Battle of the B-Sides:: Gain (Brown Eyed Girls): Paradise Lost

 I had to dig to figure out if this was the title track or if it was simply a promoted single. If I am wrong, do tell me and I'll be happy to make those adjustments and changes, but as far as I can tell, this one was not the title track and thus belongs here. I've got some EXID recommendations to do (another one got added to the batch I got from Reddit, so I'm back up to three of them), but I'm trying to spread those out a bit more than what it would be, because if I did those to get them out of my submissions in a row, it  would be six of those posts in the space of a year-and-a-half, which doesn't seem like a lot, but that would be almost ten percent of these. The other submission I currently have (other than the one I've already got locked in for a posting date) is for a boy group and we're going to be pretty heavy on those at the end of this month. So I thought I'd go for someone that is not a boy group and is not in a boy group. This one has been bouncing around in my brain for a while waiting for a good spot to be talked about, and I think I've finally found the spot for it. 

So, Gain is a member of the second gen group, Brown Eyed Girls, which debuted in 2006. She debuted as a soloist four years later in 2010 and has been part of a number of very popular collaborations since then. She was inactive in the entertainment industry between 2019 and 2025, returning for a duet with Jo Kwon of 2AM (and not me just realizing that I should probably cover that because I didn't realize it was such a big deal).

Paradise Lost is the third track from Gain's third album, Hawwah (which is apparently Eve's Korean name and something I have learned because of this song), released in 2015. The eleventh anniversary of this album is actually this month, which I didn't realize until I started typing up this section, which then makes this kind of appropriate to be doing now. It was written by Kim Eana (IVE, IU, Taeyeon, Eric Nam, Jewelry, Brown Eyed Girls, EXO, Zion T, MAMAMOO, VIXX, Billlie, BOYNEXTDOOR, Oh My Girl (interestingly, Abracadabra, VOODOO DOLL, and Back It Up show up in her credits, so I find it curious that I'm apparently circling her as a lyricist with these)) as the lyricist and Lim Min Soo (Country Kko Kko, IU, Son Dambi, Sunny Hill, History, and Billlie).

 Yo. This is dope.

First of all, thank you to YouTube channel XanXhi5. Their upload of the music video is the first one that comes up in the search because YouTube is pulling shenanigans for some baffling reason, but they include the link to the original music video on 1theK in the description. So while that is the 1theK version up above right there, I wanted to give a specific shout-out to that channel for this. 

There was also something itching at me about the album release date combined with the blatant references, so I decided to open up my Bible and take a look at Genesis 3:12, and with that context, the fiction writer in me is bouncing off the walls in excited for all of the symbolism here. For those of you who are not Christian (or Jewish maybe? I know that the first five books of the Old Testament are the Torah, but I don't remember from my world religion class how similarly structured they are) or are otherwise unfamiliar with this, that part of Genesis talks about Adam (the first man) and Eve (the first woman). Genesis 3:12 specifically refers to Adam trying to shift blame off of himself to Eve for eating the fruit he was specifically told not to eat. I'm not going to go into analysis mode of that because I've already done that for my Old Testament class I took, but there's the context. 

So we have an album named after Eve, released on a day that translated into bible verse is talking about Eve getting blamed for eating the fruit, a title track called "Apple", and this song called "Paradise Lost", which is obviously a reference to the John Milton epic poem that I may or may not have had to read and write papers on for my degree that frames Lucifer as the hero with one of the themes being the conflict between obedience and free will. 

I'm practically vibrating with how richly seasoned this song already is, and that's not bringing any of the actual music into play yet.

So this is a really cool thing that I haven't seen music videos do before, I don't think. At the beginning, it lists the songs in the album, with the title, single, and album name in red, while the other b-sides are in green. What are two of the more famous apple colors? Red and green. Then we get more neon with the song title on a building in green and more neon underneath it in red. The second neon bit looked similar to Hebrew, so I used a lens based translation service and I think that might actually be in Hebrew, and I think it might also be "Paradise Lost". 

I'm also not entirely sure why but for some reason, as soon as I saw the "Paradise Lost" in neon with the style of the building, I immediately thought of hookers. I don't know what the association for me is there, it's fine, because it also reminds me of Bioshock, which is another story heavily focused on the concept of free will and contains the vendor, of sorts, called "Eve's Garden". And the handheld camera does evoke a sense of horror, especially since it then cuts to the pipes, a steady cam, and an organ, because what instrument evokes The Church more than the organ, and it's a self-playing organ and that again brings up the idea of free will. 

This entire music video is a statement on the power of female sexuality. The story of Eve is the vehicle through which that statement is made, but at its base core, this is about female sexuality. I'd also argue that this song has more in common with Hot Pink by EXID than Abracadabra, because both of them weaponize the male gaze to make a point. Hot Pink uses the music video to seemingly diminish the women before revealing that, no, they were active agents this entire time. Paradise Lost uses some very specific male gaze shots and moments in the music video (specifically the scene with the water dripping into her mouth), but then you've got the lines while it's just her doing some very sensual floor dancing "They're talking about a fantasy/They're making up another fantasy/They're talking about a fantasy/They're making up a story/So that they can control you and me". If you're focused on her dancing, you might miss the whispering. 

This is what I love about this little side project of mine. Not only do I get to focus on and celebrate some really awesome songs, but I can put the songs in conversation with each other.

Also, the only time in this music video that you actually see men is at the end. It's black and white. She's clothed in jewels that glitter in the light. And the men are in shadow and naked. 

Stages time! As I would have expected, KBS had her modify the choreography and the camerawork hid some of the remaining sensual moves, but that is a skin tight bodysuit with, interestingly, some details to the fabric that mimic snakeskin a little. It's like they told her to tone it down and so she upped the ante in that direction.

It's actually kind of an iconic move. Go Gain.

Again, we have modified choreography, but I also love how loud the fans are for this stage. The only thing I like about the modified choreography is that it helps decrease the number of bruises her poor knees are going to have. 

There's another thing I want to point out about this performance. Starting at 1:04, I love that her hair isn't perfect. Her part is changing, there's a slightly unkempt look to her hair, and she's flipping it all over. It gives this performance a very specific unpolished and real vibe, where even though she's ostensibly the object of desire, she's actively sabotaging the "perfection" angle of beauty. 

Okay, so this was a "fancam" from MCountdown (Thank you, EXID!) for the rehearsal. I think I actually prefer this to the regular stages because the camerawork is less bad than a lot of the others. There are a couple of modesty zooms, but on the whole, it's less egregious. I am a little disappointed that it zoomed in that much when they do the cascading splits ripple because that part looks cool. 

The fanchant is also very loud here.

There's also a choreography mistake at 1:46. She misses grabbing the dancer's leg the first time. I love that. 

Also, while this is a little odd for a stage costume, it's not for a modern dance costume, and I love how much it's designed to look like snake skin. 

Okay. This is actually a legendary cover, and I don't say that very often, especially from a trainee survival show. I have in fact seen MIXNINE because this show had some future legends in here, including half of the ATEEZ members and Ryujin of ITZY. And now that I think about it, this may have been my first encounter with this song. 

This particular stage included Kim Hyunjong of Romeo, Mingming (from Seventeen Project), Jo Yonggeun of D1CE, Lee Chandong of Vromance, Kim Byeongkwan of A.C.E, Oh Heejun of KNK, Jeong Inseong of KNK, Lee Seungjun of ONF, Woo Jinyoung of D1CE, and Kim Youngjo (AKA Ravn) of ONEUS.

Every single member for this stage had already debuted or would debut in a group. 

We love King BK in this blog and he's the one who opens that first chorus like a champion. Now, would you kindly take a look at 0:47 and just enjoy that intensity?

Having a boy group covering this definitely gives the song a different flavor, especially since the choreography has been drastically changed. But, hilariously, it's closer to the original choreography in spots than what she got to promote with a lot of the time, and there are some other very serpentine movements.

There isn't a dance practice for this song, which would have been super cool to see, but it's fine. There are, however, a large number of covers from dance studios and dance teams. My personal favorite is the one by Yeji Kim. There are some incredible details added to it, and the end of the video isolates part of it, if you wanted to learn that.

Well, there we have it. This is a stunning song that has been reinterpreted and rearranged even when performed by Gain, but the true power of this song is in the symbolism. 

If you'd like me to cover a song, feel free to drop a comment or you can always leave the submission in The Form. Thanks for reading!

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