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2 cool 4 skool album analysis: Intro

Well, friends, I have returned, much changed and yet not at all changed. Sliding in under the wire of January, this is me making good on my promise to post a track-by-track analysis of 2 Cool 4 Skool by BTS. If I can stay on top of it, I plan to do this monthly until 2025, according to this schedule.

Some things about what to expect: I'm a classically trained singer and instrumentalist with two music degrees, neither of which has anything to do with pop music or music production. What you get are my highly trained listening ears and my very subjective thoughts and feelings about this music. I'm going at this from a baseline of deep love and respect for BTS, so if I seem to be critical or poke fun at them, please bear in mind that it comes from a place of affection.

So we're getting started with the very beginning of BTS: 2 Cool 4 Skool. Which, believe it or not, is technically considered a single album. If you only look at the three song tracks, that seems plausible, but it's also got an instrumental introduction and interlude, plus two skits (“Skit: Circle Room Talk” and “Outro: Circle Room Cypher”), not to mention the two hidden tracks on the physical (“Skit: On the Start Line” and “Path”). For a single album, it's packed. It goes along with the early Bangtan theme of doing the most. Like, this was your debut? Are we kidding?

I was fascinated and honestly a little baffled by the structure of this album when I first encountered it, and I've since come to understand that the non-song tracks, particularly the skits, are actually a hip-hop album thing. As much as we can look at early BTS and see the limitations in their understanding of what hip hop actually was (and was not), they were, at least, doing their best to emulate and respect what they saw as the characteristics of the genre.

The first track is simply called “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool”, produced by Supreme Boi. It opens with a sample from a disco instructional record, which is delightful enough on its own, but Wikipedia tells me that it's actually a callback to the 2003 Epik High track “Go” from an album called, believe it or not, Map of the Human Soul. Epik High is definitely on my list of groups to learn more about, not only because their influence was so formative to BTS, but also because Tablo just seems like a really cool guy.

I don't have an awful lot more to say about “Intro: 2 Cool 4 Skool” as a track. The whole vibe is immaculate - the record scratches, the heavy reverb on the drums, the gunshots and the slowdown at the end, you listen to this minute-long snippet and you know exactly what you’re getting into. It starts off the album as unmistakably a hip-hop record in both function and vibe, featuring (in Korean) the lyric, “We tell our story in a carefree way on behalf of those in their 10s and 20s”. It makes a really good, encapsulated statement about what to expect from this single album and from this group.

From here on out, each track will be getting its own post, however short - I don’t anticipate having a massive essay on Circle Room Talk, for instance, but I will be splitting them up for organization’s sake. Translations will always come from Doolset Lyrics unless otherwise noted. 

Look forward to the rest of the album posts coming soon.

Ready

Set

and

Begin.

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in this house we stan dionysus!

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My Prose

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You’ve just aided an old woman knitting by the side of the road, and she reveals herself as a goddess in disguise!  Having passed her test and earned your place as the goddess’s chosen hero, she brings you back to her dwelling to choose a magical weapon or item, only to discover that a thief has completely cleaned out her stash!

The only magical gift she has left is the pair of knitting needles she was using in her “old lady” disguise.

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the Umbrella Academy as The Onion headlines

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+Bonus:

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I found a company called “Frantic Meerkat” who makes journals whose sole purpose is to call me out

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HELLO I AM BACK what did I miss?

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people always talk about how batman’s tragic backstory is weak because we know nothing about his parents or his relationship with them,but like, none of that really matters. it’s not about what he lost or what he had, it’s about the EVENT. 

it’s about the sudden change, it’s about fate, it’s about trauma. it’s not even about losing people he cares about really, it’s the fact that his life went from sheltered, from comfortable, from being emotionally stable, to everything it is now, in an instant, all because some guy with a gun turned the wrong corner.

and the thing is, the severity of what happened doesn’t matter either. plenty of people are orphans, plenty of people have lost someone they loved, but i think in batman’s case, what turned him INTO batman was not having the tools he needed to deal with it all. he came from a sheltered life, he’d probably never seen blood before, he’d probably never walked down a dark alley at night before, never seen a gun first hand before, never had to think about his life being any different than it was. 

and then all of that changed in a split second and it broke him. and i think he beats himself up over how hard he took it, i think he’s mad at himself for being so distraught when so many people he knows have lost so much more than he had that night, and seem to be doing so much better than he is…  and i think he’s mad that because of how he’s coping he’s continuing to lose people he loves..

all and all, i think his story is a great example of how everyone handles trauma, no matter how severe, differently.some people need more help, some people need more time,and for some people, it never goes away and it never fades, even if there are plenty of people around them who just want them to be OK.

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YELLOWSTONE-“…the mist surrounding the bison was because they had just crossed a river. Their body heat in the cold air caused the water to turn to vapor.”

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Logan by Gabriele Dell’Otto

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“Welcome,” she said. “Welcome, and thank you for agreeing to be a volunteer with Multnomah County Libraries. We are so grateful for you and your commitment to our community. For the next hour, we’re going to go over some important information that you need to know as a volunteer, no matter what role you play.” I expected that we were going to learn about things like policies for canceling our shifts, or maybe where to find first aid kits. We probably did talk about those things. But the part that I remember most vividly is the first thing she talked about. “We’re going to start with the Library Bill of Rights from the American Library Association,” she said, and she projected the text of the document onto the screen. “Everyone who works for libraries, including volunteers, helps to support and uphold the Library Bill of Rights.” This was new to me. I’d been a regular patron at my local public library for years, graduating from Dr. Seuss to The Babysitters Club series to, most recently, my fixation on books about neo-paganism and queer sex. No one had mentioned this whole Bill of Rights thing. It was a short document with just a few bullet points. “Libraries support free access to information,” Bess explained. “One of our core values is intellectual freedom. This impacts all of you because when you’re volunteering for the library, we expect you to support the rights of library users to find and read whatever they want, even if you don’t agree with what they’re looking for.” She continued, “For example, let’s say that a small child came up to you and asked where to find the Stephen King books. You might think those books are too scary for someone that age, or that he shouldn’t be reading that kind of stuff. But that doesn’t matter. No matter what, we help people find the information they want, and we don’t censor their interests. Does that make sense?” Heads around the room nodded, and I leaned back into the wall, letting her words sink in. It was absolutely, positively the most radical, punk rock thing I had ever heard in my life. I can read whatever I want. No one can stop me. I can help other people read what they want. And no one can stop them. “This is core,” Bess added, “to a functioning democracy. We believe that fighting censorship and providing free, unrestricted access is key to helping citizens participate in the world. And, most importantly, we keep everyone’s information strictly confidential. So, even if you know what books your neighbor is checking out or what they’re looking at on the computer, you don’t share that with anyone.” As someone who kept carefully guarded notebooks full of very personal thoughts, I was especially excited by the library’s emphasis on privacy. All of this sounded great. I wanted more. I wanted in. I wanted to be a crazy, wild, counterculture librarian-witch who would help anyone read anything from The Anarchist’s Cookbook to Mein Kampf. I would be a bold freedom fighter in the face of censorship. I would defend unfiltered Internet access and anatomically correct picture books. Maybe I was only in the eighth grade, but I was ready to stand up to anyone who tried to threaten the ideal of intellectual freedom. Fuck blink-182. Libraries were the real punk rock.

LIBRARIES ARE THE REAL PUNK ROCK by Zoe Fisher

(via

libraryadvocates

)

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Folks, we appreciate your patience; Sporadic Output will be onstage shortly.

what’s up this is my band Comma Overload

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this is my fright song

turn on the light song

say it’s all right so~ong

please stay with me, mom

my paranoia’s still strong

leave my night light on

‘cause I don’t really care if nobody else beli~eves

that I’ve still got

a lot of fright left in me

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Eartha Kitt photographed by Carl Van Vechten, c. 1954

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Oddly Satisfying