Versatile Superstar: Rise In Hollywood

[You have gained the skill 'Song Appraisal'. Now, you can assess the score of your composed songs.]

[You have started to understand your self-composed music a lot better.]

When Aiden skimmed through the notifications, he felt his right hand quiver with the excitement he was feeling. He took a deep breath to calm himself down before checking the new skill that he had received.

'Lonely.'

A holographic window opened immediately as he thought of the song.

[Song name: Lonely

Composer: Aiden (original)

Proficiency: 87%

Song score: 55/100

-As a bonus for being the composer of the song, it's easier to increase proficiency.

-The song score doesn't reflect whether a song will be popular or not.]

'...How do I know if the score is good enough for my level?'

Aiden frowned when he saw the song score for 'Lonely'. 

'Does 100/100 score mean it's best song for my level or is the score independent of what my level is?'

After a few moments of thoughts, he inwardly shook his head. 

In all honesty, he felt the score of 55 felt low, maybe this was a reality check for him? It was indeed true that was his Composing Level was not too high.

However, at the end of the day, this was not a bad score and he was more satisfied upon thinking that he still had room for improvement.

Moreover, it was clearly written that a song score doesn't mean that a song will be popular. When Aiden thought a bit more about it, he also felt like it made sense.

There were too many factors involving a song's success. A singer was one of them. Lonely might not get a lot of views with Aiden singing it but it would get more views if a popular singer like Grey sings it.

Marketing and hype were also major reasons for a song to become popular.

There were countless good songs that weren't popular or heard by many while there were a lot of bad songs that were really popular.

'I wonder how my singing will sound now.'

Aiden thought in his mind. He removed the system notifications in front of him and saw that Toby was giving him weird looks.

"Aiden, are you okay? You suddenly look out of place."

"Yes, I'm fine. Was just thinking about something." He quickly replied.

"Okay, let's go on to the next verse. We will take a break in half an hour, so let's get some more lines right till then."

He nodded, but suddenly got an idea. He had sung the last verse while being in Basic Grade 10. He wondered how it would sound now that his level has increased.

"Toby, can we do the last part again? I feel like I could do it better."

"Sure."

Toby didn't reject it as he was going to get more recordings of the verse later to compare and select the best one. He adjusted the music and gave the signal to Aiden to begin.

When Aiden heard the music, he began to sing, feeling a completely different feeling in his voice.

🎙🎵🎶

"The bright blue skies had turned grey."

"Going to work, faking a smile every day."

"If I try to tell anyone, they just laugh and turn away."

"I just want to scream out loud, only one thing that sits in the back of my mind."

🎙🎵🎶

Silver light burst forth from his singing and filled the room as the verse started. This time, there was no white light mixed with it and the silver light was as pure as it could be.

Earlier, Aiden would sing this verse a little lighter with more emphasis on the emotions but now he felt like he had more understanding of his own music.

He began the verse with more strength in his voice and added a bit of humming sound at the end. 

The silver light seemed to dance around the recording booth in a happy mood as the verse finished.

"How was it?" He asked after finishing up the verse and Toby seemed to be staring at him in wonder.

"It was a lot better than before. Yeah, a lot better. You sang it a bit differently this time but I think it suits you more. Can we continue recording some more of this?"

Toby asked, looking a bit excited all of a sudden, and Aiden nodded his head. His singing saw significant improvement after the breaking through to the Intermediate Grade.

The recording continued like that, with Aiden finding more strength in his voice.

***

"This kid is a monster."

Grey, who was surfing through his Skygram comments on his latest post, raised his head and stared at Toby weirdly, hearing those words.

"Are you talking about Aiden?" He asked before joking. "He looks pretty human to me."

"Yes. And I was talking about his singing." Toby ignored the joke and Grey shrugged.

"It sounds pretty normal to me."

"Then, listen to this."

Toby passed him some headphones and played the verse that Aiden had recorded before advancing to Intermediate Grade. 

"It doesn't seem amazing to me."

"I know. But I recorded it again. Let me play it."

Grey nodded and Toby played the verse again. This time, even Grey realized that this was way better than before. The voice was the same but the quality and feeling it gave were completely different.

For a second, Grey thought it was just autotuned with a lot of effects but he knew music enough to quickly realize that there was nothing like that.

"Is it because of the singing style? The verse improved because it was sung differently?"

Grey wondered but Toby shook his head. This was not as simple as it looked.

"No, the quality of his voice is somehow improving, like he's developing at a rapid pace, and at the same time, he was understanding his music a lot better."

After saying that, Toby typed something on his laptop and showed it to Grey. There were various tabs opened and in each of them, there were videos related to Aiden. Grey ignored the CulturalHub tab and looked at what Toby was trying to show.

"I looked into him when I heard we will be working together and I found out that his singing has changed a lot, also in the right direction since he appeared on X-Star. It's like he's rediscovering himself and making breakthroughs in his own music every few weeks."

Toby sighed. He thought back to Grey when he had started. He was good but he didn't evolve so rapidly. In the early phases of his career, his voice was heavily helped by Toby during the recordings and his live singing was very different from the studio album.

It was only later on that he had some improvement.

Aiden was surely a monster in that regard. When Grey contemplated all this, he also felt like it was true.

From what he had seen of Aiden, he was pretty hard working and sincere, at least in his music. When he glanced back at him, he saw that Aiden was talking about something with his agent.

"So, we discovered a monster," Grey muttered and Toby nodded.

"Yeah, but I think he's gonna miss out a life changing opportunity because he told me he's not planning to get a label. Artists who tried to rely on MeTube and Melody streams only never really became mainstream centered."

It was majorly because these artists never had a lot of resources like the labels, not even a good PR team, and would mostly fade away after getting a bit of money and fame.

Even the sincere ones never got the same number in a song that some mainstream artists got in a Skygram post.

"A lot will depend on how Lonely is received then."

Grey remarked and Toby nodded. Changing the topic, he asked.

"How's the reception of your posts on social media?" Grey smiled and just showed Toby his phone where there were more than 100k likes on his photo in the recording studio with Aiden.

Social media has already buzzing with the news of Grey's highly anticipated return.

***

On Skygram and Sparrow, a discussion quickly flowed among Grey's fans as he posted a photo of him and Aiden from the recording studio with the caption 'Time for something new'.

It made all his fans excited as it was his comeback after two years of hiatus. 

His fans and followers discussed his comeback with vigour while some were just wondering who exactly was the person standing beside him in the photo.

[Angel of Darkness: Wow! Wow! Wow! Grey is finally making a comeback. So excited!]

[Don't be mad, I'm Chad: The day Grey remembered he has a music career too.]

[Alon Rusk: I didn't expect Grey to release a new song. Thought he retired. Anyway, I would finally have something to listen to while making this rocket.]

[I'm your father: From what I read in an article on the Neu entertainment website, it's going to be single and will be released in the upcoming weeks. It seems like they bought the song of some indie artist.]

[Jenny Bieber: Who's the guy besides Grey? Never saw him before.]

[Skyneves: Damn! What is Aiden doing there?! A collaboration with Grey! First the news about him shooting a movie and now this. He's getting popular too quickly.]

[Sad Keanu: Who is Aiden?]

[Oprah WindFury: He was a contestant on X-Star from what I know. Wasn't even in the finale but got famous, I think. Don't know what he's doing with Grey though.]

[Hoosie your daddy: I think they are collaborating after his song went viral. There have been a few instances of something similar happening or maybe he just joined Grey's record label. Still, what I care about it the new song, we're finally getting something.]

[Rachel my queen: I didn't know Aiden was going to collaborate with Grey. It's somehow weird that Cyco media is going to release a single for Rachel soon too.]

[AkiraLight: Doesn't that mean both of those will clash? Though, Rachel would be at a disadvantage. Hehe, a rematch!]

[Kiss my axe: I won't say she will be at a disadvantage. She has everything as a new artist, coupled with the hype of winning X-Star. Moreover, the only thing Aiden will have is Grey's fans and he's in a delicate position in his career. Not having a song out for two years is a big deal and he wasn't even doing any concerts.]

[So much work: So, it's an even ground for both of them.]

***

//DreamNote//

Bonus chapter for the super gift. 

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