Sunshine Review

  Chapter three of Beyond the Story opens with lighter toned pictures from The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Part 1, The Most Beautiful Moment in Life Part 2, and The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever. These pictures are in contrast to the grunge aesthetics that opened chapter 2, an instant visual indicator of the contents of this era in BTS’s history. Chapter 3: Love, Hate, Army, deals with a transitional period in BTS’s career, a period of extreme highs and lows all at once. In the music videos for this era, the group began to build their own storyline, where they portrayed fictional characters with ugly, real-life problems. BTS was becoming their own self-contained universe in which the characters, like the members themselves, were on the outskirts. In the videos, it was the outskirts of a physical city. For the band, the city represented the music scene. Even as they made more and more of a name for themselves, Bangtan never really fit in. They weren’t doing music t...

With the outbreak of the coronavirus in 2020 and the resulting stay at home order, life screeched to a stop for many people around the globe. Amid this chaos, Tomorrow X Together released their album, Minisode 1: Blue Hour. “We Lost the Summer” is a song on the album about the pandemic and everything that was halted during quarantine. Two years later, in the summer of 2022, the group finally held their first world tour, which was delayed along with so many other events. “Our Lost Summer”, a new documentary on Disney+, records this meaningful time.      Viewers will enjoy the aesthetics of the documentary. Those who’ve been following TXT for a while might recognize editing styles from “One Dream”, the group’s reality show filmed during their first showcase in the U.S. in 2019, as well as from the Minisode 1 album. The parallels to “One Dream” serve as a throwback to TXT’s rookie days, comparing the showcase and the world tour as two different beginnings for the group and t...

  It's the afternoon of July 21, 2023, and theaters are packed with people wearing various shades of pink. On this historic day, they're all coming to see the Barbie movie. This isn't Barbie and the Diamond Castle or Barbie: A Fashion Fairytale, but The Barbie movie, starring Margot Robbie as Barbie and Ryan Gosling as Ken. This movie has been getting hype since it was first announced, and for good reason. Barbie is a classic character; for better or for worse, she's an irreplaceable part of many girls' childhoods.  The movie opens with an archaic looking scene of little girls playing with dolls, and then a gigantic Barbie appears and they start smashing the baby dolls while the narrator describes how Barbie dolls could be more than just babies, and kids playing with them could be more than just parents. This brings it back to the Barbie tagline: "You can be anything," and it seems as if Barbie has solved all of society's problems. Of course, this is o...

  “A Midsummer NMIXX’s Dream” is a single album by k-pop sextet NMIXX, including two songs: “Party O’Clock” and “Roller Coaster”. The music video for “Roller Coaster” was released prior to the single album on July 3, while “Party O’Clock” came out on the eleventh. Both songs have an overarching theme of youth and life, expressed in different ways.  “Roller Coaster” is about a metaphorical roller coaster of emotions. It’s another love song, but it’s also more than that; “Roller Coaster” is about the wild journey of youth and life in general. Lyrics from the song read, “Let's ride, hold on. Going down, going up with you.” The music video is stylized like a movie, with the theme of high school love. The video shows scenes of the group doing a cute choreography in school uniforms outside. Later in the video, we see the members helping each other in various ways and having fun together in a pool. Whether it’s romance or friendship, the song’s theme is taking on life together. T...

While the first chapter of Beyond the Story: A 10 Year Record of BTS focuses on the members’ personalities and how they first came together as a group, the second chapter talks about the beginning of their actual career. Preceding the chapter is a series of poster photos, one from each of the group’s first four albums. These images come as a bit of a surprise after the aesthetic opening, as BTS’s early style was drastically grungier than it is today. These photos are placed sparsely enough that they enhance the reading experience and bring visuals to the story without distracting from the main point or taking up too much space. This contributes to the book’s beautiful format, as does the use of purple coloring within parts of the text, and the Spotify-esque image shown for each album explained in the narrative.  This chapter, “Why We Exist”, goes into detail on how BTS shared their genuine personality with fans after debut, how they experienced doubts and struggles, and the harsh ...

  “ Oh, my God, don't know how you do it like that.” With this iconic line, Korean pop group Tomorrow X Together and American trio the Jonas Brothers collaborated on an epic summer single. Looking at everything from the tune to the lyrics to the music video, dance, and fandom impact, here’s everything you need to know about the collaboration.  The Western influence is obvious in the all-English song, which has a tune that sounds classic and almost nostalgic to past summers of holding up peace fingers and taking selfies at the beach. At the same time, however, the song is fresh and exciting. This seems like a contradiction, but it’s true nonetheless. The sound overarching these details and nuances is smooth and interesting. Lyrically, ‘Do It Like That’ describes someone who is so amazing that they always blow the singers’ minds. It’s a pretty simple concept. The song’s creativity comes from specific imagery in the lyrics rather than the overall subject matter. For example, ...

  At midnight between July 13 and 14, 2023, Jungkook of BTS released his first solo single, ‘Seven,’ a song that was different from what everyone first expected. When the title was announced, fans expected it to be an emotional song alluding to the seven members of BTS. This was not the case at all. Instead, ‘Seven’ refers to the seven days of the week, and loving someone every one of those days. Basically, the song is about a persistent love that lasts forever. In terms of lyrics, ‘Seven’ could stand to do better. Written fully in English, the song describes romance like just about any other song on the radio. Not that love songs are always bad or unoriginal–love is indeed a large part of human life–but it would’ve been nice to see Jungkook take a more unique direction. Besides that, the song contains a few references to inappropriate behavior. That isn’t even to mention the explicit version, which I would not recommend to those with pure ears. Of course, it isn’t unusual for arti...