Music Review: BTS Baritone V Makes a Smooth Alt-R&B Landing on ‘Layover,’ His First Solo Album

This cover image released by BigHit Music shows "Layover" by V. (AP)
This cover image released by BigHit Music shows "Layover" by V. (AP)
TT
20

Music Review: BTS Baritone V Makes a Smooth Alt-R&B Landing on ‘Layover,’ His First Solo Album

This cover image released by BigHit Music shows "Layover" by V. (AP)
This cover image released by BigHit Music shows "Layover" by V. (AP)

A lot can go wrong when a performer endeavors outside of the group that made their career. In the case of BTS baritone V, a lot can go right, as well.

“Layover,” the first solo album from V, is moody, smooth alt-R&B, a collection of songs that feels true to the performer — and offers a glimpse into his oft-considered mysterious interiority.

First came the two singles, the bilingual “Love Me Again” and “Rainy Days” — the former, languid pop with V’s voice high in the mix, the latter, a syrupy, lo-fi post-breakup ballad. “Blue” and “For Us” connect the two. “Slow Dancing” is a standout, with its impromptu flute solo at the song’s coda.

“Layover” is V’s first solo album, but BTS ARMY know this is in no way his first solo experience: he’s released a few with the band, including 2016’s “Stigma” and 2020’s “Inner Child.”

But it is “Singularity,” V’s opening cut from BTS’s 2018 album “Love Yourself: Tear,” that stands out. “The illusions that torture me are still the same,” V sings. “Did I lose myself, or did I gain you?”

At the time, critics theorized that V was referencing the Greek myth of Narcissus — it certainly wouldn’t be the first time this K-pop group pulled out an academic reference point — but all seemed to agree that when given the opportunity to perform on his own, V has a particular musical magic, a kind of soulful, sensual approach to R&B. Where harmonies dominate, his husky tone cuts through, demanding attention. In that way, “Singularity” is the antecedent of “Layover.”

Historically, when an artist goes solo, it is symbolic of a new chapter. Maybe it’s a boy band member leaving to become a man-musician, individuating beyond the support network that built them, not unlike a child leaving home in young adulthood. Maybe it’s a cry for creative freedom — to no longer feel their identity is tied to their fellow performers.

But the members of BTS, history-makers and record-breakers that they are, offer an alternative. They’re not on hiatus; nor have they broken up. While its seven members take turns fulfilling South Korea’s mandatory military service (Jin and J-hope have enlisted; Suga has begun the process) the others will release their own individual records, allowing fans to spend more time with them in the process.

In the case of V, it’s an opportunity to experiment — and it’s yielding great results.



Studio Ghibli Marks 40 Years, but Future Looks Uncertain

This file photo taken on June 29, 2023 shows a man sitting next to the character No Face from the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away" during a media preview for "The World of Studio Ghibli's Animation Exhibition Bangkok" before the public opening on July 1, in Central World shopping mall in Bangkok.(AFP)
This file photo taken on June 29, 2023 shows a man sitting next to the character No Face from the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away" during a media preview for "The World of Studio Ghibli's Animation Exhibition Bangkok" before the public opening on July 1, in Central World shopping mall in Bangkok.(AFP)
TT
20

Studio Ghibli Marks 40 Years, but Future Looks Uncertain

This file photo taken on June 29, 2023 shows a man sitting next to the character No Face from the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away" during a media preview for "The World of Studio Ghibli's Animation Exhibition Bangkok" before the public opening on July 1, in Central World shopping mall in Bangkok.(AFP)
This file photo taken on June 29, 2023 shows a man sitting next to the character No Face from the Studio Ghibli film "Spirited Away" during a media preview for "The World of Studio Ghibli's Animation Exhibition Bangkok" before the public opening on July 1, in Central World shopping mall in Bangkok.(AFP)

Japan's Studio Ghibli turns 40 this month with two Oscars and legions of fans young and old won over by its complex plots and fantastical hand-drawn animation.

But the future is uncertain, with latest hit "The Boy and the Heron" likely -- but not certainly -- the final feature from celebrated co-founder Hayao Miyazaki, now 84.

The studio behind the Oscar-winning "Spirited Away" has become a cultural phenomenon since Miyazaki and the late Isao Takahata established it in 1985.

Its popularity has been fueled of late by a second Academy Award in 2024 for "The Boy and the Heron", starring Robert Pattinson, and by Netflix streaming Ghibli movies around the world.

In March, the internet was flooded with pictures in its distinctively nostalgic style after the release of OpenAI's newest image generator, raising questions over copyright.

The newly opened Ghibli Park has also become a major tourist draw for central Japan's Aichi region.

Julia Santilli, a 26-year-old from Britain living in northern Japan, "fell in love with Ghibli" after watching the 2001 classic "Spirited Away" as a child.

"I started collecting all the DVDs," she told AFP.

Ghibli stories are "very engaging and the artwork is stunning", said another fan, Margot Divall, 26.

"I probably watch 'Spirited Away' about 10 times a year still."

- 'Whiff of death' -

Before Ghibli, most cartoons in Japan, known as anime, were made for children.

But Miyazaki and Takahata, both from "the generation that knew war", included darker elements that appeal to adults, Miyazaki's son Goro told AFP.

"It's not all sweet -- there's also a bitterness and things like that which are beautifully intertwined in the work," he said, describing a "whiff of death" in the films.

For younger people who grew up in peacetime, "it is impossible to create something with the same sense, approach and attitude," Goro said.

Even "My Neighbor Totoro," with its cuddly forest creatures, is in some ways a "scary" movie that explores the fear of losing a sick mother, he explained.

Susan Napier, a professor at Tufts University in the United States and author of "Miyazakiworld: A Life in Art", agrees.

"In Ghibli, you have ambiguity, complexity and also a willingness to see that the darkness and light often go together" unlike good-versus-evil US cartoons, she said.

The post-apocalyptic "Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind" -- considered the first Ghibli film despite its release in 1984 -- has no obvious villain, for example.

The movie featuring an independent princess curious about giant insects and a poisonous forest felt "so fresh" and a change from "a passive woman... having to be rescued," Napier said.

- Natural world -

Studio Ghibli films also depict a universe where humans connect deeply with nature and the spirit world.

A case in point was 1997's "Princess Mononoke", distributed internationally by Disney.

The tale of a girl raised by a wolf goddess in a forest threatened by humans is "a masterpiece -- but a hard movie," Napier said.

It's a "serious, dark and violent" film appreciated more by adults, which "was not what US audiences had anticipated with a movie about a princess."

Ghibli films "have an environmentalist and animistic side, which I think is very appropriate for the contemporary world with climate change," she added.

Miyuki Yonemura, a professor at Japan's Senshu University who studies cultural theories on animation, said watching Ghibli movies is like reading literature.

"That's why some children watch Totoro 40 times," she said, adding that audiences "discover something new every time."

- French connection -

Miyazaki and Takahata, who died in 2018, could create imaginative worlds because of their openness to other cultures, Yonemura said.

Foreign influences included writer Antoine de Saint-Exupery and animator Paul Grimault, both French, and Canadian artist Frederic Back, who won an Oscar for his animation "The Man Who Planted Trees".

Takahata studying French literature at university "was a big factor," Yonemura said.

"Both Miyazaki and Takahata read a lot," she said. "That's a big reason why they excel at writing scripts and creating stories."

Miyazaki has said he was inspired by several books for "Nausicaa", including the 12th-century Japanese tale "The Lady who Loved Insects", and Greek mythology.

Studio Ghibli will not be the same after Miyazaki stops creating animation, "unless similar talent emerges," Yonemura said.

Miyazaki is "a fantastic artist with such a visual imagination" while both he and Takahata were "politically progressive," Napier said.

"The more I study, the more I realize this was a unique cultural moment," she said.

"It's so widely loved that I think it will carry on," said Ghibli fan Divall.

"As long as it doesn't lose its beauty, as long as it carries on the amount of effort, care and love," she said.