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waluijoe · 1 year

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ok ok im doing the ji//m/in music review of 2023 here cause that way i can let it out also i’m a music nerd and i’m obsessive and unhinged it’s terrible i need to overanalyze everything and slap little thoughts abt it and this song frustrated me a lot by sheer potential/amazement etc so ye whatevs this is my lonely corner anywayz

im so fkcing curious abt the album and i mean it, but i’m also v frustrated with the new song. like,, the production is crazy, literally the music is so intense & beautiful, orchestras & wind instruments is just such a wild ride and i’m so into it (i was hyped from the trailer tbh i knew itd be crazy). the harmonies are Haunting. the two together is just an insanely intense mix of emotions. it feels like being plunged into a RAW emotion immediately, you could use this music for dark movies, crash scenes, religious deaths, horror movies, and it would fit perfectly cause it’s That intense. i love it sm.

// the clip is very seemingly simple which i really love cause it balances out perfectly with the music, like, you couldn’t have different decors and rooms and like idk sexy/cute closeups or whatever i think it would just break the flow with such an intense music. so, you have to shoot like a short movie, perfect. i feel like it’s a direct play with like,, expectations. “this is what you want, this is what i show you, but set me free from this” it’s very ,,, intriguing. that the lyrics would prone being set free but ,,, clearly the choreo jimin does, it’s smthg you’ve seen before (i don’t mean like, it’s recycled or whatever, but like, the movements are strong, kind of sensual, the fact that he’s dancing at all really, that’s the style that people expect and love from him), the outfit its Litcherally what everyone who’s trying to be a bad boy in kpop wears (big chunky boots with the chunky bomber jacket and cargo pants like, sure).

so it’s like. you’re trapping yourself. you sing abt being free. you’re not freeing yourself at all. you’re literally in a huis clos, that looks like a prison. there’s no color, there’s no life except for the dancing, it’s so fkcing depressing to see such a cage, but it Looks cool too, right ? but the group choreo !! i love it, it joins the haunting voices perfectly. the voices are literally screaming at you with anguish, and the dancers are always in a role of being agressors to jimin, pointing fingers from the ground, from higher up, surrounding him, making noise (the gestual i mean is very noisy always all limbs moving etc) looking at him, and then lifting him up, touching him until he falls down and “dies”. horror movie, much. i love that, it’s like,,, this is what you want, this is what i give you, you still destroy me. thats kind of what i got, esp with the poem, which is very pretty, placed on the part of his body that’s nude. i love that his body becomes art but becomes politic in that way ; that’s where you’ll be looking so read then. but will you care abt it anyway ? it’s all depressing symbolism to me tbh but i love it anyways

the ending with the white clad ji//m/in, my thoughts are either,,, is this the inner self that’s gotten out (the lyrics want that i guess), or is it just you showing the new expectation that you’ve carved out.. cause technically, he is still trapped in the scene, he is showing something that people also want ; purity, no scandals, softness, the perfect angel side of him. so my first thought was that,, i didn’t feel like that was really a “being set free” resolution, like to believe that you’re truly being set free i’d need to see something else because this narrative isn’t really showing it. and then like,,, i learnt this was the last song of the album. and that made me feel like, oh is that it ? kinda broke my heart in a way. it made me think abt Arson and how it’s the last song of JITB’s whole trajectory, and with Arson i feel like it’s about reclaiming the control of something uncontrollable. the ending note is “i get to chose to burn it all or extinguish the fire” kinda,,, it’s strong and full of anger and pride and self doubt, but it ends on this note that feels like this is it, you know, new chapter now, i’m looking at a crossroad of choices. it feels Good to hear. set me free pt2 just feels daunting like,,, idk it made me feel like Ji//m/in (im talking abt the persona etc i don’t know the guy this is abt a narrative yadayada) ,,, idk the dilemna is still going. it’s like,, claiming you’re finally free but still begging to be set free till the end, doing it by looking straight at the camera and taunting you (is this what u wanna see ? am i free now ? will you read me ? etc), in a way it feels he’s reclaiming his agency/control by doing this, but also like he doesn’t believe it profundly at all. it’s like. i’ve done it now, will you get it anyways, i don’t think so, i’ll just be this other part now, you will never know me. i think that was my feeling overall. you will never know him, he’s not sharing that, he’s showing surface in many ways, and in details he’s showing more, but even that more isn’t that much and will never be clear. it’s intriguing, i’m intrigued, i’m also frustrated because i honestly would just really like to see the whole album to get a feel for everything and place it all in context but can’t do that so let’s ride, and idk, part of me would enjoy more clarity/substance

// next point,,, music is music first. and that makes me so Mad lmfao and this is personal taste you know but i was quiteeee disappointed by the song, because i honestly think it has the best & worst at the same time ? and that makes me Maaad i really want to love the song because the fkcing instrumentals you know, but i can’t because i don’t think his voice is well placed on the track. like, listen. what pple call autotune even tho it’s not, its actually filters, anyways im annoying lets call it autotune, it was too agressive for his voice i think. he has a very beautiful tone and texture, his lower register in Promise is just insane. so like... the point was to make his soft voice agressive, alright, the song calls for energy and agressiveness, Alllright. but it doesn’t feel like it fits to me my ears just don’ttt like that.

i think his voice sounds different because he’s singing in english, im not a fancy music nerd im just a music nerd from years of digging, but basically language means you sing differently, mostly because the sounds are different, the way you hold your tongue, head, the way you use your throat is different depending on those sounds. so basically,,, korean and english are actually Very far apart in terms of sounds, like, fr it’s reaaaally hard to go from one to the other for learning cause it’s so wildly different, pronunciation is Hard, but just getting used to using your vocal chords and throat and jaw all that, is also hard because we have Habits and we need to learn New habits in Our Bodies literally (language is insane, its basically why going on T is so fkcing weird for voice changes cause like,,, thats a whole part of ur body that u gotta learn to reuse and it Hurrrts ? and it’s a very weird process). back to the topic, in english it feels like he’s singing with a more open-throat sound in lower registers and im gonna be honest i don’t like that because it sounds uncomfortable.. it’s smthg i personnally notice in singers and that i don’t like hearing,, when something feels unnatural. his english in higher register ? delicious. the high notes on set me FreeEEE ? beautiful !!! fits the music so fkcing well !!

but the lower registers with that unnatural singing feeling AND the haannnddful of modifyers making it v robotic and harsh, thats just taking me Out of it. pple love that cause they feel like he’s playing two different people, i Get that and in theory that’s so cool but tbh i just don’t think the execution ended up that good. idk. honestly wonder how that could’ve gone ? im not a vocal coach nor a musician nor a singer so i wouldnt know shit abt that lmfao but really in terms of details thats just bugging me cause it makes me feel like,,, damn you were So close. the concept was cool but this isn’t hitting. cause it’s like,, the higher notes are this beautiful insanely pretty moments but every 0.2sec theyre cut back to the uneasiness and i don’t like that,,,, maybe it would’ve deserved more lyrics,,, like instead of being low NOW YEA NOW YEA you come in with a low singing sentence idk maybe that would’ve felt less empty/gratting,,, wonderinnnggg. anyways the trap bridge just took me out,,, i just,, idk i don’t feel it fits his voice again, i don’t like ji//m/in rapping actually i don’t think he’s a rapper like idk he’s a good singer but rapping is a whole other category and thats that. i liked his verse in T/ony Mon/tana because he used his voice Differently, he was spitting it out, it doesn’t come from an open throat singing, it was litcherally using a hoarse voice, which just works for agressivity but also he does v well !! like he’s literally alternating between breaking his voice to sound agressive which he Does in concerts sometimes and all and is cool as hell, and then singing very calmly but BASICALLY the hoarse texture works !!! my hypothesis is like,, the open throat thingy is because he’s screaming (HEY FOOLS ! part like,, power through screaming it out, many rappers do that in concerts because of the hype etc so like rather than rapping like u usually do you’re shouting it out), buuuttt not everyone can shout a performance to get higher energy and make it sound good. many rappers Don’t sound that good when they shout at concerts, cause that’s not their typical texture or whatever or it just loses the edgy touch of their texture before (do i make sense, god i hope no one in music reads me like ever). how do i equate that to make sense... J/h/ope singing at Lolla, you can literally tell at some point that he’s singing in low register but gave his voice too much power (shouting), had bad notes, so finished the sentence and for the next sentence got back to a quieter voice,you can hear Less well cause like, the whole crowd yelling thingy, but thats were his notes were correct cause thats were his voice is. anyways. fun bit to illustrate that nobody gets but me but lets gooo cowboys. anyways, the ending is pretty, i wouldn’t have added that last high “set me free”, i think letting his voice disappear slowly and ending with the other backing vocals would have felt more poetic, but whatevs. i’d say overrall,,, i think, the song would’ve been better with a lot more textures, instead of voice modifyers and gratting filters, you know like,, if you wanna get angry and go hard, then your voice needs to go Angry and go Hard, thats my mood (make it Hurt, make it punk, layer the fuck out of it, add weird fcking details, idk, anything tbh)

// in terms of lyrics huhhhh,,, i don’t dig it particularly, i think the message is well, pretty clear, some shout outs to other songs, his past self, etc. tbh i just don’t think the imagery is particularly original ? like,, free & butterfly (yes but it’s a nod to other songs yadayada i know i was there,,,, it’s sentimental but i’m an annoying person looking at the song as a song also) it’s like,, it’s all things you’ve read/heard before in terms of actual words. which like, i guess we can’t Invent new words but that’s where poetry and imagery come from, intricacies and all that jazz, it’s pretty fun to play with, and i feel like, well, the song is pretty straight forward so at least it’s clear but it’s not rocking my jams too much. i like the imagery of “raise your hands for the past me” cause it can be read both as “congrats for getting there” and mockery, like pointing finger, which they all do in the choreo, so i think it sounds bittersweet which i Like. i also feel like the lyrics really put in context the narrative of the video (duh ig) because the maze never really leaves even tho the chorus begs for freedom (wandered/stuck in/at the edge/still in). and the juxtaposition between “finally free” vs. “set me free” vs. “primetime/finally begun” vs. “forget/forget” and obvs “insane/sane” are the most interesting parts in terms of lyrics & depth. but yeah. i don’t particularly vibe with the fuck offs and you fools and the i never stops and fuck all your opps cause like,,, mmmh,, idk why i feel like it’s just not hitting. why is it not hitting tbh ? i Wonder. maybe because it doesn’t feel that tightly knit with the rest of the song, maybe because his voice doesn’t really push the feeling through enough ? it kind of feels very randomly put there, musically at least, instead of Hitting right. my guess is that i’d say the song lacks actual words ? it was a gut feeling like, it’s too empty, it’s too general, if it was more precise, more dense, it would really balance out the fkcing Sheer craziness of the music & background vocals. maybe MORE jim///in vocals juxtaposed too ? maybe if he really played with having many voices !!! like, tbh, many singers create texture by singing themselves in different keys (damn that was the word i searched for all along) and stacking those up (ie. literally any pop artist ig idk Ha/rry Sty//les does it in Matilda very clearly, i think thats what came up first in my brain anyways, it adds this kind of, haunting feeling because you can’t clearly distinguish the other keys but you still hear them, it’s like,, little ghost voices, adding the same emotion but slightly different versions of it), but i still think just packing more words would’ve made the song feel more anchored. cause in the end the verses are super empty,, esp the “not yet, not yet” and then “now yeah, now yeah” that feels so unfulfilling !!! just stock em up, get more up there. and i get that it works w the message but it just idk. im not fed, like, musically.

//overall,,, hmm, i guess it boils down to i vibed with it in theory & sentiment, but the actual song just leaves me unsatisfied. sadly. and its like, tragic, cause thats kind of the point of the song to be free from judgement and reception etc, but alas, i just didn’t really reception it. but tbh i think music and art is just about learning & growing, and i think that’s what he’s doing and will do all his life just like me. honestly i always have respect for artists who Do try to make something honest and true. i think that’s what he was going for, cause the music proves it, and the care proves it, so i’m gonna sit my ass and say that,,, this isn’t a song empty of Meaning it’s a song that struggles to bring it out into Emotion. like, actual emotion, followed through all the way not just with the instrumentals and background vocals cause those are Very emotional, but through technique and creativity and depth. it’s too neat. that sounds super harsh cause i just use direct words all my life but anyways. lets get it. end of my music rant. will come back here for all my music rants from now on cause this is litcherally an empty space and my friends can’t bear the music obsession so, good for me.

#ynn talks #goudebaille #my mind is free now #i struggled to shape this all day #i feel at peace w myself #hi pple if you are becos of the musical rants you are free to deposit a like or hate comment or thought #pls dont go through the rest of my posts tho #theyre all mental breakdowns #and theyre all my most pathetic moments #so itd be nice if you turned a blind eye to that shit show #and didnt judge me for it #thanks #ynn music rants

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