I love the video and I just keep thinking about the video, especially in the context of the commentary on it from fans and the audience mostly saying how hot he is and how cool the video was and like it just keeps sitting with me how sad all of it is in the I guess other story underneath it all. Especially when you know what the lyrics of the songs are about and then pair them with the videos itself. The video makes videos for three songs and that’s “coma” and then “let me tell you” and then “talk to you” are just funny because they played the album itself backwards, which has those songs in reverse. With talk to you coming first and then let me tell you being in the middle and then coma being last. It’s ironic because by the MV putting it backwards, it puts the whole tone of everything in a more positive light when the album is like a slow buildup into the coma as he says in the very last song on the album, which is coma.
So according to the video and the songs they purposely use in that order the songs themes goes from kind of lost and disassociated to trying to gain connection with the person you like to knowing that they are attracted to you and you’re aware of it and the nervousness that comes with it all. And if we look at the video just in like tone it goes from wild, lost, and disassociative to calm and vulnerable to confident and free. Which is ironically, the complete opposite of the sequence of the actual album. The actual album has Yeonjun start off with talk to you confident maybe a little cocky and self-aware and reveling in the fact that he knows he has this effect on people and then let me tell you comes in as the third track talking about what I mentioned before and then you have tracks like “do it” and “nothin bout me”where do it is kind of like a slow segway into the eventual disassociative, lost and wild state of coma from where it came off of the let me tell you track. And in that song he’s pretty much just saying like doing and dance as you please like just move because you’re in your body and you feel like it and don’t worry about others and then immediately after that on the next track he has the song nothin bout me which, as it says pretty much telling his haters and the whole world y’all don’t know nothing about him like all of these assumptions and stereotypes y’all have about him. You don’t actually know him he even says so in the song, which is like a really good lyric I like that he’s talking about everyone judging him and his own parents don’t even do that. So at this point, he’s outright calling people out and telling them to stop talking and to shut up and yells out in the song and the music stop as he says it and then right after that, the last track on the song is coma, which is what I already told you about. So even though he started off the album confident self-aware and a little cocky he ended it lost, disassociating and with this weird sort of anger. If anything, it’s almost like a slow descent of madness, where the person or audience who was staring at him in attraction and awe as he talks about in the first song, he’s being himself and doing what he needs to do, but it’s slowly getting to him overtime as you see in the album and at the very end of it he’s almost lost himself and is crumbling under the weight despite his confidence in earlier songs about having control of it and telling the world to fuck off. But that’s just that part. I actually wanna get into the actual mv, which is my whole point of saying this.
It’s funny and ironic that it shows that this is how the K-pop industry works if we look at it as a larger picture. He’s allowed to be vulnerable and express himself on this album that is genuinely gold and vulnerable in a way that it’s not just him being lovesick over a partner or something but like going through psychological turmoil, even if it’s packaged well. And then the K-pop industry takes that packaged well aesthetic and puts it in this MV and they present his literal disassociation and spiral and feeling lost that he feels in coma and puts it at the beginning of the music video as something cool and edgy when he’s literally going through something and putting talk to you at the end of it makes this as some sort of odd healing/self-discovery arc. The industry allows its idols to be vulnerable, but it always has to come in a pretty package and look like it’s not that bad in that the idol themselves is living well even when they’re in the peak of mental instability and exploitation. And it’s even more hurtful because even though he’s expressing himself in this way, saying so in the literal lyrics of his songs, the K-pop industry package it in a way as I said where his beauty and the beauty of the video and all of the aesthetics gloss over the fact that this man is crying out in pain and this further enforces and enables the audience to only see the glossed over version and the beauty further dehumanizing him as just an idol to be looked at watched and praised. And it’s just literally extremely ironic and funny because that’s exactly what the album is talking which is the entire point. And to make it even funnier, the MV actually does showcase that they’re doing this even if they put everything in reverse order to make it seem like he’s “happier” at the end. In the coma mv he’s going through all of that and then immediately goes into Let me tell you where he’s dancing with Daniella. The literal beginning of the intro the starts off with him, waking up in a bed with literal tears in his eyes like this guy has obviously been crying, and the tears are still sitting in his eyes. Yet, he gets up, fixes himself up and then immediately goes to chase after a girl who as the video plays out doesn’t even want him at least in that way. Like they’re doing this beautiful choreo where he’s seemingly lusting after her and also wanting to love her and she’s dancing away from him and not even wanting him and as the video goes on, it’s clear that they’re experiencing tension. And even at the end of the video that iconic scene in the choreo where Yeonjun has his body strung over Daniela and she looks into the camera with her hand on his face or something while he looks only at her is honestly like the pinnacle of this and honestly just a smack in the face for everything the album is saying. Especially since according to the album this song comes right after talk to you. And if we lace those two together in talk to you, he’s talking about how he’s aware of his magnetism and how people are attracted to him and want him and all this stuff and then directly after in let me tell you we see this played out in the MV where he’s chasing connection with seemingly someone who might be attracted to him and they’re just being chased. They just want his attention, but they don’t want actual connection that even at the end of the MV Daniella stares into the camera like “look what I got” as he slumped over her, begging for her attention still. And then directly after that is the actual talk to you video where he’s singing about all of this and his magnetism, but he’s literally just being himself. Just existing as a magnetic person. In the mv it starts off with these girls screaming at him and one of them slaps him for no reason. He’s not even doing anything. And then later there’s some guys who were screaming at him but they don’t slap him and he’s standing with them but it’s clear he’s supposed to stand out from them. And by the end of the video he has all of these people chasing him wanting to get him to the point that they completely crowd and pile on top of him that he has to get a way by littler flying on strings away from it all and yet still swinging over the very people he’s trying to escape from. And at the end of the video, it shows him in the back of a pick up truck just by himself. It’s the same pick up truck he had to use to escape from the people in the first place who had earlier piled on him until he literally had to float above their heads away from them, and at that he still didn’t escape until at the end of the video he’s just laid out in the back of the pick up truck as it goes by on a lonely road and he’s literally laid out in the truck like he’s laying down. It doesn’t zoom in to show what his expression looks like but the fact that he’s completely stretched out in a resting/vulnerable position after just being raised away from a crowd of people chasing him, who wanted his whole person enough to try to grab him and earlier in the video some of the women actually slapped him. The video on its surface shows the life of a popstar and how cool it must be and feel to ride above the crowd and have all of these people want you when underneath the surface this man is suffering and everyone’s just like oh my gosh, this is so hot I want him when he literally has to run away from said people because they want so much of him and even when he tries to get that same connection back they don’t even wanna give it to him in that way as shown in the Let me tell you mv. They just want his attention and him without actually having him in a way that’s viable connection.
Side Note: Also, as like a sidenote to everything that I said here the title of the album is fitting to, because he’s saying no labels, and that’s effectively him telling us along with the content of the actual album, not to assume so much about him and not to project on him hence the no labels title
IMPORTANT: I am not at all saying that I personally think that Yeonjun himself as like a person is going through mental turmoil and needs help and has all of these issues. He may not feel the way I’m talking about what I feel the album portrays at least to that extent or maybe not at all. This is just what I personally feel the album communicated and the music video communicated as a piece of art. I’m also not saying that everyone who listened to the album and watched the video were only paying attention to his looks what I am saying is that the music video and honestly the K-pop industry as a whole purposely makes that a focal point of everything and makes the idol and everything they touch highly aestheticized which is a main point of what I was discussing.
TLDR; (you should have because this tdlr is stupid oversimplified and my actual post really gets into it plus I absolutely cooked and you showed up to my table and only wanted sides. Tsk, tsk)
No Labels Pt. 01 music video represents the surface level view of what being a famous pop star seems like in a positive light while the actual album’s themes, content, lyrics and song order show the space beneath the surface level in the downsides of such overexposure and the effects that has on a persons psyche.
Also what do y’all think? I’m curious if anyone had any similar views or even thought that I was reaching with this analysis.** ***Or what you* won’t personally took from the music video coupled with the album.
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