Who knew that two new singles by the world’s best K-Pop idol group (according to korea.com), Big Bang, could get yours truly out of a self-imposed hiatus to write an entire post about said two songs? I mean, here I am, lying on my bed with my back aching terribly (from God knows what) and I am still determined to write this down. I missed two movie reviews during my entire self-imposed hiatus even though I was well and dandy. But this? Oh, Siti has got to write about this one.

To give a little background to those who have no clue what this is all about: In a nutshell, Big Bang releases two singles on the first day of each month starting May according to these letters – M, A, D and E – after which in September, they will release a full album with all the songs they have released plus possibly a few new songs. This is to gift the fans who have waited for them for 3 years. It’s a new concept no other K-Pop artistes or idol groups had done before. This month, July 1 at 12 midnight, they released two new singles from D series called “If You” and “Sober”.

The reason why I decided to write a review for these two singles is primarily because it gave me too many feelings and thoughts to be suppressed into tweets and a short Facebook post.

Let me start with “If You”…

This song is super hyped up before its release, being dubbed as the saddest song Big Bang has ever written. I quite agree with this because, unlike other sad songs of theirs which includes “Loser”, this song does not have rapping parts, which means G-Dragon and T.O.P had to sing their parts. It’s certainly a sweet surprise for their fans as these two rarely sing, in particular T.O.P.

If that does not show you how emotional the song is, “If You” is so different from what they have ever written. It’s a ballad with a slight rock edge to it. It’s not a slow R&B-ish, hip hop-ish song, which I’m used to with Big Bang; It’s a slow song reminiscent of One Direction’s “You And I” or Kodaline’s “All I Want” – it slowly builds up.

You hear T.O.P starting the song with his deep baritone voice and it sounds almost flat, like it’s meant to be that way. This song is about breaking up and letting go of someone you are not quite over with, regretting that decision immensely. T.O.P’s is perfect to start with an acoustic guitar in the background – that feeling of numbness, a sense of “What have I done?”. It then continues with Seungri’s, again to complement T.O.P’s raw vocal. G-Dragon comes in, building it up with that slightly rock, edgy voice, which Daesung continues on with in the next verse, portraying complete heartbreak. Taeyang basically soften it a little bit with his sweet, honey voice, similar to “Eyes, Nose, Lips”. It will eventually end with G-Dragon and Taeyang’s vocals, which is a beautiful pairing because G-Dragon’s voice is rough and complementing it with Taeyang’s soft vocals to back it up, it’s both beautiful and heartbreaking.

I love how each member’s different vocals fits each part of the song perfectly to show the different emotions one goes through during a break-up.

“If You”, in conclusion, is different from what we are used to with Big Bang. But it’s not a bad thing.

There is no music video for this single because the agency and Big Bang want the fans to listen to the song and feel that raw emotions in it instead of getting distracted by the visuals, which is a perfectly good reason. But I believe that it’s also due to their busy schedule, which is completely understandable as they are on world tour as well on top of doing promotional activities.

I recommend you purchase the song on iTunes. But if you would like to listen to it first, here’s a Youtube video of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p84KzuffsC8

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Now it’s time for “Sober”…

If “If You” is super heartbreaking, “Sober” is super pissed off. At the world. In general. Honestly, I could relate to this song more so than “If You”. I don’t know what that says about me. Maybe I’m an angry person.

You would think, at first hand, reading the title that it’s a party, summer song, which is what we were thought to believe in the teaser and little blurbs the agency sources gave away. But when you listen to it and read the translated lyrics, it’s actually angst hidden behind uptempo, Capital Cities’ “Safe and Sound”-like beats. Think Paramore’s “Ain’t It Fun”. Like “Ain’t It Fun”, this song is telling someone to piss off, in the classiest, shadiest way you could. My type of song.

Unlike “If You”, they do release a music video for this one. To be honest, before I even read the translated lyrics, I could not fully grasp what’s happening in the video. Watching it, I thought I was high half the time. It’s actually quite surreal. They were all acting cray-cray and weird – there were beds all over, T.OP was rolling on the grass and trying to fight a goat, Daesung was playing the drums, Taeyang was in a glass case (of emotions, I guess). It’s all strange but it fits the song. It’s all in the mind – how all over the place and messed up your brain is when you’re pissed off and all you want to do is just lash out and go crazy. It’s hard to explain but that’s how I interpret the music video.

You may judge it yourself here:

Do I love this Series D singles? You bet I do. Two contrasting songs but two songs that are different from other songs they’ve done.