Butter — VoicePlay music video
This is a video you're going to want to watch many times — partly because it's a darn catchy song, but mostly because you can't possibly catch all the shenanigans happening in a single viewing. Rather than forcing themselves and their guests to learn intricate choreography like BTS's original iteration, the guys decided to take inspiration from the hotter remix video so they could cut loose and get silly while bringing us some flirty boy band goodness.
Details:
title: Butter (feat. Deejay Young & Cesar De La Rosa)
original performers: BTS
written by: Jenna Andrews, Rob Grimaldi, Stephen Kirk, Kim "RM" Nam-joon, Alex Bilowitz, Sebastian Garcia, & Ron Perry
arranged by: Geoff Castellucci
release date: 25 June 2021
My favorite bits:
those delicate high harmonies on the opening lines
Cesar giving heart-hands to go with his ♫ "whoop!" ♫
replacing ♫ "break it down now" ♫ with some tasty scratching
Layne being the only one to actually attempt juggling the oranges that get passed around 🤹
Deejay and Cesar playing a clapping game in the lefthand corner (even though they were filming at Orange Studio, not PattyCake)
the woodblock-y percussion hits Layne does in the transitions
Eli running in a tiny circle behind Geoff during his lead lines ↺
how comfortable Geoff's descending run on ♫ ⇘ "ba-a-a-a-a-a-ad" ⇘ ♫ feels
Deejay and Eli's gorgeous coordinated ascending run of ♫ ⇗ "straight up" ⇗ ♫
that adorable grin from Cesar as he sings ♫ "I gotcha" ♫
Deejay's charismatic smile and graceful arms demonstrating that ♫ "I got that superstar glow" ♫
Eli deftly slipping even more notes into his "cheee-e-e-e-e-eeeap ye-ah" riff than the original
dramatic wind effects for those with moveable hair devolving into melodramatic antics 🌬
no popcorn for tall people 🚫🍿
Geoff and Layne competitively vlogging in the back
turning the more intense rap verse into quieter melodic vocals
synchronized sunglasses removal 🤏🕶️😎 (and Eli already having his glasses on underneath)
Layne's choirboy hands and big, innocent eyes during the bell chord section
the unexpectedness of giving ♫ "when the bass low" ♫ to their highest vocalist
the overhead wave from Cesar in appreciation of Deejay's incredible riff, absolutely correct
casual attempts at choreography 🕺
Geoff perched on a stool being almost the same height as Deejay and Eli standing up
Cesar chomping onto his innaugural Twinkie with gusto
that clean cut-off to finish
Trivia:
The watchword for this video shoot was silliness. The primary direction for their improvised choreography (such as it is) was "Um… yeah, do it just like that again, but this time DUMBERER".
There isn't much continuity to be found, since the staging was intentionally loose and they patched together portions of different takes as they pleased, but there is a tiny throughline of Layne being turned into a sandwich, brushing crumbs out of his stubble in the background, and then guarding against a repeated be-breading.
If you'd like to accurately recreate the moment at home, the boys had a loaf of the 21 Whole Grains and Seeds variety from Dave's Killer Bread.
Also, Layne had to film all his solo shots in a partial squat because he was just a bit too tall for the camera angle they'd established, which made it more difficult for him to evade incoming baked goods.
VoicePlay had previously included an excerpt from BTS's "Fake Love" as the closing segment in their "Boy Bands in 5 Minutes" music video, with Eli singing some of the Korean lyrics.
Deejay and Cesar had known each other for many years prior to this collaboration. They first met while attending neighboring high schools in Tampa, and got their first professional jobs together in the Disney Channel Rocks show at Disney World. They then performed together in the R&B Boyz Crew street show at Universal Studios Japan in 2013. After they returned to Orlando, Cesar and J.None were both special guests during Deejay's acoustic evening at a local club back in 2015. (Theme park performers really are a tight-knit community.)
The screenshot VoicePlay used to promote this video has been their channel icon and social media profile picture ever since.