"One of her songs is at 57th position. One more at 35th, 29th and uh....24th.... Let me look at the title track."
Tom said as he scrolled the charts to find the title track of Rachel's album. When he found it, his eyes went wide as he looked at the position the title track was at.
It was a very surprising position for him.
"What place is the title track on, Tom?"
"It's... on the 3rd. Higher than you."
When everyone in the room heard that, they didn't know if they could believe it. Any song starting so high wasn't normal. Even the 7th position that Aiden had gotten was very high, especially considering that he was making a comeback.
It was safe to assume that his album was already going to be a success just on that.
"How can it be so high?"
"Even Rachel's last album's title track didn't open up so high. How did she get so much popularity suddenly?"
"Do you think the clash helped her?"
"Maybe Cyco media is doing something. That's possible."
Everyone started to whisper around in the room and suddenly, it looked like they were in a panic mode. Although Aiden had told them to not worry about Rachel, they had subconsciously made it a goal to beat her.
It was at that moment that Aiden opened his mouth. Until now, he was just listening to the title song from Rachel's album on his headphones.
After listening to it, he realised one thing.
"Ah, it's not Rachel actually. It's more to do with the fact that the title song is with a famous K-pop band. You know of 'Soul' right?"
People nodded when they heard that and finally recalled it.
Soul was a K-pop band that was extremely famous in the west after they had broken out a year ago. They have amassed a large group of teen following, even more than Rachel and Aiden.
"But Soul are just collaborating, right?"
One of his team members asked and Aiden shook his head.
"No, the song is actually divided in two parts with Soul having a lot of verses to them. It's almost like it's an equal song rather than just one or two verses. The song is as much theirs as Rachel's and you do know K-pop fans, right? They go to any lengths to stream the song."
Everyone nodded their heads. K-pop in the west was not new as it had been a while since they had broken out. With them, they have brought out a culture of stans which basically meant a stalker fan.
Most of their fans are hardcore and although stuff like this existed in the west too, K-pop fans would even make different accounts to stream the song, making the song high up in the charts one way or another.
That's why, western singers try to stay clear of them and even try to collaborate.
There was one incident where a popular female singer had collaborated with a famous K-pop band but she had only gotten like one line in the song but that song had broken all records.
It was only because her company told her to.
The singer had later termed it an embarrassment.
"So, what are we going to do now?"
Wade asked as he looked at Aiden and he thought for a while.
'What can I do? I have good fans but they are not hardcore enough to go against K-pop fans. I guess I need to rely on my biggest strength.'
Smiling to himself, Aiden opened his mouth.
"We will give it a bit of time. The neutrals need to hear the song first and then decide."
***
In regards to any celebrity, there were three types of people. The fans, the haters and the neutrals. The fans and the haters were self explanatory but the neutrals consisted of the highest numbers.
They were people that knew the celebrity but weren't fans or hated him for some reason. They would watch his good work and reject his bad work while having a pretty mild impression about him.
It was the same with music.
Aiden had a good fan base but most of the streaming numbers and MeTube views are due to the neutrals who randomly found his song and liked it. His popularity among that type of audience was actually very high as he had always strived to produce good work.
So, he was hanging on them.
As the song gets more exposure, more people will hear it and his popularity among the neutrals would surely help him out.
That's what was in his mind and as the days progressed, it did happen.
His songs climbed the charts and the streaming numbers increased day by day. When the music video of the title song landed, it got 15 million views in a day and 17 million views the next day.
These were not small numbers.
The title song also got to the 3rd position on the charts but Rachel and Soul's song was also running with the same speed. It got 19 million views on the first day on MeTube and was now on the number one song on the Melody charts.
Soul's fanbase was continuously pushing the song online everywhere and it even came in as a trend on Sparrow. The group fighting them was Aiden's fanbase alongside 'The Boys' fanbase.
Yes, Aiden had managed to revive the dead fanbase of 'The Boys'.
At first when the song had landed, it was only listened by the younger demographic as Aiden's fanbase was mostly that. But in a couple of days and due to radio, lots of middle aged and old people have heard the song.
These were the ones that used to be the stans back then.
Although, it was hard as the lead vocal of 'The Boys' was not collaborating with Aiden but he had countered it by using a few popular tunes of 'The Boys' in the song.
These tunes were enough for the fans to recognise who the band was as they were nostalgic.
Eddie and Drew were constantly checking out the comments that were being directed towards them online.
[Cemetery Manager: I wasn't able to believe it when I heard the iconic tune of 'The Boys' on the radio in the morning. I thought it was my delusion but when I looked it up, I was so surprised to see that they were back. Not all of them but it still made me remember those days of my teenage years in the 90s. Love their song!]
[Zombie Girlfriend: My son showed me their new song and I was so surprised to see Eddie and Drew still looking so good. I really hope the song succeeds and they make a formal comeback with all of them. There need to be concerts that old people can go to.]
[Size doesn't matter: I discovered 'The Boys' after listening to their song with Aiden and Holy sheep, they were so good! I never thought that 90s music would sound so good. I'm going for a marathon run of their albums and I love a lot of their songs.]
These types of comments were everywhere and it made the two of them feel like they have made the right decision by coming back.
Same type of treatment was with the other singers that Aiden had collaborated with but it was not to this level.
Weirdly, each of his songs had surpassed other songs of Rachel and were higher in rankings but Aiden wasn't able to surpass the title track no matter what.
Everyone knew that it was the real battle and a week after the release of the album, Rachel clearly has a lead.
***
Rachel looked down at the stage in front of her. Fans were shouting and cheering her on. There were placards at the back and people had an excited smile on their faces.
But she wasn't happy.
She was sweating as she had just finished her performance and the reason she wasn't happy was because the shouts in the room weren't directed to them.
There were a few but they were buried under the shouts of 'Soul'.
"Soul! Oppas, please look at me! I'm your biggest fan."
"I love all your music! Can I get a hug? I even flew to Korea once to attend your concert."
"Hey! They looked at me! Wow! I'm so lucky!"
[Author's note: Oppa means big brother or a way to call someone older than you affectionately.]
Rachel glanced at the waving boy band that was trying to give some fan service to their fans. They looked exhausted but there was a smile on their faces like meeting their fans and performing in front of them was the biggest pleasure of their lives.
Due to all this, she felt a bit empty.
'This doesn't look like my song for some reason.'
That thought suddenly entered her mind and she shrugged to get it away from her head.
Although it was supposed to be her song, the fans and the reason it was so up in the rankings, that wasn't her.
It felt weird.
