Battle of the B-Sides:: The Boyz: Survive The Night

I'm not super familiar with most of their discography and even though Sangyeon was on my enlistment wall (I've got a softness for him because his birthday is near mine), I wasn't initially planning on doing a discharge post for him. Then, to my surprise, I got this request in The Form from someone who just found my little blog from a post I shared on Tumblr, asking if I'd do this song for Sangyeon's discharge. Naturally! Discharge posts and anniversary posts are two of my favorite kinds of posts to do because they're just happy times usually. And I'm excited to do this specific one because while I've heard a couple of songs from this album, I haven't actually heard this one, so you're also introducing me to a new song. I also find it slightly satisfying that I'd already planned to do a song by a group from this company (sort of) this month, so I'm very much not opposed to including The Boyz here because they too have languished under a garbage company, which fits the theme for the month.

 The Boyz debuted in 2017 as a twelve-member group under Cre.ker Entertainment before it was merged with Play M Entertainment and turned into IST Entertainment. The line-up for this release was Sangyeon, Jacob, Younghoon, Hyunjae, Juyeon, Kevin, New, Q, Ju Haknyeon, Sunwoo, and Eric (although Eric did not have lines originally as he was on hiatus). They've had a rough couple of years, but are now at a new company, so fingers are crossed that this one is less of a neglectful company than the last one. 

Survive The Night is the fifth track of their seventh mini album, BE AWARE, which was released in 2022. The only lyricist for the song is Sunwoo (TIOT)! The composers are RIO (Eunice and her own works), Avenue 52 (TWICE, fromis_9, &TEAM, EXO, Girls' Generation, Amber Liu, NCT, ZEROBASEONE, UNIS, ITZY, Red Velvet, OH MY GIRL, NewKids, Alpha Drive One, TEMPEST, A.C.E, Big Ocean, Key, Kim Woojin, KARD, Fantasy Boys, Ryeowook, Lim Young Woong, 8TURN, VERIVERY, Kim Sung Kyu, iCHILLIN', Ciipher, Sungjae, GFRIEND, NEXZ, Secret Number, Yena, Solar, ILY:1, SKYE, Jaejoong, Super Junior, Billlie, MIRAE, Rocky, VIVIZ, aoen, Minhyun, IDID, TIOT, n.SSign, Infinite, Cravity, Zoonizini, The KingDom, Apink, Drippin, XngHan&Xoul, Golden Child, DreamNote, UNIQ, MCND, Luminous, Victon, Teen Top, ATBO, KAJA, and 35KM), and SQVARE (Enhypen, Monsta X, &TEAM, TOMORROW X TOGETHER, BamBam, NCT, fromis_9, P1Harmony, ZEROBASEONE, Cravity, TWICE, ASTRO, VIXX, EXO, TWS, SHINee, Alpha Drive One, X1, TEMPEST, A.C.E, Big Ocean, Kim Woojin, Fantasy Boys, 8TURN, VERIVERY, JustB, n.SSign, Kim Sung Kyu, Moon Jong Up, ITZY, 2PM, Toheart, NEXZ, Yena, Solar, Super Junior, EPEX, MIRAE, Polarix, LUNA, Minhyun, TIOT, IDID, Infinite, N.Flying, Kim Hyun Joong, Zoonizi, The KingDom, SF9, CIX, Drippin, SixTONES, XngHan&Xoul, Ghost9, ATBO, MCND, Luminous, TVXQ!, Victon, Teen Top, KAJA, Genic, DKZ, WAKER, UKISS, Rainbow, Chaser, OWV, and Boys Republic).

I had to do some roundabout searching to find the actual, official audio track for you because this is a b-side and doesn't strictly have a music video. 

I'd just like to take a minute, before I actually get into this gorgeous specimen of a song, to point out the album artwork. The fandom doesn't have an official color, which is a heavy disappointment, but I have noticed that blue and purples are used a lot by the fans for the group. The main color in that artwork that you're looking at is blue for the heart and then pink for the barbed wire around it, with all of it on a field of sable (I spent about a month one time very focused on heraldry for a reason that is too long to get into here). And I'm not going to lie, the album artwork reminds me a little bit of a heraldic shield, but that's a slight digression. The actual point I wanted to make is that even though they don't have official colors, this one uses the unofficial ones. We've got the blue heart, and pink and blue mix together to make purple. 

There's also a metaphor to be made about barbed wire wrapped around a heart, but I don't know that this is the post I want to get into that with. So I'm going to lampshade it for if I ever get another song request from this mini album or I decide that I want to do another song from this album.

And I need to give Sunwoo some praise for this song. There is a line in here at the start of the bridge that says "네 두 눈 하늘에 그릴 땐 별을 닮았었구나 생각해라니", which translates roughly to "When you draw your eyes in the sky, I think you resembled a star." I mean, the entire song is straight up poetry, even with the meaning loss or change due to translation, with a special shout-out to the chorus because even though I'm not the fan of poetry I should be, even I have to acknowledge that the artistry on display here is incredible. But the line at the start of the bridge, if someone were to say that to me, I literally wouldn't know how to react. My brain would shut down from the immediate swell of emotion because that's such a hugely complimentary statement and it's just beautiful. The outro, which is actually his part, is another spot that is genuinely so objectively beautiful that I would not consider it a hardship to have to analyze this if I were back in college getting my degree and having to write a paper on this. Sunwoo as a lyricist belongs with the best of them. Genuinely. This is my professional opinion.

I'm also personally delighted over the fact that Sunwoo is one of the rappers of the group and he gave perfectly ballad-worthy lyrics to the group. There's a good cross-over between rapper-written lyrics and ballad lyrics, when the rappers are actually good at what they do. And he is. If there was ever any question about it, I encourage you to throw this song at them. 

Also, there are a couple of comments on the video about how even if you're a newer Korean learner, the speed is slow enough that you can get the unfamiliar syllables out easily and the enunciation is good, which means you can practice getting that pronunciation down. 

The most important part of this song, though, is the fact that it feels like an emotional hug. One of my favorite lines from Les Miserables is "Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise" (also because that line is one of my favorites to sing), and Survive The Night has the exact same comfort vibe in this song. It's not denying that life absolutely sucks sometimes and sometimes you feel like you're drowning under everything (which reminds me of when they were prepping for their No Air stage on Kingdom, which is then equally poignant because Sunwoo is the one with the fear of water that needed help from his members), but even the title of the song is telling you that even despite that, you can survive it. 

The Boyz are engaged in a dark period of their history right now, but the sky is lightening as dawn approaches. 

I also want to praise the submitter because even though I'm not personally too connected to Sangyeon, I think this was a really good choice for a discharge post. It's no secret that the enlistment period is incredibly difficult and oftentimes traumatic, and Sangyeon as leader had to go in first and then watch from the sidelines while his group was neglected (debatably worse but that lawsuit is ongoing and every time new information comes out, my eyebrows go up at the trainwreck of what was going on, but we're not here for that right now) by their company. That had to have been an extra dark time for him. But he survived. He's out, except for his reserves duties now, and can step back into his position. I like this choice. Sentimentality was chosen.

I've got a massive soft spot for behind-the-scenes videos and for slice-of-life music videos. So this is the version of a music video you're getting, because this is what's available.

Also, the timing of the release of this video coincided with an announcement that Sunwoo would be going on hiatus and that Eric would be coming back. I can't decide how I feel about this song being the one that had that timing. I know that realistically this likely would have been chosen for a release like this before his hiatus was decided on, and if this was a drama or a movie, I'd be frothing at the mouth in excited rambling over how symbolically fitting it is that the song he wrote the lyrics for was the one that was the gift to the fans. But this is unfortunately not fiction. So I have to be a tiny bit suspicious.

Still. Regardless of any of that, it's still good to see them enjoying themselves, even if the video timing is unfortunate.

There's also a comment on the video that's like "Telling them not to get sick might sound like a burden, so I won't say that. But I will say that it's okay to be sick. Just take care of yourself and come back." Which, again, is very on brand for the meaning of this song. I paraphrased the automatic translation.

We have performances, everyone! Also, I think I've seen this song performed live, so I'm going to verify that and if I'm right, I'm going to see if I can find a fancam from that performance.

This one is from 2023, and I love the stage set-ups where they're on a tiered cake section of stage just standing and singing.

I'm going to guess that these are at least partially live vocals because it looks like Jacob at 1:03 is inhaling like he should for singing with the way his neck suddenly flexes right there. Sangyeon at 2:03 is having obvious throat movements during his part.

And Sangyeon is getting the ad-libs at 2:59. He doesn't get the first part, which is interesting because I thought he had all the ad-libs for the last chorus, but Jacob obviously has them at the start at 2:53. I find it adorable that the two oldest get the ad-libs, but the fact that those two had the clearest throat movements earlier makes so much sense that they get the ad-libs. 

And you know what I'm going to do which is wildly rare of me? I'm going to give you a specific member focused fancam of Sangyeon from the 2024 tour.

First of all, I'd put money on him actually singing. Not much because I don't like to bet like that, but I'm also that confident that he is due to the throat movements he's got going on, and his Adam's apple is prominent enough that it's a lot easier to tell.

But you know what else the fancam exposes? He likes this song well enough that he's got spots where he sings along with whoever's part it actually is: :40, 2:26, and at 2:55.

This isn't a complete recording of the song, but the internet comes through for me again. So this was from the LA stop in 2024, which I did go see because I was in town and happened to find out that they were doing a concert on a night I didn't have anything else going on. So I went even though I only knew, like, two of their songs. I enjoyed the concert and I'd see them again.

I had my suspicions listening to the song, but I'm glad to see it was confirmed because I recognized these outfits.

Also, it just turns out that this recording starts almost right at Sangyeon's second part, so that's an awesome coincidence.

Okay, that's the post I wasn't intending to do, and it has now thrown off my schedule. But it's fine! I'm happy to do it! And this is an absolutely gorgeous song where we get all the members singing (something we all know I think is important). But, most importantly, Champions, we get to celebrate a successful return.

And next time, we get a girl group that has a very bubbly sound for the next song. If you've got a song you'd like me to do, drop a comment asking! This is your explicit invitation. Or if you're shy and would prefer it to be a secret until I post, go ahead and submit it via The Form!

Thanks for reading, everyone! See you next time!

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