starrrjh

[starrrjh]

ateez and the message of the golden hour series

the thought that started this whole tangent: golden hour part 3 feels inexplicably nostalgic and bittersweet. ateez are such Artists it genuinely astounds me sometimes because somehow they manage to make the overall message of their albums so abundantly clear without ever saying a damn word?

I've seen kpop artists explain their lyrics and concepts and break it down — and sure there's lots of pretty, touching, beautiful concepts done by lots of artists, but understanding the message of an artform by having it explained VS FEELING the message the art is conveying is another matter entirely. ateez have never quite Explained their message/lore/concept, not really, but everyone always has a fixed idea of what their music sounds like. the world series was about rebelling against oppression — and there's many ways people have interpreted this in the two years this trilogy was running (very literally, lore-wise, by overthrowing a dictator-like government), but everyone had similar interpretations that kept the core values of the albums and songs. then the golden hour series — and yeah everyone makes jokes about wondering how this concept was related to overthrowing the government — which is the point of the matter: it isnt about rebellion. the message has changed, just like how the treasure and fever series dealt with different things. the lore connects everything, sure, but it's very lose, and the lore is more about visual storytelling and the mvs, not the songs themselves. even then the series have noticeable differences — categorised broadly through world a and world z — but differences none the less.

then again, golden hour part 1 is different from parts 2 and 3, just like how part 2 is its own thing and so on. part 1 was success, happiness, riding the high, everything good and enjoyable in life, living in the moment. empty box provides a glimpse into a different outlook but even this song is very hopeful — the main message is about moving on from the past grievances and hoping for a better future. it's positive.

golden hour part 2 is yearning. there is a tangible loneliness, a DESIRE — that's the running theme of the song. man on fire is literally about them singing about this desire that feels like having swallowed a sun and feeling it burn you from the inside out (can also be about sex. another very interesting part of ateez — the way their songs do multiple things at once by keeping with their overall theme and also allowing them to explore various stereotypical concepts in the kpop manner). jongho sings about feeling a want/thirst thats so intense it feels like it's choking him. it's one of ateez's most desperate songs, so raw you can feel it like a physical force. on a related note, deep dive is one of ateez's most aching songs — notice I don't say sad because it's not exactly sad. I'm repeating the lyrics of the song here, but it's about emptiness. you've been trying to fly all these years, throwing yourself off of the cliff with your eyes wide open and your arms spread wide, striving in the hope that you will grow wings and propel yourself to the sky. you've fallen and failed and gotten hurt and died for this impossible dream and somehow you achieved it — you got your wings and you reached the sky and you glowed until you became the stars you were trying to touch. but... now what? you've been so desperate to achieve this place for so, so, So fucking long that you don't know how to exist now that you've gotten it. that passion, that yearning, it was everything you were. you killed parts of yourself in the name of this dream and you rebuilt yourself from nothing and you changed so much that you cannot recognise yourself except for that passion. and now you've gotten it — and you're alone. its a dark theme, and for all that atinys were crowing to get yearningteez back we sure didn't talk about it when we Actually Did. overall, entirely different from gh part 1 but also very much following a cohesive path — pt 2 is the aftermath of the success they WORKed to achieve in pt1.

now, gh part 3, dear lord I love this album so much. everyone is very much focussed on external stuff right now and it's only the first day, so the sexiness and the... blatant mistreatment of certain members is rightfully on people's mind more. but everyone who has heard this album has said one thing (as far as I've seen): this album, these songs, are very, very nostalgic. I don't know what it is about them, I'm not a professional in anything ateez do (I'm just pathologically obsessed with them and rotate them in my head all the time as a hobby), but this whole album feels very bittersweet end of a coming-of-age movie where the now settled grown up protagonist looks back at their past and for a moment feels all the happiness and joy of their youth rush through them, though it is tinged in nostalgia. alot of people are saying that various aspects of the songs/album/mv are callbacks to ateez's past discography, particularly the fever series. even the lore at the moment is about time travel and deja vu and being trapped in the past (something about wooyoung using the sopro to take ateez back to their youth). whatever it is, this album is very rose tinted. it's slower, melodic, charming — they're having fun but they're also acknowledging the difficult parts (something gh pt 1 outright avoided). now this house ain't a home is an incredible song, with a very touching individual message and overall about suffering through unseen or often overlooked struggles, trying to find the light at the end of the tunnel. it's sad, just a plain (not plain at all, but you get my point) sad song. then there's castle — hopeful, a safe place; you've come so far and endured so much, don't worry about trying anymore, just hold onto me and I'll let you hide away, take you to a brighter place. so there was bitterness, and there's hope, and there's mature fun, and there's... the bridge, which I really don't know honestly. but the message is clear: we've come a long way.

i really rambled alot here, this is all probably incomprehensible. it's just that ateez are so talented, so incredibly skilled at their art. they know exactly what they're trying to say — no word, note, or line is wasted. they're not "figuring themselves out" — ateez has never been about that. they've never been in doubt about their identity — which I think plays a big role in them never feeling like rookies, since being inexperienced is associated with trying to understand yourself. but ateez have always had a clear identity in their art and they've never, ever wavered on that. they've grown an incredible amount, both as a group and as individuals, and their music has grown with them but it hasn't quite changed. that's what makes ateez so unique, indescribably yet undeniable. they are artists, real, actual artists, creating and embodying their work in the way artists tend to — making something larger than themselves, a form of expression with so much depth that it can be interpreted in a thousand different ways. they aren't shallow at all, they aren't just a kpop group in the stereotypical sense that phrase is used. they are artists who happen to be Korean.