Today’s helping came to me via a recommendation. Yes, Agust D is Suga from BTS. And yes, I have listened to BTS in the past because I don’t live under a rock. But I’ve never listened to his work as a solo artist, so I’m counting it. That being said, I had no idea what to make of this single and video after watching it through. What exactly was going on? Who were the two characters? Is this the Korean version of “Shake it Off”? Was that the whitest white person question I could have come up with? I’m pretty sure the answer to that last one is yes, but I had no idea about the rest. I was just about to type Daechwita into Google Translate when I noticed a video in the sidebar. Agust D – Daechwita – Explained by a Korean. Click.
Seriously. I’ve never in my life been more thankful for YouTube’s algorithm. It’s like the Internet could actually see my confusion, and then delivered exactly what I needed to understand what I had just watched. 12 minutes later, I had been given a mini-history lesson on Agust D, BTS, and Korea itself, which made my second viewing of the video all the more interesting. And just in case anyone was wondering, Daechwita is a traditional form of Korean marching music that was played in the presence of royalty or the military. Because now I know!
It is extraordinary to me that we live in an age where any question we could possibly have can be answered by a simple YouTube search. So thank you to DKDKTV for explaining today’s rec to me. It’s nice to know that even though I’m old and very uncool when it comes to music, there’s always an explainer video that’s got my back.
One final note. I just want to give a huge shout out to all the people who’ve been sending me recs. I’m absolutely loving them, even if I don’t understand them at first, so please keep those recs coming. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll be over here humming Daechwita for the rest of day…
Suggestions for artists I should check out? Please contact me with your ideas. I hope you enjoyed your daily helping of art!
