[Rio: If we keep talking like this, there really won’t be an end to it. We should talk about the second title track, “Euphoria,” too.]
[Noah: Ah, right. Yes, there’s really a lot to say from here on as well. To be honest, our basic interpretation of this song is similar to other YouTubers’ reviews, isn’t it?]
[Rio: Yes. Starting with how “Euphoria” can refer to a mental disorder, and then how, among joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure, it means “Rejoice,” or joy, and so on.]
[Noah: Ah, but I’m sorry to say this—I really couldn’t agree with this point. Critic Lim Ji-young of Baneum reviewed it like this: that the autotune and synth sounds scattered throughout “Euphoria” are tacky elements that disrupt immersion, and that while it seems to aim for retro amid the Y2K boom, it’s a second-generation idol sound brought about by the members’ superficial experience, since they never directly lived through the romance of the 2000s.]
Noah took a slight breath, then eventually shook his head.
[Noah: In fact, I’m in my thirties and did enjoy that era, but I think it’s a mistaken premise to say the Y2K boom is entirely about retracing the 2000s. To begin with, composers don’t just bring back the sounds from that time exactly as they were. They update them in a polished way to suit the present, don’t they?]
[Rio: That’s how we should see it. And to call this a superficial experience—honestly, the Y2K sound unique to today’s fourth generation is probably more familiar to the members than it is to the older generation. Especially in the cases of Seoyun and Dohee, from their activities with SEVEN onward, they promoted several songs with that kind of sound as title tracks.]
[Noah: Yes. Just looking at “Sweet Demon,” which Dohee worked on, you can tell that isn’t the case. She worked that Y2K punk style into something truly sophisticated.]
Perhaps realizing he had gotten unintentionally heated, Noah glanced briefly at the camera, cleared his voice, and spoke again in a calmer tone.
[Noah: Of course, I do think “Euphoria” has a certain tackiness to it, just as critic Lim Ji-young said. Its distinctive sound definitely has a 2010s feel, doesn’t it?]
[Rio: Yes, we talked about that earlier in our review, too. The synth sound used in the song is from that period in the first place. And it was clear enough that there are already many comments saying they like it because it feels second generation.]
[Noah: That’s why I don’t think for a second that it was a mistake. There’s a saying, isn’t there? Love is tacky.]
[Rio: Haha, that’s true.]
[Noah: Why was I so impressed earlier? From the album title, to the release date, the lyrics, the album introduction, and the first track—wasn’t the entire structure far too intentional?]
Noah put up on the screen an image of a female student bashfully handing over chocolate.
[Noah: This is exactly the image of Valentine’s Day. That fresh, innocent feeling of a schoolgirl agonizing and agonizing before confessing to the boy she has a crush on.]
[Rio: Right. Love is actually an extremely instinctive and human emotion, so how could it be clean and sophisticated? It’s beautiful precisely because it’s tacky.]
And after a beat, as though he had given it quite a bit of thought, Noah said this.
[Noah: Honestly, even if it was tacky, wasn’t it pleasant to listen to? It was so cute and made me smile. I really thought that was enough.]
[Rio: I think so too, but of course, everyone hears things differently, so we’ll boldly move on.]
Noah seemed to still have more to vent, opening and closing his mouth for a moment, but in the end he swallowed his words.
[Rio: We have to do the third song, too.]
[Noah: Yes. Our interpretation of this one is completely different from the existing ones, right?]
[Rio: I’d say it’s very different. Yes, critic Lim Ji-young said the third title track, “Do it anyway,” represents sorrow, blue, but we actually think it represents delight.]
Rio turned the page and began speaking firmly.
[Rio: In truth, musical interpretation is intuitive, so saying that because a certain melodic progression appears, it must be this or must be that is really meaningless. Evaluation is something each individual makes for themselves.]
[Noah: That’s right. Isn’t that how it is? To use classical music as an example, when you listen to Bach’s fugue, that grand and solemn descending chord can become a piece that evokes nostalgia if the rhythm changes or the melody shifts a little. At other times, it can become a sad song.]
[Rio: Yes. What we want to say is that a certain melody does not necessarily have one fixed image. Calling it simply sorrow just because the melody has a sorrowful tone feels strange.]
Then the two displayed on screen an English comment that had risen to become one of the top comments on Debonair’s music video.
─What I felt while listening to this song was that it didn’t seem to contain only eros, which I suppose should be called affection. It speaks of persistence, patience, consideration, and trust toward others. While listening to the song, I thought of many people who had made me happy. Happy Ash Wednesday.
[Noah: It’s a comment that a great many people liked, and while I sympathized with this opinion, there was a phrase popular among young people these days that came right to mind. Even rock bottom is rock.]
[Rio: Right. Somehow, even the moment when you’ve fallen into that dark pit is still rak, joy. Of course, the “rock” here means the genre, rock, but the fact that it’s exciting is the same either way.]
[Noah: Right. And at the same time, another thing I thought of was a class I took in university called Music and Philosophy. There was a session then where we talked about the commonalities between Western philosophy and Eastern philosophy.]
[Rio: Ah, what kind?]
[Noah: At the time, the professor told us something the famous Nietzsche said. I forgot it, so I looked it up, and Nietzsche said, “In Epictetus, an ancient philosopher, I see that profound insight and transcendence of life that one would think only an Eastern sage could possess.” I only work on music, so I really don’t know much about philosophy, but apparently this philosopher Epictetus was a representative philosopher of Stoicism, which talks about an attitude of enjoying everything in life.]
[Rio: Ah, I see.]
Noah glanced around for a moment, then laughed it off.
[Noah: Haha, did I bring up something too heavy for an idol review? Still, while listening to this song, I really felt something like: as the title says, let’s remember “nevertheless” and live with an attitude of enjoyment. I hope you understand.]
[Rio: For an idol song, it actually seems far too mature.]
Then they immediately highlighted a track.
*Just Another Day*
[Noah: Now, if you listen to this cheerful song while thinking of it as sorrow, I think you’ll get another feeling from it. The lyrics are actually cute and fun, but the story is like that, isn’t it? I don’t want to sleep because I’m afraid tomorrow will be like today. I don’t want to go to work. And then when tomorrow comes, I hate it because it’s just like today. Everyone must feel that way.]
[Rio: Right. But what’s fun about this is that at the end, it cutely finishes by saying that when the new night comes, they smile because tomorrow is Friday.]
[Noah: Chiyo’s fresh voice at the end is so cute. It really makes you smile naturally.]
Noah, who had been grinning, highlighted the album title again as though summarizing everything.
*Joy, Anger, Sorrow, and Pleasure (RNBD)*
[Noah: There was another thing I felt. In the end, I think the explanation that reinforces the tendencies of these two idol-style songs and two indie-style songs is precisely the Rejoice, Nettled, Blue, and Delight introduced as joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure.]
[Rio: This didn’t quite hit me as strongly, but this American said that, in their view, the nuance of the words felt that way.]
[Noah: Haha, yes. This is my personal thought, but Rejoice and Nettled are verbs, so their nuance is to make someone else happy, to make someone else angry. If you think of it that way, it feels very K-pop idol-like.]
[Rio: Certainly, standing on stage, showing a performance, and drawing some kind of intense emotion out of others is also the role of an idol.]
[Noah: Exactly. On the other hand, Blue and Delight are sorrow and pleasure, noun forms. That felt exactly like an indie sensibility, singing about one’s own emotions. Of course, delight can also be used as a verb, but since it’s commonly used as a noun, that’s the impression I got.]
[Rio: You can think Noah was so moved by this issue that he overinterpreted it, and at least for me, I don’t think there’s any reason to outright deny it.]
[Noah: Haha, that’s right. If I were to give my personal evaluation of the album, I think giving it at least 4.5 stars, or even 5 stars, would be perfectly fine. I really like it so much. Yes, I really liked it.]
Then Noah began speaking calmly again.
[Noah: Lastly, this may be a bit of speculation on our part, but we have always thought that TopEast Entertainment’s planning ability is extremely outstanding.]
[Rio: Right. From what I’ve heard, Director Jeong Sohyeon, who is the dedicated director for Debonair, has shown excellent planning several times, hasn’t she? Starting with Debonair’s group name, and she even received a brand award.]
[Noah: Even before Debonair, as the head of TopEast’s A&R, from Pastel Love to X-TEN and so on, her works were impressive.]
[Rio: Exactly. Even before Debonair, though she’s young by industry standards, in her late thirties, she already had a quiet reputation.]
At some point, the tone of the two had become cautious.
[Noah: Even so, as we reviewed this album and the music videos one by one, didn’t we keep saying over and over that there was an incredibly clear direction and sense of unity?]
[Rio: Yes. That’s why we came to think this. In our experience, when every direction is arranged so coherently around a single theme, there’s only one way to interpret it.]
[Noah: From the beginning of the concept to the final stage of production, one person’s hand was consistently involved.]
After hesitating a little, Noah finally let out the last conclusion with relief.
[Noah: We think that at least one of the Debonair members may have participated in planning this album.]
The video ended like that.
And what Double G also could not have predicted was that, for the first time in the channel’s history, that video would rapidly gain hundreds of thousands of views and take a place among Korea’s trending videos.