"Lilac" (라일락) by IU (아이유), Saturday, March 25, 2023 (updated repost)
K-pop listeners have watched the once teen star IU grow up. Debuting at the age of 15, the star is turning 30 this year. The soprano singer has been called Korea's little sister, and her (mostly) squeaky clean image has propelled her to lasting success in Korea's music scene. Flowers and spring are no unfamiliar topic to this singer, and her sweet, yet powerful voice is perfect for a spring day. My first exposure to the singer was her song "The Meaning of You" (너의 의미) and her feature on HIGH4's "Not Spring, Love, or Cherry Blossoms" (봄 사랑 벚꽃 말고) and she's constantly played in Korea whenever the mood calls for easy listening.
IT'S LIKE THE FALLING PETALS, OUR IVORY COLORED SPRING CLIMAX. IU's Lilac album is a pretty spring album. And it's no secret I'm a sucker for a good saxophone part in a pop song. "Lilac" offers that and more. Growing up in central New York, I always considered lilacs to be a late summer flower. However, the timeline for the blooming is sped up in the south. In Korea and Japan, cherry blossoms (벚꽃, sakura) are blooming earlier and earlier due to climate change. In 2021, the blossoms bloomed the earliest since 812, which has scientists worried about what this says about climate change. Earlier this week in my area, the cherry blossoms started blooming and most of them are out today. The peak may be Monday or Tuesday, but it felt cold today and the weather was cloudy. It's still the cold part of spring and lilacs aren't due until at least next month. But it's that fresh feeling of spring that we can celebrate in today's song. IU's music celebrates youth and young love, and "Lilac" is no exception.
LIKE THE WARM BREEZE. "Lilac" symbolizes IU growing up, passing her 20s and entering her 30s. The music video is fun in every sense of a K-pop video. We see the singer boarding a train. The timetable at the station is a list of her previous releases. We see several looks for the singer, looking sweet and cute to sexy to tough, showing different eras of her career. The end of the video is a bit terrifying. The singer gets off the train. The cinematography of the video up until that point had been warm. The singer wearing vibrant colors and even the dark scene of the night club doesn't feel lonely and the night on the train where she is fighting, the singer has a smile on her face. However, the last scene looks lonely. The singer is dressed in dull clothing and the expression on her face looks lost. Then another train arrives bathing the singer's face in light. She smiles, but I can't figure out if she is feeling excited or just pretending to be brave. The video ends with the words in English: "Spring is short, but it comes again." The singer has commented on this album as being a transition to her thirties, so if springtime is a mindset, it can come again. But if it's an age... Welcome to your thirties, IU. There are certainly benefits to casting off the cares of other people that weigh you down in your twenties.
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