This article was written as a contribution to Bangtan Library.
It first hits you like a rush of adrenaline. It then rouses you and your consciousness before you even know what is happening, only to throw you headfirst into the fiercest, most calculated response to criticism and hate. That’s how it feels to listen to the opening three tracks of D-Day, the first official album of rapper/composer/producer Agust D. Agust D, real name Min Yoongi, is a member of South Korean band BTS, where he goes by the stage name SUGA.
Released on April 23, 2023, D-Day represents the end of a trilogy that started in 2016 with the release of Agust D, Agust D’s first mixtape and continued in 2020 with D-2, his second mixtape. The two releases offered a window into Agust D’s most personal thoughts and experiences, an expansion on the themes and lyrics he had contributed to BTS’s discography.
The mixtapes further established Agust D’s reputation as a ferocious rapper, one whose verses were full of justified anger towards a world that had tried to knock him down every step of the way. Addressing issues such as depression, self-questioning, inner conflicts, and desires, the mixtapes had also shown his musical versatility and desire to break any shackles the highly curated life of a K-pop idol imposed on him.
As an album, D-Day stands its own, but its resonance heightens when listened to as part of the Agust D trilogy. In this context, D-Day subverts expectations, as the overarching anger and sadness of the mixtapes give way to compassion, celebration, and still sharp but more mournful social criticism and observations. In the album, we see the evolution of Agust D as a person and an artist as he takes stock of the present and looks to the future. Also, as D-Day represents a sort of evolution of the persona “Agust D” into the person “Min Yoongi,” I will continue to refer to the musician by his real-life name in our review.
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The term D-Day marks the day when a military operation begins. It also simply means an important day, when a momentous event will take place. For Min Yoongi, it means “liberation,” as he explained in the third episode of an Apple Music radio series he did as part of the promotion of the album.
“All the concerns, doubts, worries, depression; all those feelings are freed on that day,” he says referring to the album title and then expanding to the album meaning, “When you start listening to D-Day you can start loving yourself.”
Fittingly, the opening song in the album, “D-Day,” is an announcement, a declaration of triumph against past shadows and trials. Joy is such a surprise for those who have lost it for a long time that when it finally returns, it easily transforms into euphoria and exhilaration. A rousing intro to the album, “D-Day” is about the gift of renewed purpose and joy, a message he seems to be directing as much to himself as to the world.
“D-Day’s coming, it’s a fucking good day,” he sings in English in the opening verse of the song.
I feel as though it’s for this day that I’ve wandered in the maze all this time
The past days where I perhaps was naive and clumsy are over now
Once again, raise a glass to us who will be born again,” he then raps in Korean.
The journey from a song like “The Last” (from the mixtape Agust D) – where he shockingly reveals his mental health struggles and anger with the world – to here is long, his optimistic outlook into the future hard fought and earned.
Similarly, when talking about the music video for “Amygdala,” a song where he addresses painful personal trauma, he says: “A lot of people could be shocked by it, but it’s something I was able to beat. I am a new person with D-Day. A new start, a new person.”
The video, one of three he released as part of the rollout of D-Day, is a recreation of one of the darkest periods of Min Yoongi’s life. It contains biographical details about an accident he suffered as a trainee before his debut with BTS as well as references to severe depression and self-harm. The video has a viewer warning and age restriction.
Coming after the trio of back-to-back high-energy opening songs, “Amygdala” marks a tonal point of inflection on the 10-track album. The song is musically expansive and lyrically wrenching: If in “D-Day” Min Yoongi is singing on the other side of pain, in “Amygdala” he’s still very much consumed by it.
“A journey through memories […]/Let’s erase them all, one by one,” he raps before launching into the chorus: “My amygdala/hurry and save me, hurry and save me/My amygdala/Hurry and get me out, hurry and get me out.”
One by one he lists the traumatic moments in his life: his mom’s heart surgery, his motorbike accident, and his father’s cancer diagnosis. One by one he tries to erase them from his memory, pleading with his amygdala, the small part of the brain that processes fear and trauma, to save him from the pain. As a listener, the suffering is almost unbearable, the repetitive patterns in the lyrics vividly conveying a mind desperate to escape from that traumatized state.
What Min Yoongi accomplishes in “Amygdala” is nothing less than extraordinary, painting a sharp picture of depression and trauma but also conveying the mental distance it takes to face that period of his life with such clarity. The resulting emotion is one of deep self-compassion for his past self, another sign of his long journey toward healing.
Musically, “Amygdala” is also beautiful, especially in the way the form of the song reflects the content of the lyrics, such as the contrast between the sonically minimalistic verses where he is confronting the hard facts of his past, versus the heavy chorus, his voice distorted through effects to convey his frantic pleading. His composing and producing prowess as a modern songwriter are not only evident in this song but throughout D-Day.
To start, the album is full of addictive hooks, by now a clear trait of his work as a producer for himself and other artists. Min Yoongi knows how to build a song for maximum effect. He is also acutely aware of what the music industry cynically demands in terms of song building for it to be “commercially successful,” such as writing shorter and shorter songs to capture the attention of fickle listeners. What he does is take those pressures and demands (many of the songs clock in at around 3 minutes) and demonstrate what is possible to do in those few minutes, creating full narratives and musical journeys that do not compromise in depth or artistic integrity.
Anybody who has seen Min Yoongi talk about his music writing and production process can see he can be self-effacing and heavily technical, his knowledge of song construction built over 17 years of work in the industry. This would be impressive on its own, but what makes it more admirable is that behind that knowledge and technique is a deeply human musician who uses every skill and sounds at his disposal to write songs that are always emotionally resonant and musically accessible.
Soaring guitars, unforgettable bass lines, heavy riffs, intricate trap beats, gentle piano—he gives each song the musical landscape the lyrics need to support them, such as the melancholic electric guitar in the pre-chorus in “Amygdala,” or the optimistic, comforting piano in “Life Goes On.”
Another layer comes with the inclusion of traditional Korean instruments, which he famously did in D-2 (“Daechwita”) and does again on D-Day, more prominently in the song “Haegeum,” which features a haegeum, a traditional stringed instrument. This not only adds texture to the music but anchors the songs in a very specific cultural context that goes back over 1,000 years, the first time the haegeum was recorded in historical texts.
The song begins with the high-pitched, slightly unsettling sound of the haegeum, the notes sliding, slippery, on the strings. The feeling, already mysterious and ominous, is enhanced with the introduction of the rhythmic plucking of another stringed instrument, building up the tempo. There is not much time to dwell on these sensations though because Min Yoongi comes in almost immediately, his “yeah, yeah, yeah,” quickly counting us into the repetitive refrain in Korean:
“This song is a haegeum. Get on it now.
Bustling rhythm, maybe
this would also be another haegeum”
The double meaning of the word “haegeum” comes to play from the start, referring to the traditional instrument, and the second meaning, the “lifting of a ban/prohibition,” on which he then elaborates extensively in the verses.
“For those living in this unfortunate era who don’t even understand their own tastes
this song is simply freeing the forbidden
But I truly hope you differentiate freedom from self-indulgence”
Using Korean traditional instruments and sung entirely in Korean, the song evokes a distant past and a history of long-held traditions while at the same time using those sounds and instruments to proclaim liberation from the shackles of the past and the present (“Slaves to capitalism, slaves to money/Slaves to hatred, prejudice, and revulsion/Slaves to YouTube, slaves to flexing”). The video, a cinematic work of brilliant storytelling, is inspired by film noir and Hong Kong gangster movies, two highly subversive genres, which further foreground the mix of past and modern elements that come together in the message and sound of the song.
Adding more complexity to the already rich musical and visual offering, the video is a continuation of the story Min Yoongi first introduced in the video for “Daechwita,” where we first saw the splitting of the Agust D personas into deadly antagonists. In the video for “Haegeum,” a song with a pointed anti-conformist and anti-capitalist message, Agust D is both criminal and law (a mafia boss type detective). The twist is that the criminal is the agent of liberation of all that is prohibited (“the lifting of the ban”) and the law is the representation of the corrupt and decaying capitalist system we all, including successful artist Min Yoongi, must function within. Echoing the theme of the more melancholic “Polar Night” later in the album, “Haegeum” also confronts the paradox of living in the digital age: how the vast amounts of information available at our fingertips cloud rather than illuminate our knowledge and opinions, turning us into easily manipulated and divisive creatures.
Similar to the effect of using traditional Korean instruments in multiplying meaning is Min Yoongi’s collaboration with the late Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto in “Snooze.” The penultimate song on the album, “Snooze” is the poignant climax of the album.
The song features an evocative piano sample by Sakamoto over which Yoongi builds a hypnotic beat to lay out some of his most affecting lyrics. In numerous interviews and features about the album, Min Yoongi has explained that he wrote this song thinking of the young artists and musicians making their way in the music industry today to offer them the solace and support he himself did not receive in his early days as an idol and musician.
Intense and melancholic, the song carries the weight of a million disappointments and heartbreaks and dreams of a future that will spare others the same pain. The symbolism of working with Sakamoto is rich: This is a song where Min Yoongi, an artist who has reached a level of success that is difficult to emulate, nurtures and encourages those coming behind him, and in which he himself collaborates with an artist–an eminence–who inspired him since childhood. It’s the act of a torch being passed with compassion and generosity.
The song’s exquisite chorus is sung by WOOSUNG from The Rose, every element, from the haunting minor chord progression and melody to the touching and poetic lyrics, delivered with supreme elegance by the singer.
An already profoundly moving song, “Snooze” reaches its emotionally devastating peak when Min Yoongi, after repeating the words “다 괜찮아질 거야” (It’s all gonna be alright) sixteen times, brings back a slightly modified verse from his 2018 song “So Far Away.”
“Dream, I hope it to be there with you at your creation and at the end of your life
Dream, I hope it to be generous to you wherever you stand
Dream, I hope it to be in full bloom eventually at the end of hardships Dream, the beginnings will seem humble, so prosperous will the future be”
“Dream,” he says in English before delivering the second phrase in Korean, words so important that he brings them back almost intact from a previous song as if to reiterate his determined intention and desire to prevent others from suffering. And as he also said during his press tour for D-Day, this song is not only for those aspiring musicians and artists but for all those who dare to dream, who are sacrificing and working hard to realize what may seem an impossible dream, for those who are choosing to follow a difficult path.
Thus, surprisingly, the overall message of D-Day as an album, with its more gentle meditative tracks like “SDL” (Somebody does love) and “People Pt. 2,” is one of embracing tenderness in a harsh, cynical word. Over and over, song after song, he rejects the darkest impulses of humanity and how they reflect in society: fear and hatred of the other, jealousy, envy, ignorance, lack of personal convictions, values, and opinions, herd mentality; and in doing so he advocates for the human being, the individual, the artist being attacked from all sides until they lose their humanity.
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Agust D is Min Yoongi’s fiercest persona, though SUGA of BTS is no less biting when needed. What is admirable, is that that fierceness is many times self-directed, Min Yoongi’s clear-eyedness absolute not only in seeing the world but also himself and his place in it.
Similar to BTS’ discography, Min Yoongi doesn’t craft indiscriminate, vague messages—the emotional depth comes from the sharpness of his targets: the fury of “HUH?!”—featuring fiery but eerily controlled verses by band member and rapper j-Hope—is for those who have disrespected him, his music and his band; the tenderness of “Snooze” for those coming behind him whom he wants to protect; the triumph of “D-Day” for himself, for having survived a life-worth of pain and challenges; the mournful warning of “Polar Night” for all of us, him included.
A sense of fairness pervades Min Yoongi’s perspective as Agust D, and because of this, the album never alienates the listener. Rather, it inspires, challenges, soothes, rouses, and calls to action. Most of all, it shows respect. Although difficult to listen to at times because of the dark places it takes the listener, D-Day is ultimately about being on the other side of depression, anger, trauma, and pain—the feeling of having survived and the lightness of heart that brings. It’s about the potential within all of us to be better, kinder, more compassionate, better human beings. A final message is also more personal, though it’s shared by one person and directed to millions of people, BTS fans, ARMY.
“I’ll borrow this music and tell you
People say the world has changed
Thankfully, between you and I, it’s still the same”
The lyrics, both from the BTS song “Life Goes On,” and Min Yoongi’s version of the same song that closes the D-Day album, gently reassure the listener once again of our shared journey: time has passed, people and the world have changed, time will continue to pass, but our humanity, our bond, is eternal.
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All lyric translations and translation interpretation by Doolset Lyrics. Translation of Min Yoongi’s Apple Music Radio episode by @MINSUGAHQ.
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