a response to a review on LY Tear
stream of consciousness response to this review on LY Tear
The theme for “Love Yourself: Tear” as we all know is fake love. However, I just don’t feel that pain coming from this fake love. The vocal line, except for Taehyung, didn’t give me the feeling of heartbreak and sadness, unlike in “Love is Not Over” or “Butterfly”.
I can understand this. I was very excited about the album because before it came out, the members describe it as "dark" compared to LY Her. Some of the songs are dark, but overall it isn't actually a dark album. I personally don't mind too much. Just a thought though. If they wanted a dark album, it would have been more fitting to incorporate some Rock :p When I think of vocal line and terms I would use to describe them (not musical terms btw), I think Taehyung fits haunting. So he would have been perfect for the album but...LOL. However, all of vocal line fits in the song Fake Love, at least. They give off a "desperate, whining, pleading" vibe in my opinion.
I feel the album quickly went in the direction of dark and fake love to fan songs. I guess BTS wanted to focus on the postivity. Because things could've been way...rougher and raw.
I disagree that Magic Shop is a love song. It's a fan song. My interpretation of Best of Me is 1) a love song, but 2) can also be an unofficial fan song.
It would have been better musically if it came after “Fake Love”. The lyrics also do not match the theme of … fake love.
Hmm. Interesting point. I haven't thought so much about the album track order. I felt like the first three songs fit well together. I have no complaints with that.
The music composition was far weaker than BTS’ previous albums.
I'm not a music expert so I'm speaking as a fan of music haha. I felt that the album is the most well produced album BTS has ever released. It makes sense to me since they had a lot of help from foreign and outside producers/writers/composers compared to previous releases. The songs sound clean to me. Like even the autotune used in Anpanman and Outro are enjoyable. My only gripe production wise is about So What. The beats feel dated, which is half the reason why I have So What as my least favorite track.
The lyrics generally lacked a “wow” factor.
I'm obsessed with this line from Fake Love "I grew a flower that can’t be bloomed in a dream that can’t come true" and after reading about the Smeraldo flower story (aka the meaning of Truth Untold song), it fits so well. Again, this is why I think at least the order of the first three tracks is perfect. I'm generally satisfied with the lyrics and metaphors. I do agree with the reviewer that Love Maze was hyped by RM, but isn't so special? Like I have a lot of notes written down for Singularity, Anpanman, and Truth Untold lyrics. However, when I analyzed Love Maze I was unimpressed LOL. Even if you throw in a connection to Young Forever MV (mazes), it's not so special.
It felt like almost all of the members were not into the songs themselves.
See, here is where I agree with Pitchfork. I felt that overall the rap line parts were smoother in the songs. Usually in Kpop and even in a lot of BTS songs, it feels like rap line just shoved their rap into the song without thinking about the flow of the song. Or perhaps with old BTS songs it's the othe way around -- rap line IS the song with vocal line shoving in their parts sometimes awkwardly. My first thought is "2nd grade" from dark&wild, a song I love a lot btw.
For "Outro: Tear", RM, in his latest vlive, said he evoked the feeling of his dark&wild intro song. I can see that. That song was the most passionate in my opinion. It's in my top 3 favorite songs off the album. I agree with RM that Suga was the strongest off that track. He displayed verstality with his flow changes.
As for the vocal line, I don’t know what happened, but Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook all sounded the same.
Omg. I think on my first few listens off the album, I couldn't tell 3J apart and I didn't notice where Taehyung was. Hmm.
Everyone improved vocally. I think they all sounded strong however some songs were a tad high. (Reminds me of BTS Japanese song, "Don't Leave Me" also "Crystal Snow"). Whoever is in charge of the pitch doesn't truly know BTS voices. If I want to speak frankly. I worry about how the live performances will sound for some songs. I would honestly prefer for them to lower the pitch when they perform.
Certain songs, certain vocal line members stood out. Like Taehyung sounds amazing in the opening of Truth Untold, as well as his Intro song. I can't stop thinking about Jimin's voice in Love Maze. Jin in Magic Shop and Truth Untold. Jungkook usually sounds good in any/all songs because he's main vocal and the sound is based of his voice..? I think. I'm not sure how to explain >.<
The title song’s MV fell flat compared to BTS’ previous title songs for other albums. [...] They chose to focus on the dance and gave up on the actual theme/story.
I enjoyed the MV. My favorite MVs still are BST and RUN. Fake Love probably falls in my Top 5. I think Lumpens used Fake Love as a continuation of BST so they didn't develop it as much? Like you already know the MV based off of the teasers and prior knowledge (BST, HYYH series, Highlight reels). It doesn't add much.
Also, people are happy that Jungkook showed his abs here. I actually feel sad in a way because that means they’re relying more and more directly on “sex” to sell.
Meh. I'm tired of this discourse to be honest. Because I'm what twitter fandom calls a "hard stan" (on this account, I don't talk about it, but I can easily uhh thirst for some members? haha.) However, despite me being like that..I actually didn't think about Jungkook's abs beyond the teaser! I wrote a small dance analysis for Fake Love and when thinking about parts of the dance/MV, Jungkook's abs weren't on my mind :o Honestly, there's pros and cons to this.
Pro - eye-catchy especially for the grand BBMAs debut performance. gain more fans because sex sells.
Con - are those fans genuine? selling sex like this paints BTS as more of a "boyband".
And to address the ending of the review:
I'm sorry, but Wings is the inferior album to me. I got bored of it by springtime 2017 (Wings came out in October 2016). On one hand, I was glad they included solo songs for members to branch out musically/lyrically, however, the solo songs bogged down the album.
Meanwhile, I still jam to dark&wild ever since I became a fan (summer time 2015) :p I don't call myself an album supremacist because every BTS album has songs I love. So I'm not fond of BST / Wings fanatics or HYYH fanatics :p At some point, move on. BTS sound is changing and they aren't going to return to anything. Maybe the improved version of something. But not a carbon copy.
I think the review has some good points, especially what they mentioned about Taehyung. Mhmm I don't agree with everything in the review. LY Tear is an album I enjoyed overall. I pretty much agree with Pitchfork's review (who gave BTS a 7.1/10). Even if I love the album sooo much, I don't think an album should receive a 10/10 anyway! There's always room for improvement and I think that is okay.
The theme for “Love Yourself: Tear” as we all know is fake love. However, I just don’t feel that pain coming from this fake love. The vocal line, except for Taehyung, didn’t give me the feeling of heartbreak and sadness, unlike in “Love is Not Over” or “Butterfly”.
I can understand this. I was very excited about the album because before it came out, the members describe it as "dark" compared to LY Her. Some of the songs are dark, but overall it isn't actually a dark album. I personally don't mind too much. Just a thought though. If they wanted a dark album, it would have been more fitting to incorporate some Rock :p When I think of vocal line and terms I would use to describe them (not musical terms btw), I think Taehyung fits haunting. So he would have been perfect for the album but...LOL. However, all of vocal line fits in the song Fake Love, at least. They give off a "desperate, whining, pleading" vibe in my opinion.
I feel the album quickly went in the direction of dark and fake love to fan songs. I guess BTS wanted to focus on the postivity. Because things could've been way...rougher and raw.
I disagree that Magic Shop is a love song. It's a fan song. My interpretation of Best of Me is 1) a love song, but 2) can also be an unofficial fan song.
It would have been better musically if it came after “Fake Love”. The lyrics also do not match the theme of … fake love.
Hmm. Interesting point. I haven't thought so much about the album track order. I felt like the first three songs fit well together. I have no complaints with that.
The music composition was far weaker than BTS’ previous albums.
I'm not a music expert so I'm speaking as a fan of music haha. I felt that the album is the most well produced album BTS has ever released. It makes sense to me since they had a lot of help from foreign and outside producers/writers/composers compared to previous releases. The songs sound clean to me. Like even the autotune used in Anpanman and Outro are enjoyable. My only gripe production wise is about So What. The beats feel dated, which is half the reason why I have So What as my least favorite track.
The lyrics generally lacked a “wow” factor.
I'm obsessed with this line from Fake Love "I grew a flower that can’t be bloomed in a dream that can’t come true" and after reading about the Smeraldo flower story (aka the meaning of Truth Untold song), it fits so well. Again, this is why I think at least the order of the first three tracks is perfect. I'm generally satisfied with the lyrics and metaphors. I do agree with the reviewer that Love Maze was hyped by RM, but isn't so special? Like I have a lot of notes written down for Singularity, Anpanman, and Truth Untold lyrics. However, when I analyzed Love Maze I was unimpressed LOL. Even if you throw in a connection to Young Forever MV (mazes), it's not so special.
It felt like almost all of the members were not into the songs themselves.
See, here is where I agree with Pitchfork. I felt that overall the rap line parts were smoother in the songs. Usually in Kpop and even in a lot of BTS songs, it feels like rap line just shoved their rap into the song without thinking about the flow of the song. Or perhaps with old BTS songs it's the othe way around -- rap line IS the song with vocal line shoving in their parts sometimes awkwardly. My first thought is "2nd grade" from dark&wild, a song I love a lot btw.
For "Outro: Tear", RM, in his latest vlive, said he evoked the feeling of his dark&wild intro song. I can see that. That song was the most passionate in my opinion. It's in my top 3 favorite songs off the album. I agree with RM that Suga was the strongest off that track. He displayed verstality with his flow changes.
As for the vocal line, I don’t know what happened, but Jin, Jimin, and Jungkook all sounded the same.
Omg. I think on my first few listens off the album, I couldn't tell 3J apart and I didn't notice where Taehyung was. Hmm.
Everyone improved vocally. I think they all sounded strong however some songs were a tad high. (Reminds me of BTS Japanese song, "Don't Leave Me" also "Crystal Snow"). Whoever is in charge of the pitch doesn't truly know BTS voices. If I want to speak frankly. I worry about how the live performances will sound for some songs. I would honestly prefer for them to lower the pitch when they perform.
Certain songs, certain vocal line members stood out. Like Taehyung sounds amazing in the opening of Truth Untold, as well as his Intro song. I can't stop thinking about Jimin's voice in Love Maze. Jin in Magic Shop and Truth Untold. Jungkook usually sounds good in any/all songs because he's main vocal and the sound is based of his voice..? I think. I'm not sure how to explain >.<
The title song’s MV fell flat compared to BTS’ previous title songs for other albums. [...] They chose to focus on the dance and gave up on the actual theme/story.
I enjoyed the MV. My favorite MVs still are BST and RUN. Fake Love probably falls in my Top 5. I think Lumpens used Fake Love as a continuation of BST so they didn't develop it as much? Like you already know the MV based off of the teasers and prior knowledge (BST, HYYH series, Highlight reels). It doesn't add much.
Also, people are happy that Jungkook showed his abs here. I actually feel sad in a way because that means they’re relying more and more directly on “sex” to sell.
Meh. I'm tired of this discourse to be honest. Because I'm what twitter fandom calls a "hard stan" (on this account, I don't talk about it, but I can easily uhh thirst for some members? haha.) However, despite me being like that..I actually didn't think about Jungkook's abs beyond the teaser! I wrote a small dance analysis for Fake Love and when thinking about parts of the dance/MV, Jungkook's abs weren't on my mind :o Honestly, there's pros and cons to this.
Pro - eye-catchy especially for the grand BBMAs debut performance. gain more fans because sex sells.
Con - are those fans genuine? selling sex like this paints BTS as more of a "boyband".
And to address the ending of the review:
I'm sorry, but Wings is the inferior album to me. I got bored of it by springtime 2017 (Wings came out in October 2016). On one hand, I was glad they included solo songs for members to branch out musically/lyrically, however, the solo songs bogged down the album.
Meanwhile, I still jam to dark&wild ever since I became a fan (summer time 2015) :p I don't call myself an album supremacist because every BTS album has songs I love. So I'm not fond of BST / Wings fanatics or HYYH fanatics :p At some point, move on. BTS sound is changing and they aren't going to return to anything. Maybe the improved version of something. But not a carbon copy.
I think the review has some good points, especially what they mentioned about Taehyung. Mhmm I don't agree with everything in the review. LY Tear is an album I enjoyed overall. I pretty much agree with Pitchfork's review (who gave BTS a 7.1/10). Even if I love the album sooo much, I don't think an album should receive a 10/10 anyway! There's always room for improvement and I think that is okay.