From Skid Row to Superstardom: An Idol System Novel-Chapter 100: Team Selection (4)

The blue section was labeled Azure Entertainment and had 3 distinct pie-shaped cardboard pieces; the red section was labeled Music Boss Entertainment and also had three distinct pieces, while the yellow section was labeled Soundwave Music and had four.

Once the whiteboard was front and center, the MC, Ryan Leary, called the team representatives forward with Benjamin in the lead.

"We have songs from 3 of the 7 agencies that support us here at Pop Star Academy. Starting with Benjamin, each team representative will select a piece from the agency of your choice. You’ll have 10 days to learn the song, choreography, assign parts, choose costumes, and of course present it in a live showcase 13 days from now, where the audience will vote for the best team per agency, the best team overall, and the best individual on the team. Naturally, there will be other prize details that will be shared later, but for now, let’s start with the song selection. Benjamin."

Benjamin walked to the whiteboard, his fingers hovering over the three colors before he grabbed a pie-shaped card from the red side and opened it up, displaying it to the camera.

The text inside said ’BTZ - Dash’ and a snippet of the song sounded from the speakers while a boy group danced to intense choreography was shown on the screen.

Naturally, it was a song that everybody knew and recognized since it was one of the first English songs by the K-pop group BTZ that blew up, charting at number 56 on Billboard’s top 100.

The cool guitar riffs combined with fast rapping and brief snippets of vocals could be heard amidst contestants nodding and whispering to each other about how lucky Benjamin was to get such a good, high-energy performance song that was known to everyone.

Benjamin himself seemed pleased with the song selection and happily went to sit down while Jamie stepped forward to select a song.

He pulled a pie-shaped card from the blue section and opened it up, displaying the text that said ’Teenz - Da Realest’.

As the choreography on the screen changed into a different boy group, a high-energy electronic pop beat could be heard before high vocals and a quick rap, followed by an intense beat drop, sounded out.

Jamie had his head tilted as he listened to the snippet in it’s entirety before smiling and going to sit down.

Although they were not as big as BTZ, Teenz was a J-pop group that had branched into the Western market with their iconic vocal songs and dance performances.

Even though the song was originally in Japanese and translated to English, to Ari, it sounded pretty good, and just from the snippet alone, it seemed that there were solid vocal parts that could be split and executed in a fun manner in both English and Japanese. freewebnσvel.cѳm

After the two good song pulls, Ari was quite interested in seeing what Leo would pull.

He didn’t really care about the language and was also hoping for a song like Jamie’s with more vocals than rapping portions, and wanted something with choreography that wasn’t as fast paced as the songs Jamie and Benjamin chose.

Briefly closing his eyes, Ari mentally sent his prayer up to the universe.

’Please! Vocals with minimal rap! Vocals with minimal dance!’

As Ari opened his eyes, Leo’s hand immediately went for the center card in the yellow section and opened it up, exposing the text that said ’Dozen - Swan’.

It was a group that Ari didn’t know, so he listened carefully as he watched the screen.

An upbeat pop song with clearly female vocals rang out in the room while the screen showed 12 girls wearing bubble gum pink tutus dancing to fast-paced ballerina-style moves as they sang the song.

In the thirty-second snippet alone, the 4 distinct sub-units of girls had switched sides, increased the pace, and danced across the screen while executing everything perfectly.

As he tried to stop himself from burying his head in his arms from despair, Ari watched Leo’s face harden in real time as a fiercely high note rang out as the girls on the screen pirouetted in unison before the snippet ended.

Once the sound died, Leo’s hand immediately tried to grab another colored card while putting the one he selected back, but the MC sent him to his seat and continued with the song selection.

When all 10 teams had chosen their songs, Ari had to marvel at how bad his luck was.

Truly, it was one of a kind, completely horrendous, and he briefly wondered if he had been born under a cursed star.

Out of the 10 song options, 4 of them were female songs, yet his team was the only one out of those four who chose a song that was a super girly, ballerina pop concept with ridiculously high notes, fast choreographed moves, and no rap portion to speak of(they hadn’t listened to the entire song yet, but it seemed likely).

As the MC wrapped up the song selection, made a couple more announcements, and dismissed them to meet their teams in different practice rooms for more filming, Ari had prepared his mind and heart for suffering.

He was just glad that he wasn’t the team leader this time around and wished Leo all the best.

Ari calmly walked into the deathly quiet practice room that contained 7 of his other teammates who just sat on the ground while blankly staring into the air with an atmosphere that they had given up on everything.

Avoiding the people he didn’t get along with, Ari picked an empty section and sat down.

As Leo walked in with the same dark look and a stack of papers and items that he had been given by the production team, and glanced at the cameras pointed at them from multiple angles, he forced a smile on his slightly pale face before sitting down in front of everybody.

"Well, since we’re all here. Why don’t we start by listening to the entire song?"

Maybe it won’t be as bad as we think it is.

The last part was silent, but Ari could sense everybody thinking it as Leo pressed the button on the tablet, as the 3-minute 40-second song rang out in the medium-sized practice room.

Their ears were as open as possible, and their eyes were glued to the tablet, hoping for a miracle to occur.

With each second that passed, the minuscule amount of hope that had filled their hearts turned to dust and floated away.

Once the music ended, all 8 of them silently stared at their current representative, who looked like he wanted to cry.

While it was a good song, a great song even, after listening to the lyrics and watching the choreography video, the entire team came to a simple conclusion.

Yeah.

It’s not as bad as we thought.

It’s worse.