Video Analysis “Joah” by Mishelle Liu
“Joah” was a song written and performed by Jay Park, produced by Cha Cha Malone released in 2013. This song, compared to his recent works, has quite the contrast to his current star image. Rather than the daring artist that we all know, “Joah” is a more typical K-pop idol’s love song, one that fans would smile while listening to. To capture the warm feeling of having someone you like, the title and the main theme is “좋아”, Korean for “to like”. This simple word play gives Korean audiences a clear definition of the song’s content while also making it easy to pronounce for English speaking audiences. Aside from a few simple phrases, the lyrics are mainly Korean. This is a song that expresses how much one absolutely loves everything about his lover, showing his feelings of joy when he thinks about her and promising her that she will be his one and only.
The sweet melody and warm instrumental all creates a lovey-dovey atmosphere. The music quality that the brass band brings makes this a very old-school, warm feeling song. The music video, which was shot in Seattle, features Jay as the main character and a girl that he likes as the heroine. The warm hues of the scenery bring the audience a pleasant feeling. Throughout the video, setting changed from day to night, locations were all over Seattle: from streets to a dance studio, and then to a romantic ocean side bench. To create a boy next door, easy going looks, his outfits varied from simple denim jackets, flannels, to sporty jumpsuits featuring the Seattle SuperSonics. He looked like your typical school crush. The girl is also dressed in such fashion: simple tee shirt, long hair, innocent and friendly girl-next-door look. In most scenes we can see these two walk side by side, while Jay Park express in his lyrics how he feels about this girl. In other scenes, we see Jay park hanging out with his friends and dancing in the studio. Knowing his background attending middle school in the states and b-boying, fans will easily associate these scenes with how Jay Park was when he was in school, letting them feel closer to their idol.
Although this song is more expressive of love and the feeling of liking someone than the mainstream Korean culture norms, it reflects more of Jay Park’s American culture influence. As I mentioned before, the lyrics are mostly sung in Korean, however, the chorus phrases and simple sentences are written in English. Most of these are very blunt, such as “Stay with me forever and ever baby please”, and “I want you and I need you, don’t ever leave my side”. This hybridization of English and Korean language helps to convey to a local audience a western culture social setting. It presents “the contemporary K-pop trend of mixed lyrics that illustrates the playfulness accompanying the convergence of multilingual ingredients” (Jin and Ryoo 2014: 128).
While his works nowadays looks vastly different from “Joah”, Jay Park’s more approachable side is still evident in his work such as “Sexy 4 Eva”. To appeal to his previous fans from his days in 2pm and his later gained audience since his transformation to a solo artist and entrepreneur, we can see how the different types of music that he produces will continue to help him gain popularity and recognition as a well-rounded artist.
“박재범 JAY PARK –’좋아 Joah’ .” Youtube video, 4:05. Posted by “JAY
PARK,” April 9, 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=rMtCJC39SqU
Jin, Dal Yong, and Woongjae Ryoo. “Critical Interpretation of Hybrid
K-Pop: The Global- Local Paradigm of English Mixing in
Lyrics.” Popular Music and Society 37, no. 2 (2014): 113-31.