#seOul cOllectiOn

[prettythingsforyou]

pretty late for this, but i finally came around to making a graphic for seoul collection :)

[skinzchoerim]

seOul cOllectiOn

[andrhomeda]

Yoojung the explorer

[sapphonoticeme]

i know they've done it countless times by now but my heart still flutters whenever onlyoneof explicitly states that yes this IS gay, you're not going crazy, this IS about you

[pdwoozi]

OnlyOneOf 1st Concert [seOul cOllectiOn]

[bubblyejun]

THIS GROUP WILL BE THE DEATH OF ME

[sehnisweet]

Love 🫶 seOul cOllectiOn

[itsartnotcontent]

A collection of photos from a random Sunday~

[yixinghoneybee]

Top 250 Songs of 2023: 80. candy bOmb - OnlyOneOf 🍬

[skinzchoerim]

seOul drift (teaser)

[shadowetienne]

OnlyOneOf seOul cOllectiOn Album Thoughts

Reading through the "seOul drift" MV description, I was struck by the part that was talking about the album as a whole (bolding mine, I've left out the part specifically talking about "seOul drift"):

Seoul is the city of brilliant lights. Underneath those lights, there are also young people who’ve been hurt by others and who are wandering along the dotted line of lostness. The new album of OnlyOneOf, who has come back as a group after a year, is named “seOul cOllectiOn” for a reason.

The 6 members have sung the dreams and hopes of young minorities by presenting “undergrOund idOl,” the diary of the youths, one after another last year. The reason stories are woven together with the voices of all 6 members this time is that the album captures the stories of Seoul’s loneliness and solitude, and those who are hurt in this city.

...

Seoul is now one of the most prominent cities in the world. K-pop has also become a genre that not only Koreans listen to. Everything in this city has become more glamorous and bustling, but that doesn’t mean everyone is happy.

OnlyOneOf always sings about loneliness and pain or the stories of those whose love isn’t blessed. We often simply brush them off as something minor, but they are stories that someone should caress and embrace.

OnlyOneOf hopes that there will be unknown gods’ blessings in these difficult steps being taken, and that there will be blessings from our fans whom we appreciate and whose names you may not know.

This made me really interested to look at the lyrical elements of the album as a whole and what it is saying about loneliness and those stories of the people whose love could not be blessed (that's such a emotionally powerful way of phrasing what they're talking about).

Under the cut, I'm going to talk about each song (these are more impressions and stream of conscious about each song rather than in depth lyrics analysis).

chrOme hearts

This song is interesting to me because I feel like it can be read several different ways. Is it an unhealthy obsession and returning to a bad relationship even though it's painful because it's the only connection that you have? Is it about sex and fear of connecting put putting yourself on the line in other ways even though the heart is chrome and reflective and hard to connect to/cold? Is it about the fear and pain around the kind of love and sexuality that someone has that has been instilled socially that makes it hard to break free and actually form a safe feeling relationship?

My big take away from these lyrics, every possible connection that the narrator is experiencing brings some sort of heartbreak and relationships are hard and potentially isolating and lonely for our "lovers who could not be blessed."

This is definitely connecting to me to that idea of the having come to a big city because it seems safer/better/more likely to have people like you, but then struggling to connect and finding heartbreak and loneliness because connecting is hard, and a lot of queer people who do this bring a lot of the ways that they were hurting (especially from their family) with them in their head. Possibly the idea of the kind of love that they are experiencing should hurt or make them feel guilty on some level.

seOul drift

A lot of the song deals with the idea of following your own path and finding freedom. It's a lonely sort of feeling, but at least you're free. There's also the feelings of missed connections, getting a little closer but not quite there, especially because everything in the city is going so fast.

mirage

This song is so poignant and really seems to be looking back on something that was almost a relationship to me, something where there was the possibility for the connection, but neither half was able to bring themselves to break past the mirage, the illusory barrier that they had created between them and society, what I often call the veil of plausible deniability. There's a lot of regret in these lyrics, a lot of wishing that they could reach each other past that distance, but there's a feeling that maybe they need to let go, to move past this because it's hurting them and they can't get past that illusion and either find something real behind it or find that it wouldn't have worked after all. The maybe is perhaps even harder.

candy bOmb

... I have a really hard time reading this as about anything other than hook ups and wanting something more in terms of an emotional connection but instead just having those fleeting moments that are very much full of sweet pleasure and enjoyment, but also are in a ways destructive to them because they aren't getting the connection that is so clearly wanted. That person could change them, if they'd just have more than something physical between them, if they'd actually go over and connect when it wasn't for a hook up. Again with the isolation/connection theme and fear of real connection.

blueblueseOul

The longing and regret and missing connection in this song and its lyrics are just so very very compelling. The feeling of wanting to find someone again, wanting to have that connection again. The connections to scent and memory as this driving element. It almost gives me the image of someone who let the other person go, that person left for the city and its hope/promise first, before the speaker was ready to try or able to leave. And now the speaker has followed them, but that connection is severed, and they don't know how to find them in this isolation of the city or whether the other person would even want them there again, but there's the desperate longing for that sort of connection that they once had.

nabi

This song feels like it's about the moment of a maybe connection, of something with potential to bloom. Maybe where the person being described is more out, more open, more possessing of the freedom and ability to show themselves that the speaker is still afraid to reach for. But there's been a moment of connection, the beginning of something blooming between the two, but it feels like it could only be a dream to the speaker because it seems too good to be true. Is it though? Who knows, it's the start of it! There's something scared but also hopeful about this. I like ending on a note that feels hopeful that something could bloom, that something could grow, that the speaker(s) could have a connection!

I am ignoring the English version of dOra maar because (a) why and (b) it feels to an extent like it was tacked on here (because they needed to release it eventually? because they are about to go on their Americas tour and they thought an English song would be a good idea? I don't know, but I don't think that it adds to the narrative of the album).

OK, but I really want the sequel album to this one to be called seOul cOnnectiOn because that would give me even more feelings.

Parting thoughts on the album just for those who might be curious. My ranking of the songs goes:

mirage >= nabi >= blueblueseOul >> chrOme hearts > seOul drift >= candy bOmb (I like all the songs up to this point to varying degrees, they at least have elements that appeal to me)

(>>>>>>>> dOra maar (English version) - the English lyrics destroy the song for me sadly because original dOra maar is so so so good, so we're just sitting here pretending like this isn't here, ok)

[sapphonoticeme]

here's this punched-in-the-head feeling again

[prettythingsforyou]

OnlyOneOf seOul cOllectiOn Game Concept

[ziankali]

i like the aesthetic of the seoul drift mv but the lightning is hell to draw