Three Songs to Stream (with Me?) This Weekend
Finally catching up on all of these new releases!
The good news is that at long last, some of my favourite soloists have released new music. The bad news? There’s literally such a sudden drop of so much promotional content that I’m not caught up?
That’s a blessing, right? Always more to treat myself at the end of the day, after tackling a day of work, ready to relax.
Here are my recommendations for the week(end)!
On The Ground — Rosé [Blackpink]
Rosé is one of my favourite singers in the entire kpop industry. As fans, we’d been waiting for this long-promised solo debut for several years.
For me, what touched me most were the lyrics:
I worked my whole life Just to get right just to be like Look at me I’m never coming down
I feel like so many of us can relate to a journey of being in school and told that there’s this one (1) set goal in life, and that’s “success”. And “success” is often defined in a really nebulous yet narrow way.
I worked my whole life Just to get high just to realize Everything I need is on the Everything I need is on the ground On the ground Everything I need is on the ground
Yet I feel like the most powerful thing about my twenties is realizing that this nebulous “success” goal meant nothing, particularly when it was so often defined by others’ metrics.
Finally realizing what I genuinely value and what I truly find meaning in spending time doing has helped me cut out things that were contributing to needless frustration. It’s helped me find what I really love and what truly brings me joy — and unsurprisingly, these are all the things on the ground, not in some mystical Castle of Success in the Sky.
Coin — IU (Lee Ji Eun)
IU dropped an entire album but this has to be my favourite out of the entire song list. It’s catchy and has some jazzy undertones … until she does her inaugural rap section in any of her songs.
Following her earlier collab with G-Dragon over Palette, she’d been performing the rap section herself when G-Dragon wasn’t there to perform with her. Here, in Coin, we see an upgraded version of this rapping as a core part of her own performance! I was really surprised and honestly super excited about this.
The choreography and music video is also so visually appealing, with such an interesting narrative unfolding.
My one tiny criticism is that IU’s choreography isn’t entirely in sync with her backup dancers, relative to the stellar levels of synchronicity found in many kpop songs. To give a context of how incredible kpop choreography usually, Itzy once shared that JYP screenshots their recorded performances to check if they’re in sync, frame by frame. Though not quite at the level of frame syncing, it’s a significant improvement since her earlier dancing topples.
I don’t know why, but it also reminds me of Dicey Business ( 賭場風雲), a Hong Kong drama released in 2006 about professional gambling. I must have seen this drama like 10 times. It was such an iconic show then and my first introduction to Poker, so I suppose every time I see gambling I remember this introduction.
Celebrity — IU (Lee Ji Eun)
This song was released earlier as a single, but remains another one of my favourites in the album. I did a “live” twitter thread commentary when it was first released:
My favourite parts of this song is just how deep the lyrics reach. The chorus has the central metaphor of the whole song:
Don’t forget among the cloudy dark You’re a star painted with a left hand Can’t you see how beautiful A true uniqueness can be
The idea that we are the unique but also laborious product of writing with our non-dominant hands is such a great metaphor. The outcome is ugly, but uniquely represents who we are and the hardships we encounter and overcome.
It’s fine to scowl but I wish you could smile, at last
These words touched me because there’s so much toxic positivity out there that almost shoves the idea of “being happy” down people’s throats, particularly when they’re dealing with hardships. This is the validating idea that it’s entirely fine to scowl, to experience and sit through the whole host of negative emotions. And, after that rain is over, that there will be sunny days.
And finally, a metaphor for resilience that really resonated with me when this was first released, dead of winter:
Don’t forget during the long winter a flower can bloom between the frozen cracks.
With messages such as acknowledging and accepting your imperfections, giving space to negative emotions, and resilience through the iciest of winters — this song was just something that touched my heart with every note.
That’s what I’m listening to this weekend, what about you?
Lucy Dan 蛋小姐 (she/her/她) will probably sit down and do a whole review of the Lilac album at some point, probably after the semester wraps up. Maybe she’ll even dig up the Dicey Business ( 賭場風雲) DVDs for an 11th rewatch. But wait… does she even have a DVD player??? Does anyone, in the ripe age of 2021?
