover video that she did that stood out in particular to her own eyes when she watched her cover alongside others. “there’s so many cool and good singers around.” her voice is soft and quiet as she lowers its timbre, a little abashed at the useless and yet apparent answer that she had given. everyone in the show were idols so how could they not sing well? wasn’t that just a useless answer she had given? not being on variety for a bit too long made her mother than just a little nervous, her brows practically knitting together in worry as she blinked. “i actually love in particular the cover video that suji made of knight’s love shot.” the thought of the younger song writer made her lips curve up ever so slightly as she mentioned the cover of the idol boy group song that the other girl had made. “i think it was pretty different from the way that you’d mostly hear or even think what most people would select as a cover song. the other one is as--” she nearly speaks his name aloud, swallowing back her words as she reverts clamps up for a moment, trying to revert to the unfamiliarity that she was supposed to have with the other artists around her. “taeyong.” she offers up a natural smile as she brushes back her hair from her face. “for taeyong--i kinda expect him to have sung something akin or similar to what he actually covered. because it was so close to all the songs that he’d produced before, even if it was a remix, hence it wasn’t much of a surprise as compared to suji’s different interpretation of a poppy boy group song.”

Now that you’ve met your competitors, who are you most afraid to compete against?

“me?” she blinks rather in surprise at the suggestion at being afraid to compete against a particular individual that she had to single out. “if its production and lyricism, i think it would be taeyong. he’s had the most experience with regards to sentimentality when it comes to the lyrics of his songs, or even the production and composition that he does for his albums. that experience itself might even be the biggest hurtle for me as a competitor to overcome, just as it might be a beneficial one, since I’ve had considerably lesser experience in writing lyrics and composing songs for other artists.” she laughed a little shyly. “i think mostly out of everyone in the group, i’ve had the least experience in composing, production and lyrics. even to some of my juniors like suji, they’ve written much more songs and had much more experiences than i’ve ever had.” she paused for a moment, laughing at the thought. “so i guess you could say that i’m expecting myself to literally not be on anyone’s list at the moment as someone that’s worthy of being a competitor? but yes, i’m honestly terrified of competing against them all, since they’ve got so much more experience gathered as a whole compared to my own.”

What strength do you have that will make you stand out from your competitors?

“ah..i think that would be composition?” she raises the end of her sentence with what seemed like a question mark. “because i’ve been writing a lot of compositions for a long while running, so while i may lose out to others in terms of lyrics and production, i think composition is definitely something that might make me stand out? especially when it comes to the genre of slower songs or ballad songs. my musical style is very acoustic, and so like wise that tends to bleed into my compositions and songs as well, though i’ve been trying to branch out in different ways as well.”

What are your immediate thoughts on how you plan to approach your first task?

she used to be able to do changes in front of anyone, back when she was younger, doing more theatre, and wasn’t so god damn aware of her body. she’s improved in the last few months, but eunah still isn’t able to get changed in front of people. she can’t even bring herself to be fully naked in front of hanjae. 

once she’s ready to go, lips painted a pretty shade of red, eunah darts down to get her photos taken. she’s quiet for most of the time on set, looking around at everything, and looking up at her fellow competitors. she’s the shortest member of the cast. among everything that’s new, at least she can always count on being the shortest person in the room. other than that, she feels her inferiority quite apparently. she’s being photographed beside knight, origin, fuse, silhouette, and element members. being with her labelmates from gal.actic and unity is comforting. she doesn’t say anything about it, but she does take silent solace in their familiar faces. eunah thinks about her members, back at their own places. she has to do well. she has to do her group proud. with a nugget of determination in her heart, eunah smiles as best as she can for her pictures.

working on swim away was hard, but in a good way. she enjoys writing songs because getting to listen to the finished product is always satisfying. bringing it to television in its still somewhat unfinished state is intimidating as all hell. she feels extremely small sitting in her chair in the big studio set they’ve been brought to to perform their demo tracks. eunah isn’t sure if being third from last is beneficial or not. on one hand, she has a lot of time to psych herself up, but also a lot of time to work herself into nervousness. putting her own emotions to the back of her mind, eunah tries to focus on the performances instead. she smiles happily, nodding along to the songs, and giving little ‘wow’s to the really good parts.

she ‘wow’ed often too. all of the songs ended up being really good. when it’s eunah’s turn, she patters up to the microphone nervously, but once she starts to sing, she’s able to relax. 

IN-’VERSE INFO

The following idols are informed they’ve been chosen on July 25 and will be sent a contract to sign: @fmdjoosung, @eunahfmd, @fmdjoohwan, @fmdjaewon, @fmdxsuji, @fmdtaeyong, @fmdxyoungjoo. @fmdkami. They will be told not to share the news of their casting with anyone yet and sharing the news with anyone outside of their management before they’ve been officially announced will result in them being removed from the cast and replaced.

The first day of filming takes place on July 28. Each cast member will arrive at the building that the show’s set is in in a separate van at separate times so that the identities of the other cast members are kept secret. They will be filmed arriving at the building. They will then go through hair and makeup off-camera and will each be assigned a waiting room of their own.

Once filming begins, the cast will be brought out and walked into a set resembling a recording studio with nine chairs (one for each competitor and one in the center for the host) in the following order: Youngjoo → Suji → Taeyong → Jaewon → Joohwan → Eunah → Sun → Kami. They will be able to pick their own seat, though they aren’t told any significance to this yet. Once every competitor is in the room, the host arrives — a well-known senior singer-songwriter named Choi Jihoon (born 1987, debuted in 2005). All competitors are then invited to give a short introduction of themselves in the order of seat they chose, beginning with the seat to the right hand of the host.

They will then be introduced to how the winners and losers of each round will be determined: a mix of online votes based on the track alone and in-person audience votes based on a live performance of the track. Choi Jihoon explains a songwriter who performs their own songs should be able to capture an audience through both their ears alone as well as affect their hearts with a powerful live performance.

Choi Jihoon then informs the competitors of the prize the winner will receive: ₩10,000,000 and all expenses covered for a special promotion period and official single release for a song they create in the final round of the competition. The competitors are given time to react, and then Choi Jihoon continues. He asks rhetorically if they’re surprised by the cast and questions whether they feel impressed or intimidated. Attention is then grabbed by a screen behind the window of the “recording booth” flickering to life. A compilation video begins to play with brief clips of those who named other members of the cast as songwriters they look up to in their audition videos, with the camera team making sure to get reaction shots of those who are shown and named, and then the audition cover video of the seniormost idol in the cast, begins to play. Clips of each competitor’s audition cover video are played in succession from most senior to most junior (Youngjoo (”Aloha” cover) → Kami (”No” cover)   → Taeyong (”Needed Me” cover)  → Joohwan (”Zombie” cover)  → Suji (”Love Shot” cover) → Eunah (”Irony” cover) → Jaewon (”Q” cover)  → Sun (”Artist” cover)) before the screen flickers back to black with white text: “Who will win?” and the lights go back up.

Choi Jihoon has the spotlight again, and he uses it to give everyone a reminder: all of the competitors have their own skill set and each of them can only get to the end of the competition by working hard and winning over the love of audiences, so it’s time to announce their first task. The host reads from a “theme card” as follows:

“Some of you have made a name for yourselves with the public already, while some of you are still working hard to earn recognition as songwriters. No matter how famous you get or how talented you are, nothing is more important to earning the love of the public than having a unique identity as a songwriter and performer. For your first task, you will be asked to create a song that introduces yourself to both the audiences that will decide your fate and your fellow competitors. If you had to make a song to convince everyone to listen to the rest of the music you’ve created, what would it be? What is the song that speaks to who you are as a person and a songwriter? What do you have as a songwriter that makes you stand out from the competition? Answering those questions is your very first songwriting mission. Those who fail to win over the audiences may be eliminated and, if they are, will not be able to move forth in the competition.”

The competitors are given time to react to the prompt before the first filming ends. Before leaving the building, each musician will film a talking head interview in a private room with a small team of cameras and producers where they are asked the following questions:

What are your opinions of all of the other competitors? What did you think of what you got to see of their audition cover videos?

Now that you’ve met your competitors, who are you most afraid to compete against?

What strength do you have that will make you stand out from your competitors?

What are your immediate thoughts on how you plan to approach your first task?

From July 29 to August 17, all competitors are given time to work on their songs. Staff from the show will come and install cameras in the studio they will be working in at their respective company buildings and will also give each competitor a camera to self-film with and are instructed to record their creative process and their thoughts as they create. They are allowed to work on their songs at home, if they have a studio there, but stationary cameras will not be installed in their homes.

On July 31, all of the competitors will be scheduled for individual photo sessions and a group photo session to shoot their profile images for the show (reference). Each competitor will work with the stylist on set to pick from the available wardrobe to pick a casual look that represents them.

On August 18, all competitors will return to the recording studio set. Choi Jihoon will remind everyone of the aim of the show and the tasks and briefly ask everyone to discuss how their songwriting went among each other as a group conversation. Each competitor will then be asked to go back into the recording booth part of the set and give a live “recording” performance of the demo version of their song in front of the rest of the cast (reference). They will go in order of seniority again (reminder: Youngjoo → Kami → Taeyong → Joohwan → Suji → Eunah → Jaewon → Sun). The rest of the cast will be filmed reacting to the performance and will be allowed to comment and give constructive criticism or praise following the end of each demo performance.

Final mastered versions of all songs are due to the production team by August 23.

On August 30, the final version of each competitor’s song will be released onto streaming sites and voting will open for online audiences.

On September 5, all competitors will come back to the same building again—this time on a different set, which is the stage where they’ll perform their song for the live audiences (reference 1, reference 2). Minor set and prop elements are permitted, but they should be easy for the staff to get on and off the stage. The idols’ respective companies will be responsible for the styling and performance preparation of the idol.

Once filming begins, the competitors will be informed they will be performing in order of the seat they chose on the first day of filming. In case anyone has forgotten, the host will remind everyone what this order is, and performances will proceed.

Sun - “Smile”

Joohwan - “That’s Not Me”

Youngjoo - “E.T”

Kami - “Crazy Diamond” [performance reference]

Suji - “Little Wildflower” [performance reference]

Eunah - Swim Away [performance reference]

Jaewon - “Alarm”

Taeyong - “Noid” [performance reference]

As each competitor is performing, the other seven songwriters will sit in raised chairs to the back/side of the stage and their reactions will be filmed. At the conclusion of each stage, the host will ask each competitor the thoughts on the song that was just performed. In the final airing of the episode, only one to three competitors’ comments will be aired per song.

During the break following all eight song performances, each competitor will be pulled into a room for another talking head interview (admin note: please wait to complete this interview until all songs have been chosen and listed above):

Talk about your song. How does it match the theme of “Introduction / Identity”?

How do you feel you did with your performance? What regrets do you have?

Which of the other songs/performances caught your attention the most?

Who do you think got the most votes from the online audience based on the track and who do you think got the most votes from the offline audience based on the performance?

OUT OF ‘VERSE INFO

As stated in the audition post, since the number of submitted muses who completed all necessary steps exceeded eight, the final cast was decided by random name generator. Proof shots of the name picker can be found here.

For the eight muns with muses in the show, congratulations and welcome to this event! For each episode block, you will need to choose at least one song for your muse to write, and there will often be other information you must submit, so a form will be put up for each filming block that you must submit to. For this task block you will need to submit the following information: which seat your muse chose on the first day of filming, the song you would like to claim for them to create for this round’s task (and a performance reference if one is available), and the creative claims on it.

The form link will be uploaded here at 12AM KST July 25/11AM EDT July 24, twelve hours after this post goes up. The form link can be found here. A reminder of the limits of creative claims on each muse for the show can be found here. If you think there is a mistake or if a song is released that leads to a necessary update, please contact the main.

Seats (note: Seat One is the seat to the right hand of the host. from there, all odd numbers are next to each other and all even numbers are next to each other):

Seat One: Sun

Seat Two: Joohwan

Seat Three: Youngjoo

Seat Four: Kami

Seat Five: Suji

Seat Six: Eunah

Seat Seven: Jaewon

Seat Eight: Taeyong

Songs Claimed:

E.T (Heize)

Little Wildflower (Suzy)

Noid (WOODZ)

Alarm (Mino)

That’s Not Me (The Black Skirts)

Swim Away (Sejeong)

Smile (Nafla)

Crazy Diamond (Cheetah)

SONG LIMITATIONS/REQUIREMENTS

The simplified theme for this round is “Introduction / Identity”. Please read the prompt in the in-’verse info for full details on what this means.

For all rounds, a song must fit all general rules of music claims (i.e. matches muse position, is not too explicit, must be by an artist in the Korean music industry, etc.) and must receive admin approval.

For this round, these are the additional limitations and requirements on songs that can be chosen:

The song must be solo. This means it cannot be a collab or have a feature.

In real life, the song must not be a title track according to Melon and cannot have an official MV. Special clips, live clips, and minimal production lyric videos are acceptable, but the song will have to be re-released on an album in the future to claim such videos as canon to the universe.

In real life, the song cannot have charted within the top 100 of Gaon’s Weekly Digital Chart at any point. 

jaewon wasn’t feeling half as confident as he was trying to come across in front of the camera. they were only about to wrap up the first day of filming but with how stressed out jaewon was, you think they’d be nearing the finale already. he couldn’t let any of that show to the camera though, he had some semblance of self-respect left and wasn’t about to be written as some sort of rookie that didn’t know what he was doing. there only a hint of a thoughtful frown visible, the rest of his expression hard and unreadable. fake it till you make it right?

what are your opinions of all of the other competitors? What did you think of what you got to see of their audition cover videos?

“i think they all did a great job, obviously they’re all very talented.” he nodded quietly for a second. “i noticed a few others playing instruments for their covers as well, eunah and youngjoo played keyboard and hwan played guitar like me, makes me consider if i should perhaps have left the guitar solo out, it feels a bit over the top looking back on it, especially as i don’t know if my skills lived up the to standard. i haven’t been playing that long yet.” he admits, a hint of a sheepish smile on his face. he should be more conversative in pointing his own flaws probably, the least he can hope for is that it will be taken in an endearing manner. 

now that you’ve met your competitors, who are you most afraid to compete against?

“there are a lot of big senior names here but while they’re definitely all very impressive, i wouldn’t say i feel afraid.” this was a lie, jaewon was dead terrified and this close to throwing the towel in the ring already. he felt in way over his head, but again, he couldn’t show that. “if i had to name one it’d probably be joosung though. we’re the youngest two in terms of seniority and we’re the only two male rappers on the show so i think it’s important to differentiate myself from him the most.” also because joosung was a way more talented and experienced songwriter than he was, hell probably every single one of the contestants was but that would only make him sound like a fumbling idiot. which wouldn’t be particularly untrue but also definitely not the idea he was trying to sell. 

what strength do you have that will make you stand out from your competitors?

jaewon fell silent for a second. in the same way he still did every single time he was asked to name even just a single positive thing about himself. it was as if four years of idol life had taught him nothing so far. “i like to think i can hold my ground as both a rapper and a singer, i’ve tried to show that in my audition as well and i think that might come in handy.” ah yes, his singing voice, like he didn’t absolutely hate that with every fibre of his being. “it definitely broadens my options a lot in terms of styles and genres so i hope to use that to my advantages as well as i can and show a lot of different sides of myself and my music.”

what are your immediate thoughts on how you plan to approach your first task?