BTS - âNo More Dreamâ (2 Cool 4 Skool, 2013)
âNo More Dreamâ is BTSâs debut single. The opening acoustic bass line immediately tells us what kind of song this is, because it sounds like H.O.Tâs 1996 debut single âì ìŹì íìâ (Warriorâs Descendant), a song about social pressure and bullying. (A rough English translation is here.) âNo More Dreamâ has a similar hip-hop sound and a similarly socially-conscious message: itâs dedicated by Rap Monster âto all the youngsters without dreamsâ, kids who study hard to get a good job and material success one day but donât have any private ambitions of their own or donât see the point in them.
K-pop is so intertextual that the similarity to H.O.Tâs song is certainly not an accident. (For more examples of K-pop intertextuality, see Big Bang repurposing a famous Lee Moon-se song, or Girlâs Day taking a chorus melody from Nami.) Itâs a way to fit BTS into an existing idol tradition: the serious, socially conscious debut song. The clearest illustration of this is BTSâs special performance stage at the 2013 MBC end-of-year Gayo Daejejeon, where (minus Suga) they covered Sechs Kiesâ debut single âíìëłêłĄâ (Song of School Life), a rap-rock song about academic pressure, and âWarriorâs Descendantâ, which then segued into âNo More Dreamâ.
The video seems a bit nonsensical compared to the songâs strong message. If they want to be free to pursue their dreams, why are they pretending to shoot each other? Is their dream to smash furniture thatâs been left out on the street? Is that an illegal enough activity to warrant a police helicopter? In my opinion these things are signifiers like the opening bassline is a signifier, and itâs meant to align the video visually with other idol music videos of the time coded as âhardâ and âhip-hopâ: the mock-dystopian parts of Big Bangâs âFantastic Babyâ; the manic weapon wielding in 2NE1âs âëŽê° ì ìŒ ì ëê°â (I Am The Best); the club lighting colour palette of Block Bâs âNalinaâ. For comparison, all of these elements are present in idol rap group B.A.Pâs debut âWarriorâ, released the year before âNo More Dreamâ, which has a similarly motivational message (and even more fake fighting and gunplay). (As rookies, B.A.P also covered âWarriorâs Descendantâ for a music show special stage.)
Debuting with a socially conscious, rap-filled song is not a revolutionary move. (Even EXO, the most boy band of boy bands, did this.) But there are some unique things about âNo More Dreamâ, and the most important is that itâs told from the specific perspective of a teenager while declaring change to be needed and possible, where most songs in this genre only do one or the other. For instance, songs like âWarriorâ, Super Juniorâs âDonât Donâ and EXOâs âMamaâ speak from something like an omniscient narratorâs distance when asking for change. Conversely, âWarriorâs Descendantâ and âSong of School Lifeâ are written from a teenagerâs perspective about their real complaints, but it stops short at listing them and saying, âSomething needs to change.â But âNo More Dreamâ is spoken peer-to-peer; in an interview two years later with Hiphopplaya, Rap Monster revealed that when heâd written lyrics on more general topics like money, Big Hit CEO Bang Sihyuk rejected them and asked instead for â[their] true storiesâ. BTS arenât just spreading another empowering message, but one that empowers youth.
AMEN TO THAT.
