#1004 was a pretty sad era

[axtogymnastics]

Getting Over a Crush With B.A.P: B.A.P’s 1004 Music Video Analysis

               In early 2014, B.A.P released a charismatic and visually complex music video, 1004(Angel), so named because the number 1004 and Angel are both pronounced “cheonsa.” 1004 is the title (main, though not titular) track of B.A.P’s first album, “First Sensibility.” Like the album name implies, the song and music video are very emotional. B.A.P portrays the inner journey of a man grieving the loss of his childhood love, played by Sonamoo’s Nahyun, who is like an angel to him. After struggling to cope with this loss, he eventually finds peace and moves on from her, ending the video on a hopeful note. Each of the six members appears separately in scenes that are tied to a set of symbols: Daehyun is connected to a house; Himchan to a projector and the same house; Youngjae to mirrors; Jongup to a camera and a stone wall; Zelo to a merry-go-round, and Yongguk to a graveyard and a church.

Daehyun, the House, and the Sand Timer

               The video is essentially contained in a large house in which Daehyun, portraying a man grieving the loss of his love, explores old artifacts that remind him of his relationship with her. The house is large, warmly lit, and old-fashioned, suggesting lots of good memories contained in it. The living room contains a projector, a model church, a mirror, and other symbols associated with scenes in which isolation, denial, desperation and anger are portrayed. Daehyun’s girlfriend, or angel, is seen observing the house, establishing her greater presence, while a sand timer flows nearby. Time continues in the big picture, but Daehyun is still stuck in the past, unable to move on from her.

Some not-so-subtle advertisement for the Melon app (similar to Spotify) is included as well. 

Yongguk and the Church

               The video opens with Yongguk, stranded in a landscape reminiscent of the elephant graveyard from The Lion King. In contrast to the warm and cozy house, Yongguk’s scenes are cold, lonely, and sad. He runs through the frozen tundra towards a set of large, half-buried bones, his expression pained and lost. He murmurs “I need you,” and at 2:16 appears to dig frantically to unearth something buried in his past. When he finds the model church, which appears in Daehyun’s house as well, he collapses to the ground, clutching it to his chest as if he has found something to relieve his pain. He lies down besides the bones, clearly a symbol of death, after a long struggle digging up a bunch of holes in frozen dirt. He seems resigned to the angel’s death, and is able to find peace through the church that connects him to her memory and religion that gives him purpose.

Youngjae and Mirrors

Youngjae’s scenes illustrate delusion and confusion, as he chases Nahyun through a hall of mirrors (some of which appear to windows...). Youngjae represents denial, lost in reflections of himself while searching for a girl who isn’t actually there. At 2:34, he looks into a mirror showing Nahyun’s reflection, and at 3:20 the song switches to “Save Me.” Both times, Youngjae pictures Nahyun with him, inside him, before she disappears with the lights, leaving Youngjae staring at himself in the dark. Like the images of her in his mind, her reflections in the mirrors tantalize him and makes him feel that she is just within reach, but when he looks closely, they are only reflections of him.

When Youngjae finally breaks the mirror with his hand, it signals that he is ready to stop living with illusions and finally confront reality. Nonetheless, he does so with much pain and anguish because reality (and breaking glass with your bare fist) hurts.

Zelo and the Merry-Go-Round

               In contrast to the sad and dark previous scenes, Zelo’s scenes depict idyllic young love between the man and the angel, a concept is particularly well-suited for the maknae of the group. The two of them are seen on a merry-go-round, representing youth and innocence, along with other objects of childhood such as the teddy bear, the white dress and even his fluffy hairstyle. When Zelo tries to restart the merry-go-round, it explodes, showing that things cannot be the way they were before. Like Youngjae, he longs to meet the angel again and futilely searches for her on the merry-go-round. Also like Youngjae, he never meets her because she isn’t there. Back in the living room, Daehyun breaks the toy merry-go-round before Zelo and Nahyun kiss, cutting himself off from the past instead of living in it.

 Jongup, the Wall, and the Camera

               From the warm and innocent scene of the merry-go-round in the lover’s past, we transition to another scene depicting the grief and isolation of the present. A camera in Daehyun’s relic room leads into Jongup in front of a stone wall, which is a physical representation of his heavy grief. However, the wall is not solid; the deep cracks in it are in the pattern of a pair of wings, which represent his freedom and happiness weighed down by sorrow.

Cameras capture memories with a bright flash, and when Jongup starts to pound on the wall, ultimately breaking it, white light streams through. He reaches through the hole, believing the angel to be on the other side, when in fact there is nothing. The angel is ultimately gone, but the wall representing his despair breaks. As feathers rain down on Jongup and light reemerges, hope and freedom return to him. 

Himchan and the Projector

Himchan’s struggle takes place in the living room, where the vintage filter and color scheme indicate that he is in the past, and not the present like Daehyun.(Actually, Daehyun isn’t _fully _in the present but anyway) Himchan turns on a projector, which shows him scenes of happy times with his childhood love. However, it soon becomes too painful to watch their happiness; this is seen at 2:24 when he cries and bites his lip anxiously.  He pulls out a gun to shoot his old smiley self, but reconsiders and points at his reflection instead, a suicidal grief-stricken man. Even as he gets ready to pull the trigger, he trembles and seems to have a difficult time, perhaps because he is attached to his grief and doesn’t want to let go of it, just as he is attached to the past and to the angel. Himchan lowers the gun, giving the viewer a momentary sense of relief. 

The Song Switch and Moving On

The music video actually contains two songs, “1004” and another track from First Sensibility, “Save Me,” which is played for the first 20 seconds, and also from 3:18 to 4:02. The switch between the songs at the climax of the video highlights the transition from grief to hope as B.A.P moves on from Nahyun, although Youngjae, Daehyun and Himchan appear to have some difficulty doing so. Yongguk, Jongup, and Zelo, on the other hand, are at peace, if not happy.

Yongguk lies resigned and at peace in the elephant graveyard.

Zelo looks a bit sad, but ready to move on. 

Jongup shows acceptance. (And a cool jacket.)

Youngjae ends his delusion by breaking the mirror, but it clearly hurts him to do so. Daehyun finally turns over the sand timer at 3:40, signaling that he is ready to move on from the past. This is hard for him, as seen in his expression at 3:58 as he watches the timer flow, and at 4:10 when he kneels on the floor, crying out the words “I’m really dying.” The angel is also seen crying, which shows that she is still emotionally with B.A.P, even if she is gone.

               Himchan, too, only shoots his reflection with much difficulty.

In the video’s final scene, Himchan stands poised to shoot his reflection in the mirror. He pulls the trigger, there is a flash of red (I’ve enhanced it in the gif) before everything goes black. However, neither the mirror nor the real Himchan are physically hurt. The way I see it, this represents the death of the man’s grief. Red is the color of love and blood, which can represent either life or death, or both as in this case. Part of the man dies with the angel, but he is no longer crippled with grief, and can start a new life.

The contrasting imagery of this video show grief to be a big complicated jumble of emotions. The heavy wall and light feathers show the weight of grief and the fragility of hope; the warm house and cold graveyard contrast the warmth of memories with the coldness of the painful present, the innocence of childhood and disillusion of growing up. While distinct, the scenes are connected to each other in that images from one reappear in another. The cracks in the wall are reminiscent of the cold dirt in the graveyard, mirrors and reflections are in both the glass maze (Youngjae) and projector/gun scenes (Himchan). Himchan and Daehyun are in the same location, and of course, the scenes are all contained within the house. B.A.P shows that while grief may be somber and overwhelming, we can move on and find hope in new beginnings.

 Additional Thoughts

               Aside from the main symbolism, there is much more to this music video than would fit in this analysis. One thing that I haven’t really touched on in this analysis is the dancing. Undoubtedly, my favorite part of 1004 (and most kpop songs) is its choreography. Jongup and Zelo’s dance break at the beginning is absolutely sick, (although the aggressive hip-thrusting is a bit distracting) and the choreography as a whole exudes charisma. Granted, it doesn’t contribute much to the story of the music video, but it expresses the lyrics and gives the impression of a performance, rather than just a music video.

Peace out.

[generouslymagnificentmilkshake]

Do you think BAP also pressures Himchan to lose weight all the time to keep up their image or because they genuinely believe he’s “too fat”, or is the issue solely because TS/certain “fans” don't know when to leave well enough alone? :( 3/3

HELLO I’M SORRY I ONLY JUST NOW SAW YOUR ASK It was never confirmed that Himchan has been through an eating disorder, it’s one of those things that people notice because they’ve been through similar situations. I once saw a post about it and a few things clicked. http://bbanghong.tumblr.com/post/158400171447/just-to-put-this-out-here-himchan-has-had-an Himchan was overweight before becoming an idol, he said himself that he lost a lot of pounds in a small period of time (I CAN’T FIND THE INTERVIEW RIGHT NOW I’M SORRY). But he was underweight during a lot of B.A.P’s comebacks (Badman, 1004 etc). He once received hate for admitting to telling his sister that she should stop saying they’re siblings until she lost weight. Himchan later revealed that his sister wanted to lose weight and that was the only way he could think of in order to motivate her, because nothing else had worked. https://onehallyu.com/topic/69946-after-debuting-himchan-told-his-sister-not-to-tell-people-they’re-related/ A lot of people got mad at him for this (I didn’t like it either tbh) but when I learnt more things about him it kinda made sense. He tried to help her because she wanted to lose weight, but he did it the wrong way, for me at least. But he has said he regrets it, so he knows it was wrong. I might sound biased, but people making mistakes isn’t the actual problem for me. Not realising them and repeating them is. Anyway, the point is that Himchan has been through some shit because of his weight and we probably don’t even know a big part of it. When they came back from the hiatus he looked A LOT healthier. If you check the Young, Wild and Free and Feel So Good performances you’ll see it for yourself. But during Feel So Good era he was “too chubby for an idol”. A lot of people told him to lose weight and he, too, believed he should. He ended up getting a rib-fracture due to excessive weight loss (Rose era, another hiatus for a B.A.P member). What Daehyun said sounds bad, but he does it to himself, too. Unhealthy diets are common in the kpop industry unfortunately, and B.A.P are no exception. When Youngjae was a bit chubbier (Warrior era) people told him to lose weight as well. They talked about it during their Idol Battle Likes interview, too, if I recall correctly. They said that Yongguk himself never asked anyone to lose weight, that it’s okay to be a little chubby, despite being pretty slimy himself (and that’s an understatement). But overall I think that the members either don’t understand how unhealthy what they’re doing is, or that they have individually decided that they’ll do it because they have to, because it’s a requirement of their job, because they want to stay together. Either way it’s sad. Daehyun said during a V live (I think it was Noir era) that he only drank coffee for several days and asked the fans to not follow a similar diet. He’s not the first idol to have done that. We generally are a fandom that is constantly worried about our boys being well-fed and well-rested T_T I dragged this a lot, but I wanted to express the way I see them concerning that matter. I obviously might be wrong about a lot of things. (I might remember some things incorrectly, too, I didn’t look for a source for everything I said.) Relatively to the thing you asked, I completely agree with you that it’s one thing to joke or tease someone, and another to actively encourage bad habits. I don’t think that B.A.P members would hurt each other willingly. I think that they’re trying to support each other whichever way they can. Himchan received a lot of hate because of his weight. Youngjae did, too, during their debut. The way they treat themselves is wrong, but it’s what they believe is the best for them and their group.