My Top 50 K-Pop Songs- Part IV (37-36)

Welcome to Part IV of My Top-50 K-Pop Songs blog series. Beware, strong language is used in this article. If you aren't comfortable with that, be sure to check out one of my other articles, such as Part I or Part V of this series. My apologies, but sometimes I get emotional about music and I have to tell it like it is, ehe.

Anyway...LET's GO!

36. Day6- "You Were Beautiful"

Unlike its title, it's not that this song WAS beautiful, this song IS beautiful. One of the most heart-wrenching K-Pop songs out there, and that was before I even read the translated lyrics. There is a underlying sadness in this rock ballad's instrumentation, and it is done so well. I don’t need to know the lyrics in order to empathize with the feelings it's trying to convey. So much so, that when I truly stop and listen to "You Were Beautiful," I find myself on the verge of tears.

There are three aspects that stand out to me: The intro, the perfect harmonies, and the emotional vocals. Most people decide whether they’ll like any given song in its first few seconds. Just like a well written essay, it’s important to grab their attention with a great intro. This song does just that. It’s captivating, and you want to hear its resolution so you agree to stick around and listen to the rest; very effective. The second element is harmonies. What ruins my listening experience of their debut single, “Congratulation,” is the harmonies used. They should have come up with better ones that could have made the song great, instead of "just good." This is exactly what they did in “You Were Beautiful." The harmonies complete the experience and add to the emotional feel of the song.

Talking about emotions, Day6 vocalists really killed it in this track. It wasn’t just one or two out the 4 vocalists, but all of them convincingly expressed heartbreak and nostalgia. When Wonpil says, “You were beautiful, the way you looked at me.” When Brian (Young K) says, “Even though it wasn’t anything, you said sorry and thank you.” When Sungjin says that very last, “Everything,” I lose it, because I can FEEL every word. Although, like "Congratulations," this track got an extremely important part of the musical process wrong (which is why it is so low on the list): music production. I’ll talk more about what I mean with this when I discuss the next song on our list. And please, if you have five minutes to spare and you’re feeling emotional, listen to this song, you won’t regret it. To the left you can watch the official music video, and to your right I encourage you to watch their best live performance of the song.

38. BTS- "Pied Piper"

Oh my God, this fucking song though. Never have I felt so shocked, so mocked. Never have I been the Pikachu meme more than after reading the fucking lyrics to this fucking song.

Let’s calm down and back up a bit. When I first listened to “Pied Piper,” I was ENCHANTED to say the least. It is my favorite song on the album and I seriously couldn’t believe how much of a masterpiece it was (is). Because of it, I didn’t even think about reading the lyrics until almost a month after first listening to it. Basically, I had it on repeat for weeks and was oblivious to what kind of message I was listening to. All I knew was that I was entranced by it, obsessed, and I couldn't stop listening to it.

One lovely sunny evening I decided, "Hey, I’m bored and I’ve listened to this song for an hour now, so let's finally google the lyrics that I’ve been neglecting to look up and, OH MYY FUCKING SHIT!" I HAVE BEEN MOCKED ALL THIS TIME! BETRAYAL, SHAME, AND I DIDN”T EVEN KNOW ABOUT IT SHIITAJKSDFKASJDFKAJSDFKAJSDF, FUCK! BTS ARE SAVAGES, SUGA IS A SAVAGE, J-HOPE IS A SAVAGE, RM IS A SAVAGE! You know what... still, I regret nothing. If they wanna mock me by saying they are pied pipers and I am one of their rats, so be it, as long as they continue to create fucking masterpieces such as this one. Now, after applying water to the burn and with all of my utter shock out of the way, let me explain exactly why this song is so darn amazing.

the strings "mini solo" in the middle of RM’s rap. Secondly,the repetitive "oohs" which are, sort of, cutting off the vocalists words during the chorusCatchy intro, check, seductive vocals, check, amazing rapping, groovy instrumental with a HEAVY Daft Punk influence, and an outro that leaves you wanting more, check, check, and mo-fucking check. What truly made this song memorable for me were two instances. Firstly, and most brief, . Simple additions that take the song to the next level. Now, you’re probably wondering, if I seem to love this song so much, then why is it number 36? Simple: Bad Production. This is not a unique problem to “Pied Piper,” but it is found in most BTS songs. Their songs sound compressed, as if there was a sound ceiling and they were pushing against it (or have broken it completely). I’ll talk more in-depth about it in later entries. It is truly a bummer though, since that is the only aspect I find hinder's this songs chances of being up in my top-10s. Either way, it is a HUGE issue that cannot be ignored.

Hope you enjoyed Part IV! Look forward to Part V coming out real soon, Thank you!