I’ve always found BTS music videos gorgeous (who hasn’t), but I had an Aha moment (an epiphany, if you will) when I watched the comeback trailer for Love Yourself: Answer. When we see Jin open the door for the second time in the music video and all of a sudden there is bright light pouring over him, I had a big loud voice in my head yell, “YELLOW”. I quickly realized as the rest of the video played out that yellow was nearly the only colour in the entire video, coming in the form of Jin’s hair, and the light that shines into his room from the outside and from the light above his mirror. With this realization I was quickly sent back to the first comeback trailer in the Love Yourself era: Jimin’s yellow hair, soft yellow lighting, and bright yellow props. From here I saw the thumbnail for Euphoria (Jungkook in a bright yellow bomber jacket against a blue sky), and then confirmed that the robe V wears in Singularity was, in fact, (dark, muted) yellow.
Well hey, that’s neat. Seems like it’s unlikely that that’s a coincidence… So I decided to take a closer look. Given that the Love Yourself narrative is following a single journey through and towards love, perhaps yellow is the unifier, telling us that although the voices and faces have changed, if you see yellow you know we’re all talking about the same person. A pretty cool trick, but better yet, it means you can see how the yellow (and other colours relative to yellow) change across the stages of Love to get a new angle on the story being told.
This series is going to focus primarily on the solo songs from the LY era (and especially on the intros), but I will touch a little on the group videos as well.
A/N: An unexpected follow-up to my colour analysis of the Love Yourself era group music videos (DNA, FAKE LOVE, and IDOL). Turns out, I wasn’t giving FAKE LOVE enough credit. Highly recommend reading the other bonus post (or better yet, the whole series) before reading this. Like the other one, this bonus is definitely less legit that the main four parts of this series... but that’s what bonuses are for!
Having had some more time to reflect, I’m pretty sure when I pointed out who was wearing red and blue in DNA i was being a little too optimistic. That video was a performance video at heart, and I think focusing on just the main structure is probably what I should have done. When it comes to IDOL I think I correctly did just that. That video has a message of its own that it was trying to drive home, so it wasn’t going to be spending lots of time on a story that might get in the way. FAKE LOVE on the other hand is all about telling stories. And upon many more viewings I’m realizing that I wasn’t giving it enough room to say what it wanted to say.
Like with the first bonus, let’s start by talking about the main set structure. In the last post I talked about the transition from DNA to FAKE LOVE to IDOL in the structure that houses the main group dance scenes. Through the videos we moved from bright yellow against a blue sky in DNA, to the rusted and de-yellowed structure of FAKE LOVE, to the aggressively yellow structure in IDOL.
In the original post, I hadn’t considered whether the extended version of the FAKE LOVE might add more to the things I wanted to say in this series. Turns out it does. One of the biggest differences in the extended version is the final scene in the video, where we have a cloaked Jungkook enter a sandy space to join the other members after which they all don their masks and are crushed by a giant block (you know the scene). Because the colour palette is so different in this part of the video, I never looked all that closely at the setting. I was so distracted by the cloaks, masks, and… death (?) that I failed to see that our structure had a makeover.
In the end of this video we see that our structure has changed from cold steel-blue and orange rust to a dusty faded yellow. It isn’t bright like it was in DNA, and we haven’t reached the point of strength of IDOL, but it has shed (most of) its rust and the yellow has returned. When you consider this in the transition of the structure through the series it helps bridge the divide between Tear and Answer.
On top of that it fits well with one of the central themes of Tear. Ultimately this era involves the recognition that the sacrifice of self that has been made isn’t worth it and has gotten in the way of loving yourself. This era is dark and brooding, but it is also decisive (if at times hesitant). It makes sense that in a song that cries that it’s “so sick of this fake love” there would be a progression from start to finish, where we see what’s made them so sick (the rusted state of the world), and also see the results of the first step away from the fake love (the return of yellow).
When we get the reintroduction of our yellow structure, we also get the guys all dressed in black. Pale yellow scenery, with all black clothes – this pops up multiple times in both of the videos from the Tear era. A surprising coincidence. In Singularity, towards the end of the music video, yellow light begins to appear. We see this in the group dance scenes – with the nearly white light that shines from behind – and in the visually busy spring shots. When I talked about Singularity in detail, I related this to the coming of spring that the lyrics reference and the return of yellow as Tae finally begins to push through the other colours. What I didn’t focus on, is that in these scenes, when at their most yellow, Tae is wearing all black.
Moving forward to FAKE LOVE. We’ve already touched on the group scene at the end of the extended version, so now I want to talk about Jin. In the last bonus post when talking about this video I decided that I shouldn’t read into Jin’s colours since the Tear era occurs before Epiphany. I’ve changed my mind about that. Now that I’ve seen this colour pattern, I can see how styling Jin in all black and having him in that warmly light room fits in perfectly with it all.
Seeing our protagonist in black in these Tear scenes leaves a bitter taste in your mouth. In an older post I related Tae’s black outfit to him mourning the relationship that’s about to end when spring comes. I think that metaphor isn’t far off the mark. There has to be an end in order for there to be a new beginning. The black, when interpreted in this bigger story, is able to also suggest the state of our protagonist in this moment. It isn’t just the indication of the death of this last phase, or of hardship/experience (as I’ve mentioned before), but also a reference to the current lack of colour.
In a story built around colour, having a moment of black isn’t a small thing. Covering themselves up for their Other has left them in a state of not knowing who they are. It isn’t just that we couldn’t see the yellow because the reds were obstructing our view, it’s also that by compromising themselves for their Other, they lost the yellow entirely. I got to say, the choice for all the boys to have black hair for this era… it’s feeling like more than an aesthetic choice at this point.
Plus, this colour scheme works as a great visualization for the final stage of the Tear era – in this state, our protagonist has lost/left the reds and blues of his Other that were consuming and stifling him, and yellow has re-entered his world. We aren’t at the point where the protagonist is wearing yellow (or has yellow hair) yet – the return to self is a process, and that sense of identity hasn’t been internalized or realized yet (still literally external). It’s a dull yellow that’s appeared. It’s warm and golden, but much weaker than what we see in the videos before and after. It isn’t until the Answer era and Epiphany that we see yellow within our protagonist, and IDOL that this colour scheme gets reinvigorated with hanbok dancing scenes.
In Jin we see this state of lost identity and being alone, with the yellow returning to the scene. It is especially fitting that they chose Jin to display these colours in this video since he is the one that kicks off our epiphany in Answer. But there’s more to it than just yellow outside and black inside as the step before yellow making it inside with the black. What you’ll notice in Jin’s opening scene in FAKE LOVE is that it’s when the room explodes that the yellow light is really able to light up his world.
As I’ve already said – an end is necessary for a new beginning. Sometimes that end is destructive. Sometimes, if things aren’t built right instead of trying to fix them you need to tear them down. Destruction is everywhere in this video. We get Jimin’s world being washed away, Yoongi with his fire, Hoseok sinking into his chocolate bars, Taehyung’s disintegrating phone, and of course the crushing block at the end. Even our final shots of the structure look like they’ve been roughly weathered. When considering Jin’s scene, it takes disaster and force for the red curtains to push aside and bring yellow back into a world where Jin has already lost all of his own colour.
In my original post about the group videos I only focused on the singers. I assumed that since this story was being told through their solo songs, that the only nods to it I would find to it in the group videos would be with them. But the rappers have a little to add too.
In RM’s scenes we get all of the primary colours. We see Namjoon wearing blue and also being swallowed up by red light (we’ve seen this before!). Then we have the yellow RM in the mirror. Now, the yellow is a call back to his short film for Reflection. I highly doubt the choice to have Reflection RM in yellow back then has anything to do with how I’ve been seeing yellow in this era. But that doesn’t mean that they can’t adapt old images into new concepts. When I watch RM’s story in the FAKE LOVE music video I see him struggling with his identity (the red, the blue, the lyrics), seeing his past self in the mirror, and then choosing to approach his reflection.
When we think about reflection era Namjoon, it’s a sad one. And his choice to return to that in this video aligns a lot with Singularity. He doesn’t know who he is when he’s blue or red, so he’s choosing to return to being yellow and alone even if it involves sadness. “I wish I could love myself” exchanged for choosing to love myself (leading beautifully into the LY: Answer era).
With Suga’s scenes we get the iconic fire ball. Of course this is reference to the burning pianos of yester-video, but it also makes me think of his lyrics in Outro: Tear, when he asks his Other to yeah, yeah burn it. I certainly don’t think that he wrote those lyrics with this video in mind, but the concept of destruction as something cathartic is definitely a theme that runs throughout this era. And when we see Yoongi gazing upon the flames, he is engulfed in yellow and smiling sadly at the scene. There is a sense of satisfaction.
In Hoseok’s story the images of childhood and chocolate bars don’t exactly conjure ideas that relate obviously to our colour plot. But the use of colour holds out. The colours in Hoseok’s scenes include our central red, blue and yellow. His set is super colourful and busy – this fits well given that he is often associated with excess in his story-lines. Sure there’s some yellow in there, but it’s all mixed up in reds and blues. That being said, there is an interesting rivalry with red and yellow lighting, with red often threatening from the fringes.
Yellow on the other hand becomes the most prominent in his final shots as a spotlight that keeps the red at bay. And in his last moment we see him sinking into the chocolate. A dark last look at him. Quite possibly a visualization of being emotionally overwhelmed. This is what shows us we’ve reached a breaking point, and that change is necessarily coming. What colour to better show this than yellow? When he sinks we’re actually left with yellow as the only prominent colour on the screen.
Even in the singers’ plots, there’s progress that I didn’t consider before. We have Jimin’s world being washed away – perhaps able to cleanse the ugly oversaturation, we see Tae being hit by yellow light again and appearing to make the choice to head in that direction. Jungkook is running and moving the whole video and it’s him that leads us to the final scene, and of course Jin’s colouring helps signal how following his world literally exploding, he will help usher us forward with his epiphany.
Something that shows up throughout this video is the visualization of things suppressed, just to have them erupt and overwhelm, followed by an occurrence of yellow. We see Jin shut the curtains to his room before they are violently blown open, bringing with them yellow light.
We see Jimin turn off the tap only to have a deluge explode around him. The final shot we get here is of Jimin in yellow (less discoloured than before, seen most clearly in his face) staring strongly through the waves.
We get Yoongi’s yellow fire flashing briefly off to the side before the final inferno and his complicated smile. Tae gets overwhelmed by the flashing walls before trying to leave the corridor, where we see a choice between red if he turns left and yellow if he turns right.
Namjoon’s world keep changing colours (look at the background), and at times is overwhelmed by red, eventually leading to him walking firmly towards his yellow reflection. In Hoseok’s final shot, after looking lost while lying on the floor, we see him totally swallowed up, with all colours but black and yellow disappearing. And we have Jungkook running endless in this video, appearing completely lost and without colour until he reaches the sandy last scene.
Originally when I was considering this video I was only looking for a static image of the Tear era. It wasn’t until the extended version showed me a transition in the structure that I realized how much Tear is about change. This video doesn’t just show us how things have changed since Her, they also show us that more change is coming. Each of the members’ solo stories in this video goes somewhere. The path looks painful and messy, but each story shows progress towards IDOL.
That’s all folks! Thanks for reading! (well done, if you managed to read through all of these… that is no small feat)
So this post is going to be much less detailed (and legit) than the others (hence the relegation to bonus). The trouble with group videos is that there are way more sets, way more costume changes (times more people), and in the case of these 3 videos in particular they are crazy, colourful kaleidoscopes. Unless the videos are especially minimal (like the intro videos) it becomes much harder to find specifics (without ignoring a whole lot more).
I’m going to start with the point that I think is far more likely to be intentional and then move on to weak stuff.
So. Given how hectic group videos are how do I tease apart when someone wearing yellow matters versus when them wearing red matters?
By ignoring them.
I’m going to focus on the sets instead. Each of these videos have a massive structure that the group choreo scenes take place in. And guess what. There’s yellow...
That’s right, the main DNA set is a bright yellow structure with a bright blue sky behind it. Bright blue sky paired with yellow. Now where have we seen that before? DNA continues the colour scheme of Serendipity and also carries the theme. Belonging to the same era, both songs focus on love as a wonderful, transformative, and wholly positive. Therefore, we see shining yellow, looking even brighter against the blue sky.
With FAKE LOVE we move into the Tear era and our structure needs to reflect that too.
We see a big structure again, but there’s no more yellow. Instead it’s a cold grey-blue steel that’s rusting all over. If there was ever yellow in those beams it’s been sucked out or covered with rust. It would have been much more satisfying for that rust to have been a stronger red colour (matching a little more with Singularity) but the tone change is still evident just by looking at the set. And what we get in IDOL makes me feel even stronger that this is meant to be the dark in between of the same structure.
IDOL is filled with so many colours. The background is constantly changing, so are outfits, there’s so much to take in! But this structure is always very bright yellow. Now that we’re at the point of self love, we see yellow glowing again. On top of that, instead of a heavy steel and concrete structure, we also see that this one is floating. We’ve got levity, there’s freedom that comes along with self-recognition.
I will say this one is quite different in tone (colour-wise) than Epiphany. Lyrically they share the same “I’m going to love me” message, but Epiphany is quite a bit sadder. If you watched Epiphany and didn’t listen to the music or read the lyrics, you’d think it was a very sad song. So I think these two songs are showing different aspects of self-love. Epiphany seems to be right after becoming alone. We get balance, but the yellow isn’t as pure as it was in Serendipity. In IDOL we’ve progressed to a confident phase (maybe further in the future). The song is loud and unapologetic, and so’s the yellow!
Moving onto the weak connections I’ve made....
I do think this last thought is a stretch, and more than likely a coincidence (confirmation bias in action), but a handful of the individual colour profiles from the solo songs get continued in these M/Vs.
DNA is completely infatuated with primary colours. They are everywhere in this video. And we get lots of shots of Tae in red, Jungkook in blue, and Jimin with his yellow hair. We even get a great shot of Jimin with a blue sunny sky behind him. All potential references to their solo videos (...maybe).
In FAKE LOVE we get some more interesting connections. We have the line “I grew a flower that can’t be bloomed in a dream that can’t come true”. Here we have key words that draw us right back to Serendipity, “I became your flower”, and Euphoria, “Please don’t wake from the dream”. The Tear era is one that comes after the hope of Jimin and the desperation in Jungkook’s song have evolved into the torment that is Taehyung’s world. Here we have the sobering admission that the idealism of the beginning no longer holds up. If these lyrics hadn’t caught my attention I probably wouldn’t have given any thought to the colours in these videos (I expected group videos to follow rules of their own). But with the lyrical link to the solo songs, I thought maybe…
In FAKE LOVE we also have a yellow Jimin surrounded by an oversaturated blue, as well as a barely saturated Jungkook, and a Tae clad in red. Each of these feel like a gesture to their respective solo songs. The beautiful pair made between yellow and blue in Serendipity has been twisted into an intense scene that is unnaturally coloured. In Jungkook’s shots, now that we’ve moved to a time where the euphoric dream has been discarded, we see that the hypersaturation of Euphoria has vanished, leaving us with basically no colour at all. A testament to the substance of the love present in Euphoria – as if he had turned up the saturation in order to compensate for the reality. Here, with the dream dispelled, we see the reality, which is sorely lacking in colour. Finally, we see Taehyung. His shots, like Jimin’s, follow the same colour patterns of his solo song: it’s all reds and jewel tones. In this video we see him wearing red, perhaps a testament that he is still not himself, and still favouring the red lie at the cost of his yellow self.
Since this happens before Jin’s Epiphany, I don’t think I should read much into his scenes… In reality, I probably shouldn’t be reading this much into any of the scenes in this video… but once you start seeing these things you really can’t control it.
Lastly, we come IDOL. In the group scenes underneath the yellow structure we have our boys in coordinating hanboks -- all yellow and black. This coordinates clearly with Jin’s solo song. We have a bright golden yellow that contrasts brilliantly with the black. I’ve dubbed the black a sign of experience and hardship, and here it looks strong. All the troubles they’ve gone through have emboldened them and they shine more clearly because of it.
