Well, it certainly lived up to my expectation of 'weird'.
And yet, I'm actually fairly disappointed in this release. First off, I hate his hair. Normally I'm the first to say I think GD's hair rocks, because even when it's weird, it's usually kinda cool. This style, though, is just Beethoven meets Sweeny Todd in all the worst ways. Aside from that I think the styling rocks.
There's a ton of great imagery in Coup D'etat and it all connects very well to the idea of the MV and the song. It's a bit high-concept though, and therefore rather inaccessible unless you take the time to sort through each and every illusion as it comes up. I think it's nice how that High-concept idea, inaccesiblity included, actually links well thematically to the idea that the whole thing is all inside his head. And there are some images that are pretty relatable; the unfinished peace sign for one, how that means his Coup is entirely inside his head and also entirely ongoing, inner peace, if it's ever found, is eternally unfinished, unstable, new revolutions must always be launched to reaffirm, re-evaluate, and restore one's own mind. That idea is also supported by the wrecking ball inside the tower (the tower being the mind, the wrecking ball being reconstruction, the fact that the tower keeps standing under reconstruction... etc), and by the skin-removal section. It's also enforced by the tower's eventual demise (or perhaps it's a different wall, a mental block hidden away somewhere deep inside the main tower), one little stone, one idea that upsets a world-view and changes everything. It's very cool, very deeply dramatic and connected, but I do think the rest of the ideas could have been linked a little more obviously. The its-not-blackface-but-I-don't-have-another-word-for-it section was also really cool, the idea of literally being coated in the sludge of humanity's worst, how that can define a person if they let it. The blind-folds and the ninja-ness can be seen as a comment that questions whether we're walking through a world that refuses to see us, or are we the ones at fault for walking along while keeping ourselves invisible. It's all very cool, and beautiful to look at, but while it's high minded and high meaninged, it's not terribly engaging to follow. Sure most people will watch to the end, but most people would be watching just to see what other crazy visual pops up, not because the story has really caught them.
It's also musically subpar, at least for the Kwon JiYong I know & love. Don't get me wrong, the song is fantastically catchy and I've had it stuck in my head for the last few days. Honestly, the chorus and the bridge are both fantastic, very chill and yet also high-tension. But there's a lot of musical pulls to his One of A Kind album, a helluva lot of pulls. The rhythm of a few lines comes straight from Crayon, there's a few melodic shifts yanked from Missing You, and the tension-vamps and over-all structure link closely to One of a Kind... I'm not saying an artist can't remix or re-purpose elements of other tracks, but I'd prefer that they didn't do it quite so obviously, or as close together as this.
There's a ton of great imagery in Coup D'etat and it all connects very well to the idea of the MV and the song. It's a bit high-concept though, and therefore rather inaccessible unless you take the time to sort through each and every illusion as it comes up. I think it's nice how that High-concept idea, inaccesiblity included, actually links well thematically to the idea that the whole thing is all inside his head. And there are some images that are pretty relatable; the unfinished peace sign for one, how that means his Coup is entirely inside his head and also entirely ongoing, inner peace, if it's ever found, is eternally unfinished, unstable, new revolutions must always be launched to reaffirm, re-evaluate, and restore one's own mind. That idea is also supported by the wrecking ball inside the tower (the tower being the mind, the wrecking ball being reconstruction, the fact that the tower keeps standing under reconstruction... etc), and by the skin-removal section. It's also enforced by the tower's eventual demise (or perhaps it's a different wall, a mental block hidden away somewhere deep inside the main tower), one little stone, one idea that upsets a world-view and changes everything. It's very cool, very deeply dramatic and connected, but I do think the rest of the ideas could have been linked a little more obviously. The its-not-blackface-but-I-don't-have-another-word-for-it section was also really cool, the idea of literally being coated in the sludge of humanity's worst, how that can define a person if they let it. The blind-folds and the ninja-ness can be seen as a comment that questions whether we're walking through a world that refuses to see us, or are we the ones at fault for walking along while keeping ourselves invisible. It's all very cool, and beautiful to look at, but while it's high minded and high meaninged, it's not terribly engaging to follow. Sure most people will watch to the end, but most people would be watching just to see what other crazy visual pops up, not because the story has really caught them.
It's also musically subpar, at least for the Kwon JiYong I know & love. Don't get me wrong, the song is fantastically catchy and I've had it stuck in my head for the last few days. Honestly, the chorus and the bridge are both fantastic, very chill and yet also high-tension. But there's a lot of musical pulls to his One of A Kind album, a helluva lot of pulls. The rhythm of a few lines comes straight from Crayon, there's a few melodic shifts yanked from Missing You, and the tension-vamps and over-all structure link closely to One of a Kind... I'm not saying an artist can't remix or re-purpose elements of other tracks, but I'd prefer that they didn't do it quite so obviously, or as close together as this.
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