ATEEZ Will Lead You to the Light

Photo courtesy of KQ Entertainment

ATEEZ wants you to open your eyes. 

“Did you see the new Spider-Man: No Way Home?” Yuno asked a reporter this year. “His famous line is, ‘With great power comes great responsibility.’ We have more and more fans coming in, and we want to carry that responsibility well.” 

It’s hard to believe but just three years ago ATEEZ played small clubs on a North American tour. The pandemic changed things for the boys. As the world shuttered us inside, many went to YouTube and discovered the theatrical, wild world of ATEEZ. “During these last two years, we’ve been able to have more fans that have never seen them in person and through this concert we want to show them who ATEEZ is,” Wooyoung told Paper magazine this year. “To see them through videos and to see them in person is another feeling, another experience that we want the fans to witness, and then get into what is ATEEZ even more.” 

As their profile has grown, so have the group’s themes. Their previous album, “FEVER: EPILOGUE” brilliantly traced the loneliness and fear we experience in our youth. The epilogue stands as one of my favorite releases of this year. It is poignant and hopeful, perfect for the chilly winter it was released into. 

But ATEEZ dials up the heat with their latest offering. On “THE WORLD EP 1: THE MOVEMENT '' the boys become cyberpunks intent on breaking you out of the darkness. If their last album allowed the group to name their vulnerabilities and self-doubts, THE MOVEMENT opens with a mission to break free. “This place where no one will be sad is full of lies,” Yunho sings. “I just wanna feel alive/ Don’t wanna stay in the dark.” 

The boys hit hard with “Guerilla”, the throbbing lead single with a nasty beat. The boys declare that music is their weapon to fight the darkness. “Dance, break that wall with our feelings,” they commanded in the chorus. “Spread it out, guerilla.” Break the wall, they shout. Get out of your boxes and see the light. “We will change the world, we’re the guerillas.” While I can practically feel the sweat dripping from the song, ATEEZ’s strength doesn’t come from a traditional form of masculinity, but from embracing their feelings.

This dichotomy is something I’ve grown to love about ATEEZ: While K-Pop boy groups have grown harder and have shied away from the softer concepts, ATEEZ has asked their listeners to dig deeper. Listen to their lyrics and you’ll find boys who are grappling with issues of identity and self-worth. But they’re fighting through it. They believe Atiny, their fanbase, can too. 

At first listen “THE MOVEMENT” might seem like a diversion from the boys’ previous album. On tracks like “Guerilla” or “Cyberpunk”, the verses and beats suckerpunch you. But the themes of self love abound in this work too. ATEEZ simply picks up where the story left off. This time, though, they are intent on causing a disturbance. 

I like guys who talk back. I am one. Tell me I can’t do something and I’ll prove to you why you’re wrong. Being quiet is not in my nature. In ATEEZ’s work, I see sketches of myself, particularly in this latest release. Throughout “THE MOVEMENT”, the boys ask listeners to wake up to the world around them and embrace who they are. For queer listeners like myself, it’s had to not feel a sense of representation in the lyrics. 

“Why are you hesitating?” Wooyoung asks in “New World.” Don’t hide it. Don’t fight it.”

I came out in college. I had known for years but being in art school, with hundreds of freaks who looked like me and talked like me, I found that the truth was inescapable. The hardest part, as it is for so many queer people, was to simply admit it to myself and to put aside my own internal homophobia. 

“Hey can’t you see?” Yunho asks in the same song. “That ray of light?”

Before coming out, the light was so dim. And then my world exploded into colors. 

I had one professor in college who changed my life. She taught philosophy and the same year I came out, she asked us to read Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave.” The story is simple: a group of prisoners have been chained inside of a cave for their entire lives. Behind the prisoners is a fire which projects shadows of puppets, but because the prisoners have been chained facing the same direction their whole lives, they don’t know that what they are seeing is, in fact, a lie. 

The story asks what would happen if a prisoner was released. What would they see? How would they adapt to reality? Would it be too scary? Plato theorized that overcome with the fullness of life, the prisoner would likely return to set others free. In queer-world, we believe that our represtation or visiblity allows us to liberate others.

When Jungho declares that he just wants to feel alive, I think of my own story. The dark can be comforting, but stepping into the light is essential for survival. 

Turbulence”, the title track from the epilogue, is my favorite song from ATEEZ. The boys’ raw, phenomenal performance sells a song about the fear we all experience when we begin to accept and love ourselves. But by THE MOVEMENT, the eight members have begun to see there is a strength in admitting you’re not okay. They even see some power in it. The problem, as ATEEZ sees it, is being silent about your pain. “We are the rebellious generation,” Mingi warns in “The Ring. “We’re a problem.” Break the cycle, the boys encourage us. Shout out how you’re feeling and cause a scene. Be loud. 

ATEEZ’s form of rebellion is the most radical. It’s the kind that often gets us in the most trouble: It’s called advocating for ourselves.