Battle of the B-Sides:: BTS: Jamais Vu

 The turnaround on this one is really fast because it was submitted Wednesday night in The Form and in order to fulfill the request, I had to pivot from the post I had started working on (first gen girl group, the song is the bomb...pun slightly intended) and start on this one. But that was good timing and gave me plenty of time. Four days was enough. The submitter asked me to do this one because of the ticket sales for the tour that started to celebrate those who got tickets and to comfort those who didn't. Which is a lot to ask of a song, a lot of pressure for me, and I hope that I can do this justice. But it's really heartwarming that the Army submitted it for everyone. That's really sweet. Spoilers, it's a very pretty song. It's also a little amusing, because it directly translates to "never seen" from French (the amusing part because some of you have not seen them before), but also to compound on the sweetness, jamais vu is a concept that something familiar is suddenly new (the exact opposite of déjà vu, which literally translates to "seen again" and is the feeling that you've seen something before despite never actually having done so; I'm very familiar with this one because I get it all the time and it's so frustrating), which is also simultaneously deeply appropriate for this, because even if you've seen them before, you haven't seen them perform post-military before. Well done on your choice of song for this. That's a beautiful choice just based on the word play going on with the title alone. 

I was also asked, by a user on Threads who sent me a message, to provide a bit more context on the groups themselves like I did in some of the earlier posts. If you see this one, I'll get to your submission, I promise, but I can certainly do that request now.

So BTS, going by a myriad of nicknames, is a third generation boy group that debuted in 2013 under BigHit Entertainment. They are a seven member group, all in their post-military era, born between the years 1992 and 1997. They are all the original members and none have left the group. Fandom name is Army. They don't have any official fandom colors, which saddens me, but purple is generally considered to be theirs even though it's not official. 

This is also a sub-unit song for Jin, J-Hope, and Jungkook, which is almost evenly spaced with the members in age order. So, for the people involved in the writing of this song, which is the 6th track of their 2019 album Map of the Soul: Persona, we have the pair of producers: ARCΛDES (TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Seventeen, Enhypen, Fifty Fifty, Key, Taemin, SHINee, GOT7, Cravity, Tempest, Sungjae, and BAE173) and Marcus McCoan (a few Western artists). For the lyricists, we've got Matt Thomson (TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Seventeen, Enhypen, Fifty Fifty, GOT7, AleXa, Tempest, Sungjae, and U-Know), Suga, J-Hope, RM, Camilla Anne Stewart (only this one and Mikrokosmos), Max Graham (TOMORROW X TOGETHER, Enhypen, Seventeen, Fifty Fifty, GOT7, ALeXa, Tempest, Cravity, Sungjae, and U-Know). Given the similarities with the lyricists' credits, I'm going to guess that they're a writing team. Also, Hitman Bang is listed even before Suga, J-Hope, and RM on the writers list, and yet I can't find where specifically his contribution is in the rest of the song's credits. Curious.

That album cover really is pretty, isn't it?

Not as pretty as the song itself though.

The balance of this song is so good. All three members are very distinct, between Jin's openness, Jungkook's constant plea, and J-Hope's exhaustion. 

Jungkook has a very particular texture to his voice that roughens it when he sings. It's not quite a rapper rasp, though it wouldn't surprise me if he had one because he does rap, and, considering he's got such a range with it, it turns his vibrato into something that you don't hear all that often. What I particularly like about this song is that even though it does have his voice in some of the higher pitches, we get to hear his vibrato in some of the lower notes as well, and that gives the song a delicious richness.

Moving back up the age list, I'm pretty sure that J-Hope sings a tiny bit, which I love. That's not his main wheelhouse, and yet he's doing it anyway. He's also got two different rap styles going on here, the softer, rolling melodic rap at the beginning that matches the feel so well and the sharpness that collapses partway through like he cannot sustain the anger and pain. With what's going on in the lyrics at that part, it's a perfect pairing. 

Jin, eldest member and eldest brother, opens the song to such a soft, cathedral-like instrumental that I initially thought that he was doing it a cappella. This is one of my favorite genres for him to sing, because it lets him loosen his voice and just breathe with the music to soar and glide alongside it. I don't know what his actual representative emoji is, but vocally, he reminds me of a storm petrel. They're small birds, and to look at them, they're unassuming and unlike the massive sea birds that can cross oceans during migration, the ones that most people pay attention to. But if you put them in their element, those little birds hug storm-tossed waves, able to dip and weave with agility better suited to one of the faster birds of pray without getting caught in the water. He has that same capability, and it shows in songs like these.

One of the coolest parts of this song though starts at 3:05. Jin and Jungkook spend a lot of the song passing the chorus and bridge passing the song back and forth between each other, voices locked together like pieces of a puzzle. But at 3:05, J-Hope joins them, and the energy flow that ends the song finalizes the song in a way that nothing else could have. 

This song has not been performed very often. They did perform this at Bang Bang Con in 2020, during the Covid lockdown years, so it wasn't in front of an audience.

That didn't stop them from performing it like they were in front of people though. This is so impressive. I love how they kind of gently circle each other physically, like what their voices are doing.

I'll also say as a side note that they look quite good in their jeans and the flowy, light blue shirts. Very nice.

I believe the first time that they performed it in front of people was at J-Hope's concert on Festa Day. Jin had been out for a minute, but Jungkook had just been discharged. That's where this fancam is from. Which means that this was the first time that the first time the fans got to hear it live and sing it with them was at this point.

A familiar song that was suddenly new. 

And listen to the fans sing along.

This one is from about four and a half months later, at Jin's encore concert. This was the short version of the song, and includes a ment, but it's still impressive.

This one was good because their casual touches with each other highlight the bond they have. They're reunited, they're bonding again as brothers. A familiar bond that suddenly feels new. Jamais Vu.

And I like that that rhymes too. Both literally and metaphorically.

Personally, I'm hoping that this song is on the set list for their tour, because that would be so incredibly fitting. But if it isn't, that's okay too. So, from your fellow Army who submitted this, here's a gift. The wait is almost before before you can see them perform again as BTS, whether that's in person or through the livestream.

For anyone who isn't an Army, I hope you enjoyed the song.

Thank you for the submission! I loved doing this this! 

If anyone has another suggestion for me, I'd love to hear it! Drop a comment here or elsewhere, leave me a message, toss it into The Form, if you'd like! 

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