This week we’re welcoming back the powerhouse rookies, BAP. After debuting a mere four months ago with ‘Warrior’, they’ve now returned with their brand new track ‘Power’.
Concept
The concept of ‘Power’ seems to be fairly similar to ‘Warrior’ in some ways, as this song has a powerful and masculine concept that leaves many finding it hard to believe that BAP is a rookie band. The concept for ‘Power’ has a much more aggressive edge to it though which can be seen in the near-vicious choreography, heard in the intense lyrics and found in the uncompromising and warrior-like style that they present for this concept.
With this comeback the members have stepped away from their signature blonde hair, except for Youngjae who is now rocking some super sexy Saiyen-style blonde hair. We now see the rest of the members sporting generally darker hair colours which instantly makes this boy group visually more appealing to the UK audience; when they were all blonde, their look was a little ‘gimmicky’ for UK tastes and many people, perhaps particularly men, would have been put off. Now their hair colour ranges from pink and purple to brown and black. Zelo’s pink hair might raise a few eyebrows, but with the rest of the concept style being so masculine, this should be balanced out.
The style of clothing that they wear for this concept isn’t all too different from their ‘Warrior’ promotions, as it’s all very manly and combatant-style. It’s not an overtly sexy style, and yet the members still manage to have an undeniable aura of confidence which is appealing to a wide variety of people. Non-Korean speakers may not understand the lyrics, but the style and the concept of this song suit BAP very well which might help draw people in.
In the video there appears to be some kind of post-apocalyptic concept as part of it is set in a barren wasteland with a crashed space ship in the background. The beginning of the video sees the members waking up and detaching themselves from some kinds of compartments within a futuristic- looking room (in said space ship, I can only assume), and I couldn’t help but wonder whether this was a throwback to their ‘Warrior’ promotions where their concept was aliens.
Also feeding into their aggressive and intense concept is the abundance of very visible fake tattoos that all of them are sporting. Towards the end of the music video Him Chan is seen with an audaciously placed fake tattoo on his face which plays in amazingly well with the concept and just looks pretty awesome. On the other hand, I’m not sure how well the UK audience would appreciate fake tattoos; a large number of the citizens of our fair country have tattoos (yours truly included) and seeing someone with fake tattoos would give off a childish or ‘try-hard’ appearance to many people. To a country with a large number of tattooed people, fake tattoos just don’t really say ‘masculine’, and as such this may seem a little strange to some people. It also feels like they are still channelling their ‘Warrior’ spirit, as at times in the video and in their teaser concept photos, along with the tattoos, they are wearing neon war paint. The neon paint and aggressive edge to the concept reminds me of the unique concepts of Nicki Minaj who is pretty popular here in the UK; she rocks unique neon clothing and raps in a deceptively sweet yet aggressive manner which is similar to baby-faced Zelo spitting out raps in a way that could put boys much older than he to shame.
So, with tribal tattoos and neon war paint I’d definitely say this is a futuristic post-apocalyptic concept. Epic.
Score – 3.5/5
Choreography
The choreography definitely fits well with their powerful and apocalyptic concept as throughout the majority of the routine the members are dancing so aggressively that they appear to be fighting.
The choreography consists of powerful punches and kicks (at one point Yong Guk delivers some kind of roundhouse kick) and some martial arts-style moves that look impressive and formidable. This again leads into the general disbelief that it hasn’t even been six months since BAP debuted.
Despite the dance being forceful and generally pretty kickass, there were a few sections of the routine that surprised me…okay, I laughed. A lot.
For example, the dance-break in which five members (Yong Guk doesn’t take part in this, either because of his injured arm or because of his slight solo after) use some kind of spray cans as props while they dance. The first few times of watching the video, I honestly didn’t like this part of the choreography and felt it ruined the aggressive vibe of the video somewhat as it didn’t seem to have much relevance to the song or concept .(plus the environmentalist in me was screaming ‘think of the ozone, BAP, THE OZONE!) Now I’m a little more used to it, but I’m still not a fan and I think many UK viewers will have the same view and just think that it’s strange.
Another part of the choreography that I can’t really take seriously is the ass slap…’why’ is all I can ask once I’ve stopped laughing after seeing it. It looks odd and a little inappropriate in comparison to the fairly serious and masculine nature of the rest of the video and concept; it’s quite a childish move when the rest is very manly.
Even though it’s not massively noticeable, BAP’s leader, Yong Guk, has his hand in a cast in the video. I don’t know for sure what kind of injury he has but it must be serious enough for him to not remove the cast for the filming. With this in mind, you’ve got to have respect for the guy; doing some of those moves with an injured hand? Impressive.
Score – 3.5/5
Song
‘Power’ is a badass sounding, rock-style song filled with a kind of destructive attitude and immense confidence. It almost seems to pay homage to the fact that they have gained so much popularity despite debuting such a short time ago; ‘I’ve got the power’.
But if you take a look at the translated lyrics, the song doesn’t really have anything to do with their quick ascent into fame, but similar to ‘Warrior’ it deals with bigger issues. The lyrics have a very revolutionary feel to them, but what kind of revolution they are encouraging, I’m not quite sure. It seems that the listener is being urged to identify the tyrants in their life and rise up against them, or at least to not be taken in by them; this is a concept that most people will relate to, as everyone probably has someone in their life that they don’t like for one reason or another and wish they could break away from.
As usual, the first thing native English speakers are going to notice in a song is the English lyrics, and I have mixed feelings about the English used in ‘Power’. If I’m honest, I didn’t even realise that there were English lyrics in some places until I read the Romanised and translated versions of the song; at the end of Yong Guk’s opening rap part, he says ‘keep your head up’ which I didn’t realise until seeing the translation. I also didn’t realise that at one point in the song they repeat the word ‘warning’, and the pronunciation was only slightly off but to the point where it didn’t even cross my mind that they were saying ‘warning’. I also have to point out that the phrase ‘one more say, hate you’ doesn’t particularly make much sense. We all pretty much get what they’re trying to say here, but people who are sceptical of listening to Korean music may be further put off by slightly nonsensical English.
I feel that I’m being a little unnecessarily harsh on BAP’s English pronunciation, but it would be a major factor if they wanted to enter the UK market and be taken seriously. The song is aggressive and intense but might lose credibility with poor English pronunciation. On the up side, Zelo’s English is fine and pretty clear; ‘BAP move the crowd, action’ and ‘it’s all passion’, these phrases sound pretty cool as standalone expressions even though we may not understand everything else they are saying.
‘Power’ has a better distribution of song parts than ‘Warrior’ did, but you still find that Him Chan and Jong Up have the smallest parts once again; combined they have about six lines in the song. Despite the lack of actual singing parts, these two do have a bigger presence in the video which is appreciated by many fans. Considering the intensity of this song, it makes a lot of sense that Yong Guk and Zelo have the majority of the parts in ‘Power’, but the vocals provided by Youngjae and Daehyun compliment the forceful rapping well.
‘Power’ is a confident and powerful song that can easily grab anyone’s attention, and as such I think it will appeal to many listeners in the UK, especially people who like darker and more aggressive sounding music.
Score – 4/5
Overall score: 11/15 – This is a pretty high score, but I honestly think that ‘Power’ has the right combination of a rock-style song, intense choreography and an unusual concept which has the potential to appeal to many people in the UK. (Plus, one look at Zelo and let’s be honest, not many people could resist that face!)
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