Stray Kids "소리꾼(Thunderous)" M/V Song & Vocal Analysis

Thank you thank you thank you, what a fun listen this was! Thunderous is definitely up there as one of my favorites so I'm so happy that you broke this one down. Since you've already reacted to Divine, I think now you can see it makes sense when a lot of people said "Divine is giving huge Thunderous vibes!" These guys are such wordsmiths in addition to being incredible musical composers, and it's really making me want to learn Korean so I can appreciate their lyrics even better. As I've come to understand rap better (years ago I was very biased against it for no good reason) I've been thinking of it as being, essentially, percussive, rhythmically delivered poetry. It's like if percussion instruments could speak. Poetry, by nature, already has a sense of rhythm to it, but rap takes that as well as the often clever wordplay and idiomatic and evocative language and plays up the rhythm and delivery. Stray Kids (especially Changbin, Han, and Bang Chan as 3Racha) are very skilled at leaning into this aspect and playfully experimenting with the arrangement and boundaries to see how they can make the rhythmic and musical form, and aspects of the delivery, really accent and highlight the meaning they want their audience to get out of it. I think this is one reason it resonates so much with an international audience that doesn't speak Korean and can't understand a majority of their lyrics until they look up translations (which of course, don't do justice to the wordplay I'm sure is going on and doesn't really translate). Thunderous is a fantastic example- just by listening to the way they rap, the way they use their voices, and the music itself, a great deal of the meaning and especially the emotion comes across without necessarily needing to understand the words.

Thunderous is such a pivotal track for Stray Kids. I really love the video and I love that they were able to push back and assert themselves, their identity as artists. And it's beautiful. The transition where they all appear out of the fog? Or the moment where they fist bump and it's a match-cut transition to the same scene but indoors? Beautiful, perfect, stellar. To answer your question about how much involvement they have in the visuals - from what I've seen, they have SOME creative input, but this is a part that they seem to let specialists handle. They rely on the director(s) to bring the vision to life. However, the directors always GET the assignment. There's one in particular who handles most of their banger videos and loves to use the fancy programmed camera for neat effects, but I unfortunately don't remember the name. In addition to the recording behind-the-scenes that you were planning to watch, they ALSO have music video behind-the-scenes for almost every MV. There's a whole playlist of them but you can find them by searching " MV making". In these, you can see how they typically have an outline of what the scenes in the music video will be, and they're given acting notes by the director as they go. They will usually speak up if they want to do another take or if something needs to be redone for the dance segments, but otherwise they kind of just go with the flow. They also have a few videos where THEY, the members, react to the finished video and they are always so astonished. It's great 😂 Especially at the end of the CEREMONY video when Faker showed up. EDIT: AH I see Libby knows the name - Bang Jae Yeob. There's another director who did ESCAPE, Railway, and Red Lights, Novvkim, who does SUCH A GOOD JOB.

Sorikkun is a great first Korean word because it also means singer! Though I think it’s a specific traditional Korean type of singer. The thing about Skz music that you might or might’ve not picked up is that is always completely packed with multiple meanings and play on words, especially in Korean. Fun fact every song has an English and Korean title, and often are completely different or complete each other. Very playful. I wish I knew more Korean to enjoy it more myself.

The director for this music video was Bang Jae Yeob btw. He did a ton of Skz MVs including Maniac, Gods Menu and Chk Chk Boom from the ones you have allready seen😊

I think Cheese was also on your list and is from the same Album. They share a simular message eventhough Cheese is a bit more silly in apperance😆

You got the backstory to the Song right. They got a lot of critic for Gods Menu on how its too wild and loud so thats why they decided to make this one even more😂 The album is called "Noeasy/Noisy" for a reason😂😂