화양연화 pt.2 (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2)

The record

화양연화 pt.2 is BTS’s fourth mini album, released on 30 November 2015 with nine tracks. The title track is ‘RUN’, and the label ships the record in English as The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2. BIGHIT MUSIC’s album introduction on Bugs says that where 화양연화 pt.1 (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Part 1), seven months earlier, sang a youth made precarious by an uncertain future, this record sings a youth that takes that unease with it and runs anyway. The same text calls it the album that completes the two-part sequence.

Reviews

Idology (아이돌로지) carried the record in its 1st Listen for late November 2015, as short pieces by four critics. Kim Yun-ha wrote of the title track that “this four-minute pop song, drawn out of a motto of ‘boys running while they cry’, runs and runs, calling to mind Epik High in the days when they turned out popular songs without hesitating”, and closed that it is “a record you might sit back a little and enjoy the present drift of, a little more”.

Block wrote that “on this album the ‘genre appeal’ BTS have been working at is pushed as far as it goes through the grammar of R&B”, and that “in keeping a clear narrative, a beginning and a middle and an end, and a consistent mood across the whole album, it would do perfectly well as a full-length”. Doldolmalling wrote that “feelings like recklessness and loneliness are packed in densely, mixed up with the energy that belongs to BTS”. Jo Seong-min wrote that “from the well-built tracklist to the tracks and the visual performance ordered under a single concept, and on to the vocals and the rapping of the BTS members, grown another step again — there is not one part of it that has not been thought about”.

Billboard placed the record fourth on its ten best K-pop albums of 2015, published on 31 December that year. Jeff Benjamin wrote that “‘Whailen 52’ hints at feelings of depression and isolation while ‘Autumn Leaves’ symbolized a relationship slowly dying — both of which use fascinating metaphors to make their points”.

weiv chose the title track as one of its tracks of the year for 2015. Park Jun-u wrote that “the finish and the musical colour the The Most Beautiful Moment in Life series has ought to be a bigger story than that”, and called the song “the finest sign there is of what BTS mean by The Most Beautiful Moment in Life”.

Among the tracks

‘RUN’ is the song with a music video here, and the official channel’s upload is dated 29 November 2015, the day before release. Kim Yun-ha and Park Jun-u each placed it among the year’s songs, in separate columns.

IZM ran a separate single review of ‘Butterfly’. Hong Eun-sol wrote that “inside the song the sounds float without weight”, and that “the vocal melody deliberately avoids sitting on the root, and progressions outside functional harmony are slipped in between, blurring the sense of key”. Those devices, she wrote, “are given their warrant by the album’s own clearly settled concept”.

Kim Yun-ha wrote that ‘Butterfly’, ‘Whalien 52’ and ‘Autumn Leaves’ “unfold a colour of their own with fluency and set the frame of the whole album, while ‘Ma City’ and ‘Silver Spoon’ work through the time they have come along so far with a practised bearing and keep the middle stretch from dragging”. Block wrote that “‘Intro : Never Mind’, with its hard impact, and ‘Outro : House Of Cards’, which leaves a faint sadness behind, are dramatic devices and finished tracks at the same time”; Billboard wrote of the same two songs that they “showcase some of K-pop’s most impassioned rap performances of the year”.

Numbers

Billboard placed the record fourth on its list of the ten best K-pop albums of 2015, published on 31 December 2015. weiv, in its own year-end round-up, recorded that the album entered the Billboard 200. The label’s distribution metadata prints the English title as The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2, dated 30 November 2015, and ships the English song titles from the same place: ‘뱁새’ is Silver Spoon and ‘고엽’ is Autumn Leaves.

What came after

The two-part sequence about youth closes here, and the following May 화양연화 Young Forever (The Most Beautiful Moment in Life: Young Forever) gathers the songs of both records again. After that comes the second full-length album, Wings.