so to preface this entire thing, it's VERY late. i'm naturally more rambly. i probably make very little sense when explaining my logic. i'm hyper-fixating on one of the least important versus of all time, but got a lot of enjoyment out of doing so. there's a TLDR on the bottom, if you just want to know my conclusion and maybe join in on the debate.
i've been watching videos to try to exhaust myself enough to pass out and all, but i somehow came across a "save one drop the other bts edition" video and one of rounds was epiphany vs euphoria. pretty easy, you would say, because it's just a matter of which song you prefer more. but oh boy, the next hundred words or so will tell you that lil ol me can't just pick one when i genuinely don't feel a personal bias gravitating me for picking one over the other. i thought this whole thought process on how i ended up on my final choice was kind of fun and cute, so i hope you enjoy reading my internal debate over these two songs :-D maybe leave your opinions too or leave other song versus just for discussion sake (,:
so first, i decided to weigh the pros of both songs, taking into account the song on its own, the music video, and then the live performance. (yes, i was in an actual dilemma over this for no reason and weighed pros and cons.)
euphoria is generally a better song to actually listen to casually, given epiphany has a much more drama ost style to it. and it also has a much better, warmer music video to watch since it's all of bts just being all cute together accompanied by a lot of good nostalgia. when performed live, it had little value in the LY tour, since it was just jungkook in a white suit dancing with a couple of back up dancers and all that jazz.
but SY tour did NOT come to play. it had the addition of the whole jungkook flying gimmick, but honestly? i feel it no real value or reason to be there. yes, it's fun and allows for bigger stadiums to give the people in nose bleeds to at least see one of their members a little better. and yes, using all equipment in a large arena to give a wowing performance also makes people talk more about bts to get more media attention, but the bouncy house and the big tigers already did that so the flying only added a little tiny bit more to that shock factor. and even then, i only saw the whole flying thing be a big deal amongst army, whereas someone who knew i went to the concert asked me bouncy house because it was such a big deal in the media for a hot second. flying could be connected to the idea of euphoria with a whole "oh you make me feel like i'm flying/up in the clouds" sort of concept and, as stated previously, does have a good amount of shock value for people who didn't know he would fly, but doesn't actually utilise any of jungkook's non-performing talents (besides bravery maybe lol) that they definitely could use. it just felt like an unnecessary way to spice up a song, but it definitely did spice it up and did hype the concert more, so props for that.
now epiphany? ooohhh boy. this is where i start straying from the three main categories of actual song, MV, and live performance. i thought a lot about the concept of epiphany and euphoria, then decided that epiphany's concept and whole idea is a lot more deep. let me explain.
first of all, i want to start off with awake, seokjin's wings solo. i find that awake is about becoming self aware to your limits and viewing that idea in a negative light, with thoughts like "maybe i can never fly/maybe i can never though the sky." and, of course, it's the whole finale to the hyyh era (-ish), so it's naturally connected with that whole shindig.
now, for LY as a whole. i view LY as a story of falling in and out of love in terms of the vocalist solo songs. serendipity is the kind of quiet before the storm song, or maybe the "finding the one" song, with stuff like "love me now/touch me now/just let me love you," showing desire for someone but no actual evidence of reciprocation. euphoria is the second part, the "go get the girl" song, where they've gotten together and are in the honeymoon phase and stuff (obviously connected to "you're the cause of my euphoria.") somewhere, i read that euphorias are temporary, and that idea will come back, so remember it. next, comes the crash and burn, which is singularity, or just LY: tear as a whole because of fake love and tear also having very "falling out of love" ideas.
finally, epiphany. the awakening, realising that you come before love. i think epiphany connects to awake in the sense that they're both kind of about becoming self aware, but this time it's less in a negative light and has a much better message. it's no longer yearning to be what you're not and wishing for more, no, now it's the idea of accepting who you are and indulging in self love. of course, LY: answer as a whole has that entire idea with i'm fine being the uplifting sequel to the tragic song save me is and the outro love myself song, but i still find it very important that epiphany has such a nice connection with awake and has a growth sort of message.
you could always argue that begin is definitely connected to euphoria, with begin being about jungkook's hyungs making him... for a lack of better words, begin his adulthood, and euphoria is kind of a coming of age song, showing he has reached the skies all thanks to his hyungs helping him begin. but, just the idea in general that euphorias are a temporary feeling of happiness and will eventually end is kind of tragic, to a certain degree. it's like saying, "yes, bts is at an all time high right now and is doing amazing, but one day they will disband and it will all end. their success is only temporary. it's euphoric." whereas epiphany is a much less personal to bts kind of message.
anywayssss, the fact that epiphany shows growth leads me segway to my major tie breaker, the live performance of epiphany. now, you might say, "but euphoria is so much better of a stage performance!" and yes, you're definitely right. it's always been a good perfomance, but has grown in its own right.
but that's the thing, epiphany had a history in LY of being a kind of hard to watch performance, with seokjin somewhat struggling to get out those high notes at the beginning of the tour. i personally know little about singing and never noticed it being even a inklet as bad as people played it out to be, but that whole thing reminded me a lot of stigma, which is my favourite song, being very heavily critiqued for being a poor live performance because of taehyung struggling to hit those high notes. however, both eventually improved, with taehyung releasing singularity and that having massive live performance success. but with epiphany, we have been able to SEE it improve from each performance right in front of our eyes. we've seen the beginning of LY to the end and how much better it got, and it's. still. getting. better. just something about seokjin showing a certain amount of humanity through his journey of improvement is so enjoyable to watch. it feels like what epiphany is, like he's embracing himself and just working with what he's got, rather than fighting his limits (like the idea of awake) and falling flat.
and also! he plays the piano on stage! sure, that isn't as impressive as choreographed dancing, but it shows an outside talent from bts' requirements as kpop idols, and i love that.
also, the whole dramatic aspect of epiphany's performance in SY hit a lot harder for me than euphoria just because nobody talked about epiphany and how amazing it was. i guess if i didn't know about jungkook, i would've felt a lot more strongly for euphoria, but i would've had to actually have had to go a step and beyond to avoid that spoiler. for epiphany, i've never seen an entire stadium of people fall to dead silence like in that moment. and that's impressive (-:
so TLDR; euphoria has points for being a better music video, but epiphany takes the cake for its unspoiled shocking live performance and message.
in conclusion, e̶p̶i̶p̶h̶a̶n̶y̶ ̶w̶o̶n̶ i have too much time on my hand and just essentially bullshitted 1K words of fake ass song analysis that is definitely incorrect but sits warm and cozy with me.
hmu with your opinions on this topic !
i'm going to go rest now, hope you all are having a great week and great summer. i'll be updating something tomorrow (hopefully, if i don't forget,,) (-:
