I gave the entire album quite a few listens yesterday and this morning. That's part of why I wasn't participating as much in the discussion as you'd think I would be. I wanted to have a stronger sense of what I'm listening to before speaking. I also watched the documentary.
As an album, I think this is much better than the two mixtapes. The documentary shows the process to an extent, theres a lot of him travelling, random live performances of some of the songs, and him meeting with other musicians over time. It's a light-hearted documentary, it's obviously filtered. Everyone who's been a fan for him for a very long time knows he agonizes over his music and that it's not as smooth of a process as the documentary shows. Some of the things he says hint at him being harder on himself than the camera is willing to show, though. I'm just bringing this up to make the point that the documentary isn't about how he made the album, but what he was thinking about as he made it. There's a lot of talk of the past, present and future and the way people hold onto the past, and fear the future. His meeting with Ryuichi Sakamoto was quite beautiful, and Sakamoto saw right through him, which I enjoyed watching.
I'm gonna try to go through each song and share just my general thoughts without getting too crazy with it. There's a TON to unpack, but I'd rather focus on what's most important regarding signs, symbols, etc.
1. D-Day: He's referencing the doomsday clock is my best guess, because of the "switch over, time ticking and over" lyrics. The doomsday clock is all about the end of the world. The instrumental is quite eerie too, and it's interesting how he says "the future will be okay, okay okay I look in the mirror and I see no pain". It's very anxiety ridden. It goes with his talk about fearing the future. He also says "karma gonna be coming back for me". It's giving me very "I know what I've done, I've accepted it, and I'll take what comes". He frequently says "I can't remember, say no more", and I think he's talking about things he's seen and doesn't want to remember and doesn't want people to jog those memories. Either something or someone is coming for him, is my best guess.
2. Haegeum: I've already shared my thoughts about this song, so I won't repeat myself. What I'll say about the music video is that the cop character he plays is just as corrupt as his self that murders the cop. He's always had very strong views about the Gwangju massacre, and Koreans have strong views about cops in their country in general, there's a lot of corruption and violence there from what I understand.
3. HUH?!: This song is meh to me. His rap is fine but JH's is really boring. It's just him boasting. Nothing new.
4. Amygdala: He talks at length about this in the documentary. Basically, the amygdala is what connects our fear response with things that are dangerous, but it also connects our joy/love response with things that are good for us. He's asking for his amygdala to save him. There's times in the song he mentions things happening he didn't want to happen. I think he's seen some serious sh!t, and I think he's also woken up from whatever Hive did to him.
5. SDL: It's a love song. Yeah. It's good, but, there's nothing else to it.
6. People Pt. 2: I've already discussed this one at length.
7. Polar Night: It starts weird but it takes off quickly. He raps in Korean, "Killing him is the definition now", talks about truth and lies a lot. The other line, "Between dark questions and indiscriminate accusations" really caught my attention. He mentions selective hypocrisy, too. The song seems all over the place, but I think he's trying to say that people talk too much or not enough, and therefore there's no balance. He repeatedly mentions consumption of information and technology in the documentary, and even says he doesn't go online much anymore. And I'm sorry but the way he raps in this song makes him sound like the way we talk on this forum. There, I said it.
8. Interlude Dawn: It's an instrumental. Beautiful but also very unsettling in it's own way.
9. Snooze: This is the one he did with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Woosung's vocals are lovely. I honestly cannot listen to this song without crying. When he played this for Sakamoto, Sakamoto pointed out the "everything will be all right" lyric, and told YG that he was saying it to himself, and YG got very quiet in response to that. Like I said, Sakamoto saw right through him, not in a mean way, but in a way that sometimes the best conversations are had through music. I do think it is true that he's talking to young people about their dreams, but I think he's trying to talk to himself as a child, because he never had anyone to talk to him like that.
10. Life Goes On: I don't think this song was needed. I think he could have left the album at Snooze and it would have been fine. LGO is fine as a song, but it's not my favorite.
Overall, I don't think YG is talking to anyone but himself for the most part. Maybe a little bit he's talking to other people, like in Snooze, but I think this album is mostly self-centered, in an artistic cathartic way. He produced everything, and there was only one other producer for the whole album, which was El Captixn, and that's it. I get the sense from the documentary that PD was barely involved, if at all. Seems he kept this close to his chest. I wonder if Hive even realize all the stuff he's saying here, and if there'll be some sort of punishment in the future for it.
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