SOUNDTRACK: BTS-Tiny Desk (Home) Concert #82 (September 21, 2020).
BTS is the biggest band in the world right now. As the news the next morning said
Korean boy band BTS played its first Tiny Desk Concert on Monday — and broke the series record for most YouTube views on its first day, which happened in about 25 minutes.
When I was younger I hated all boy bands on principle–they were fake creations with no soul. But either I’ve mellowed with age (true) or I’m less exposed to pop music so no longer sick of it (true) or maybe I just get a kick out of band from South Korea making people excited in the U.S. Whatever the reason, BTS makes me smile.
Partly, it’s the band members themselves:
V; Jin; Jimin; J-Hope; RM; SUGA and Jungkook [I have no idea if that’s a left to right listing or just a random assortment of names] all seem to be really enjoying themselves and each other. Perhaps all boy bands have this camaraderie (I’ve never watched enough to notice), but these guys are pretty entertaining–right down to their fabulous clothing choices.
The little I’ve seen of BTS makes me think that they are known by their hair color choices: the blue one, the purple one, the blond one, the brown one, but in this set, aside from a blue and a blonde, the rest of the guys have black or brown hair. So instead, you have to go by their voices I guess.
One of them (on the right) has a really fantastic falsetto, another has a much deeper voice. One of them seems to be a rapper. The rest I can’t really tell apart–I’m not entirely sure if it makes sense for there to be seven of them, but it works.
With BTS cooped up in Seoul, the group held true to the series’ spirit by convening a live band for its Tiny Desk debut, and even arranged to perform in a workspace with a music-friendly backdrop: the record store VINYL & PLASTIC by Hyundai Card in BTS’s hometown.
The following introduction makes me laugh because I have literally never heard this song (or really any BTS song, as far as I know)
Opening with this summer’s inescapable “Dynamite” — the group’s first single to hit No. 1 in the U.S., as well as its first song to be fully recorded in English
“Dynamite” has a real disco vibe and is really catchy. Moreso than the other two songs, I feel. Perhaps because its in English, but I don’t think so. The melody and delivery is really spot on. And I love the whoohoos and heys.
I really like their live band. It’s kind of hard to pay attention to them when you have seven guys singing and dancing around in front. I don’t know if they normally play with a live band, but the guitar from Shyun is really grooving. He also plays a lot of unobtrusive but wild solos throughout the songs. The bass from Kim Kiwook is really smooth and funky
They introduce the next song in English.
From there, the group dipped into its back catalog, seizing on the opportunity to showcase its quieter side while (mostly) staying uncharacteristically seated. The breezily propulsive “Save ME,” from 2016,
starts with a squeaky keyboard sound from DOCSKIM followed by the falsetto guy on the end (who seems to sing more than anyone else–I wonder if he’s the favorite) but they can all do some impressive falsetto notes in the verses as well. I get a kick out of how they have a really hard time staying seated–with one or more of them seeming to need get up and dance.
This song has a rap verse (in Korean I guess) which is pretty interesting to hear.
They discuss the song in Korean (with subtitles) and then introduce the final song in English.
It’s the full-on power ballad, 2017’s reflective “Spring Day,”
which seemed especially true to BTS’s hopeful nature: Introduced with a few optimistic words from rapper and singer RM (“It’s been the roughest summer ever, but we know that spring will come”), the song reflects on a need to wait out hard times, even as the weight of present-day pain feels oppressive.
The song builds from a slow intro to a pretty big ending with some notably solid drumming from KHAN.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed this tiny concert.
[READ: September 22, 2020] Birthday
Birthday is not a novel, it is an autobiographical essay. It’s important that this distinction is made because many of Aira’s novels feel autobiographical. But this one is meditative and a very personal–it was translated by Chris Andrews.
Aira turned 50 in 1999 (he dated this work July 18, 1999). He imagined it as an opportunity to prepare for the future. But nothing really changed. He went on as usual.
It was a short time later, when walking with his wife, Liliana, when he stated that the phases of the moon could not be produced by the earth’s shadow as he had learned. But his wife said there was no way anyone thought that’s how the moon’s phases were created. He felt so dumb for thinking this, that he spent the next several days going over in his head what else he didn’t know. He spends most of the book mocking himself for his ignorance. Continue Reading »
I saw The Avett Brothers a couple of years ago in Bethlehem. I’d always heard that they were fun live and yes they were. But oh man, was I in a bad place. I was far back and behind a wall of people who just didn’t seem to want to let me look between their giant heads.
I enjoyed My Chemical Romance’s The Black Parade album quite a lot, although I haven’t listened to all that much beyond it.
I Just Read About That... 