Kpop Retrospective Journal: Day6 in 2015
Mar. 14th, 2024 12:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lachrymosyPlease be aware—there are a bunch of videos embedded in this post behind the cut!
I have a lot of Day6 feelings right now.
If I were still on Twitter, and I felt like trolling some people, I think I’d show up to the fan wars as an OT6 stan. Just because I think it would be funny. But hey, if you come back with an album titled “FOUREVER,” I just think someone should point out that the number six is in your name!
I guess I’m sad about them, or the sadness captures my attention when I see the album teasers, and I end up going back to watch old clips. I've shared my journey as a Kpop fan many times; I started off as a Wonder Girls fan and then became a Day6 fan. It’s only with these groups that I start to understand why Kpop fans are so extra about their faves, because I was invested in their narratives as if it were my own.
Maybe I should write a post celebrating Day6, but every time I look at them my brain goes YEPPEOSEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and I end up down a rabbit trail. I’m realizing too that the group has already rewritten their own narrative more than once over the years—when, exactly, did Brian Kang become such a prude?—and JYPE has changed their minds about them too. They didn’t totally start out as an idol band, or at least, they started out with all the framework of an idol band but they got to cuss a little (to quote Miranda Cosgrove). Once they cut Junhyeok, they got streamlined into the standard JYPE idol-making methods, which—worked. I kind of understand, though, why the very American Jae, with his untreated ADHD and deep need for authenticity, became his worst self in this system. But Day6 without Jae isn’t the same Day6, just as eaJ without Day6 isn’t the same Jae, so I’m just—processing, I guess. Because I’m pretty sure I won’t like their new music.
But I loved and I love Day6! Picture this: it’s 2015 and I am a big JYP Nation stan. The Wonder Girls and Miss A are still around, 2PM is making comebacks, Got7 is approaching their peak, Sixteen is airing. 2015, in retrospect, was just a great year for Kpop (I started writing and may still finish a post about SM’s 2015 trifecta of EXO’s “Love Me Right,” SHINee’s “View,” and f(x)’s “Four Walls.”) Let me say it again, it was a GREAT year for Kpop.
So there’s a younger Ellie on Twitter and what pops up in her feed but a post about the yet-to-debut JYPE band?? She clicks on the video and it’s this:
They were electric! Even watching it now it’s crazy to me how Sungjin, Brian, and Jae’s stage presence was already so good.
(As an aside, the norm in the early era of fandom was to refer to Young K as Brian partly because, if you listen to anyone who trained with him including Day6 themselves, he was Brian literally up to debut. Also Young K is a terrible stage name; the rhythm of it is off.)
Remember what I said about Brian Kang becoming a prude? I will never let anyone forget that they were out here covering a Nicki Minaj song for some reason:
Just the fact that they covered this song reflects that struggle from the beginning: are they Kpop idols? Or are they a self-made band? What kind of narrative are they going to perform? I think this conflict was central to Jae’s whole breakdown many years later.
So anyway, I saw those videos and I was a fan. I don’t remember any interlude or waiting for the debut single or anything. I loved them immediately.
A week or so later they played a gig outside and those fancams still embody for me the height of summer, the promise of something bigger, endless potential:
I always loved Jae, Brian, and Sungjin the best and Jae most of all. The thing about Jae is that—eventually to his detriment—he was always real. He was bad at playing the Kpop game in part because he rejected its premise: he would not shut up. To be a celebrity, you really do need to keep your mouth shut sometimes. There’s a very thin line between being authentic and being imprudent.
But Jae, while arguably having the worst vocal technique, always managed to find and communicate the emotional core of a song in a way that elevated everything they put out. One example of this that I think is so clear is from one of their Japanese releases:
It’s a good song until you get to Jae on the bridge and suddenly it’s a great song because of how he sings it. He was the heart and soul of Day6 for a long, long time.
Back to 2015—“Congratulations” comes out and it’s excellent. Memorable, and a bit funny. A perfect debut song. Jae’s in his glasses era and you cannot tell me that having him there in his glasses didn’t make the whole band more visually memorable. My favorite song from their debut showcase was “You,” which never got released:
The way Brian smiles during his rap still makes me feel all gushy, not gonna lie. But there’s so much here, like Jae and Junhyeok jamming and also making fun of Brian’s hand gestures. Baby Dowoon, recently recruited and now a pop star! This video makes me so happy.
Shortly after debut they started busking. When you watch these videos it’s hard to make the argument that they weren’t regular ol’ Kpop idols from the outset, but at the same time, there’s something unpolished about them (and the VLives that accompanied these expeditions) that felt really authentic:
But yeah, they were Kpop idols:
Really I suspect the company wanted it both ways, for Day6 to simultaneously be Kpop idols and a regular rock band, operating on both levels without contradictions, a Kpop revenue stream combined with mainstream acclaim. But a rock band cannot really be managed and marketed in the same way as an idol group, and others have tried with varying levels of success and perhaps more visionary management than JYP Entertainment. So that contradiction always sat at the heart of Day6.
A lot of people don’t seem to know what happened with Junhyeok, but based on what was known at the time and what I remember, I don’t think it was just about him dating. As I remember it, he was dating a (Wonpil) fan to whom he leaked information about Day6 schedules and whereabouts. He also posted a handful of things on Instagram that really pissed off Korean fans, such as a cartoon which complained about making music just for money. He was kind of indiscreet too—I have saved somewhere a VLive where he describes his ideal type down to her hypothetical measurements while Brian looks on in barely-concealed horror. The fan outcry was huge after everything Junhyeok did, so he left, their individual Instagrams were shut down, and Day6 became absolutely an idol band. But that takes us into 2016, so maybe I’ll write about that later.
I just keep thinking about the way they were in the summer of 2015, so visibly happy to debut, in love with the music, enthralled with the stage, the future stretching in front of them, limitless. I think this is the Day6 I love the most and the Day6 that I’m saddest to lose. Some things get better with time and maturity, but other things make me want to reach into the past and hold onto that summer and all they represented—an unknown future, pursued with a relentless hope.
I miss them the way they were. I’m reconciling myself to what they are, reconciling myself to my own adulthood and its challenges and disappointments, reconciling myself to the inevitability of change. It just takes a while, I guess, to adjust the dream to the reality.
(Not to be dramatic or anything.)
Anyway, here's my favorite song from their first album!
I have a lot of Day6 feelings right now.
If I were still on Twitter, and I felt like trolling some people, I think I’d show up to the fan wars as an OT6 stan. Just because I think it would be funny. But hey, if you come back with an album titled “FOUREVER,” I just think someone should point out that the number six is in your name!
I guess I’m sad about them, or the sadness captures my attention when I see the album teasers, and I end up going back to watch old clips. I've shared my journey as a Kpop fan many times; I started off as a Wonder Girls fan and then became a Day6 fan. It’s only with these groups that I start to understand why Kpop fans are so extra about their faves, because I was invested in their narratives as if it were my own.
Maybe I should write a post celebrating Day6, but every time I look at them my brain goes YEPPEOSEOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and I end up down a rabbit trail. I’m realizing too that the group has already rewritten their own narrative more than once over the years—when, exactly, did Brian Kang become such a prude?—and JYPE has changed their minds about them too. They didn’t totally start out as an idol band, or at least, they started out with all the framework of an idol band but they got to cuss a little (to quote Miranda Cosgrove). Once they cut Junhyeok, they got streamlined into the standard JYPE idol-making methods, which—worked. I kind of understand, though, why the very American Jae, with his untreated ADHD and deep need for authenticity, became his worst self in this system. But Day6 without Jae isn’t the same Day6, just as eaJ without Day6 isn’t the same Jae, so I’m just—processing, I guess. Because I’m pretty sure I won’t like their new music.
But I loved and I love Day6! Picture this: it’s 2015 and I am a big JYP Nation stan. The Wonder Girls and Miss A are still around, 2PM is making comebacks, Got7 is approaching their peak, Sixteen is airing. 2015, in retrospect, was just a great year for Kpop (I started writing and may still finish a post about SM’s 2015 trifecta of EXO’s “Love Me Right,” SHINee’s “View,” and f(x)’s “Four Walls.”) Let me say it again, it was a GREAT year for Kpop.
So there’s a younger Ellie on Twitter and what pops up in her feed but a post about the yet-to-debut JYPE band?? She clicks on the video and it’s this:
They were electric! Even watching it now it’s crazy to me how Sungjin, Brian, and Jae’s stage presence was already so good.
(As an aside, the norm in the early era of fandom was to refer to Young K as Brian partly because, if you listen to anyone who trained with him including Day6 themselves, he was Brian literally up to debut. Also Young K is a terrible stage name; the rhythm of it is off.)
Remember what I said about Brian Kang becoming a prude? I will never let anyone forget that they were out here covering a Nicki Minaj song for some reason:
Just the fact that they covered this song reflects that struggle from the beginning: are they Kpop idols? Or are they a self-made band? What kind of narrative are they going to perform? I think this conflict was central to Jae’s whole breakdown many years later.
So anyway, I saw those videos and I was a fan. I don’t remember any interlude or waiting for the debut single or anything. I loved them immediately.
A week or so later they played a gig outside and those fancams still embody for me the height of summer, the promise of something bigger, endless potential:
I always loved Jae, Brian, and Sungjin the best and Jae most of all. The thing about Jae is that—eventually to his detriment—he was always real. He was bad at playing the Kpop game in part because he rejected its premise: he would not shut up. To be a celebrity, you really do need to keep your mouth shut sometimes. There’s a very thin line between being authentic and being imprudent.
But Jae, while arguably having the worst vocal technique, always managed to find and communicate the emotional core of a song in a way that elevated everything they put out. One example of this that I think is so clear is from one of their Japanese releases:
It’s a good song until you get to Jae on the bridge and suddenly it’s a great song because of how he sings it. He was the heart and soul of Day6 for a long, long time.
Back to 2015—“Congratulations” comes out and it’s excellent. Memorable, and a bit funny. A perfect debut song. Jae’s in his glasses era and you cannot tell me that having him there in his glasses didn’t make the whole band more visually memorable. My favorite song from their debut showcase was “You,” which never got released:
The way Brian smiles during his rap still makes me feel all gushy, not gonna lie. But there’s so much here, like Jae and Junhyeok jamming and also making fun of Brian’s hand gestures. Baby Dowoon, recently recruited and now a pop star! This video makes me so happy.
Shortly after debut they started busking. When you watch these videos it’s hard to make the argument that they weren’t regular ol’ Kpop idols from the outset, but at the same time, there’s something unpolished about them (and the VLives that accompanied these expeditions) that felt really authentic:
But yeah, they were Kpop idols:
Really I suspect the company wanted it both ways, for Day6 to simultaneously be Kpop idols and a regular rock band, operating on both levels without contradictions, a Kpop revenue stream combined with mainstream acclaim. But a rock band cannot really be managed and marketed in the same way as an idol group, and others have tried with varying levels of success and perhaps more visionary management than JYP Entertainment. So that contradiction always sat at the heart of Day6.
A lot of people don’t seem to know what happened with Junhyeok, but based on what was known at the time and what I remember, I don’t think it was just about him dating. As I remember it, he was dating a (Wonpil) fan to whom he leaked information about Day6 schedules and whereabouts. He also posted a handful of things on Instagram that really pissed off Korean fans, such as a cartoon which complained about making music just for money. He was kind of indiscreet too—I have saved somewhere a VLive where he describes his ideal type down to her hypothetical measurements while Brian looks on in barely-concealed horror. The fan outcry was huge after everything Junhyeok did, so he left, their individual Instagrams were shut down, and Day6 became absolutely an idol band. But that takes us into 2016, so maybe I’ll write about that later.
I just keep thinking about the way they were in the summer of 2015, so visibly happy to debut, in love with the music, enthralled with the stage, the future stretching in front of them, limitless. I think this is the Day6 I love the most and the Day6 that I’m saddest to lose. Some things get better with time and maturity, but other things make me want to reach into the past and hold onto that summer and all they represented—an unknown future, pursued with a relentless hope.
I miss them the way they were. I’m reconciling myself to what they are, reconciling myself to my own adulthood and its challenges and disappointments, reconciling myself to the inevitability of change. It just takes a while, I guess, to adjust the dream to the reality.
(Not to be dramatic or anything.)
Anyway, here's my favorite song from their first album!
no subject
Date: 2024-03-14 08:05 pm (UTC)The Japanese song you embedded above is so interesting to me cos I've never heard it before but I can absolutely tell what you mean about Jae not having the best vocal technique but being able to convey the emotions of a song. That's sort of how I felt about Harry Styles in 1D as well - in many ways his voice was quite forced and he wasn't the best singer by a mile, but without him their music simply wouldn't have been the same.
Also I love Out of My Mind, you introduced it to me and to this day it's my fave Day6 song. Thank you for sharing your love!
no subject
Date: 2024-03-16 02:02 am (UTC)I'm so glad you like Out of My Mind! It's such a good and catchy song... Sigh Day6 I will always love you...
Thank you for reading this!!
no subject
Date: 2024-03-15 08:48 am (UTC)i wonder what you thought of even of day? i never got into it besides right through me growing on me and part of that was that day6 just never felt the same without all 4 voices. that's what made them such a power group at the beginning 🥲 similar to how i feel about youngk's solo work... it can be quite good because their music writing team is top notch but in most cases it feels like something is missing vocally.
no subject
Date: 2024-03-16 01:59 am (UTC)I never connected with Even of Day's music. Their style is super boring to me and I think Young K's solo songs always sounded like Day6 reject songs. I think it was "Guard You" that I thought, wow you can actually hear which member would sing each part of this song?? I got a lot of mileage from this in my Day6 fics though haha.
That said I'm glad that other people like the style of EoD but I just... don't. Also I Listened to the Fourever (I still can't believe that title) album teaser today and it did sound very much in the vein of EoD and my least favorite Day6 albums, so I'm sure some people will enjoy it, but for me I'm just like welp... at least Sungjin looks hot lololol