Happy Birthday, SUGA!
This year, in addition to appreciation posts, we'll be rolling out small member events each birthday! Events will generally include a discussion prompt or two and/or other small things we can do to celebrate the members' special days.
Music That Moves Us
We all know how important music is to Yoongi. Whether it's lyrics that cut like a knife or words that soothe, our resident cat dad is a genius with a pen.
Yoongi's love of music goes beyond crafting bangers for ARMY, though. He also helped develop and fund the MIND program at Severance Hospital in Korea, a "group-based therapeutic model that integrates music into social communication training for children with ASD" Korea Biomedical Review (website).
With that in MIND (🤭), tell us about a time that music moved you. Share a song or group (BTS and otherwise!) or musical moment that has stayed with you. A moment that changed your mind or held you up or brought you comfort. Has music opened doors for you in the way Yoongi did with his students? In what way has music benefitted you socially? Have you built more connections or learned to better express yourself through music? Share your story in the comments!
Somebody Does Love…Local Artists
Yoongi has spoken about his wish to see and work with local artists. What local artist or little-known group would you want to introduce him to? Share your favorite song in the comments and we'll link a playlist here!
GIVEAWAY
Anyone who participates here is eligible to win a box of fan-made and other SUGA merch goodies!! If you're interested, add your name to this form. Winners will be chosen at random and notified via reddit DM. Winners must be willing to share their name and address with the mod team. Personal details will be deleted after prizes are sent. Giveaway open worldwide and will end on March 16.
A moment that I will always remember is HOTS in Goyang when Army sang along to Spring day… It always gives goosebumps.
Also the impact Mikrokosmos had on me when I first heard it performed on stage…
The music BTS makes isn’t just for us to listen to, it’s to feel it and that will always be incredible for me🫶🏻💜
Happy birthday to our talented cat dad, Yoongi!🤭💜
There’s a song called California Stars by Billy Bragg & Wilco. I heard it for the first time at a wedding when I was very young, probably 4-6 years old. But dancing at that wedding to that song has stuck with me my whole life. It’s one of my favorite comfort songs and I’ve always said that when I get married it will be the song I dance to with my dad and the reception.
Yoongi day! 😻
A musical memory that’s special: loving the music of a band, playing an album top to bottom over and over during a specific time in life, then getting to hear the music live. This experience is always moving and memorable, connecting old memories with new ones. I wish for us all to have it with Bangtan. But I also got to have it with my daughter. There was a Death Cab for Cutie album that was my soundtrack when she was a baby, that comforted me during stressful and sleepless times and that was also a fun road trip soundtrack for adventures we had living in Europe. Fast forward to when she’s 18 and we took her with us to see them live here on the East Coast. So much had changed in that time but music was a shared throughline. (And not only do they write incredible lyrics and music but they’re awesome live.)
A song I’d want to share or recommend is also an older one, from a band from my college days: cathedrals by jump little children.
In addition to several BTS songs having become core parts of my self, music has always been incredibly important to me. ‘Clocks’ by Coldplay was the first song I remember throwing open something very wide for me, and it became a really special song for me and my mom (and kickstarted my love of Coldplay lol).
‘Skydiving’ by Lights was and is another one. The album dropped just before I quit a very toxic work environment and traveled to where my grandma’s family came from, and although I love that album (Skin and Earth) front to back, Skydiving was something so special.
And now from BTS, Magic Shop and Take Two are some of my comfort songs, and from Yoongi specifically, Seesaw (especially the acoustic performance!) and Snooze have become really special.
Music unrelated to BTS:
[The Shepherd’s Boy](https://youtu.be/vAhnulFTYo8?is=JSMKXUAzJfu7yQEx) – Doctor Who Soundtrack… (The ending is a bit brutal, but matches the episode)
The leading theme from the episode Heaven Sent. When I watched the episode the first time, at some point it clicked that it is basically …grief. Pure grief. The repetitive cycle, and with every repetition you get a bit further in healing / moving on. And… 🤷♀️ I cried for the rest of the episode.
The music has the same pattern. Every repetition more / other instruments are added, more melody lines and elements, from simplicity to complexity and triumph (and then breaking ‘the Wall’ that kept you in the cycle, an ugly but needed break).
Music related to BTS:
**Snooze**. Hit me in many feels. (And let’s not talk about the last live version 🥺).
Introducing bands etc:
There’s a tiny country in Europe that is often confused with Slovakia.
Its name is … Slovenia 😅
And one of the for decades most known bands has a long term place in my heart.
Sharing one song from their (obligatory for every band worldwide back then) pandemic streaming concert. It hits in the feels even if you don’t understand the language
[Siddharta – Jaz](https://youtu.be/H6u1M2KHaZ4?t=84&is=I7s9JP4o7ZZIRCL1)
I’ve always listened to a lot of music from when I was a kid. I remember listening to the soundtrack of Titanic on tape over and over – I was fully obsessed with Celine Dion’s My Heart Will Go On to the point of acting out emotional scenes to this song in front of my parents. Music, along with books, have been an escape for me – a way of changing my mood, how I’m feeling, just by changing what song I’m listening to. I’ve always had broad musical tastes: pop, RnB, hip-hop, Bollywood, jazz, etc, and I love listening to new music.
It’s been a joy being a fan of music lovers like Suga and the other members of BTS!!
Happy Yoongi Day!!!
Thank you mods!!!
Happy birthday to the man who has been so inspirational to me, my bias. BTS has given me drive to pursue my happiness, and I almost can’t even believe how much of a like-minded soul Ive found in Yoongi. Our personalities are so alike that I see a reflection of myself whenever I see him, and it comforts me in a way that’s hard to understand.
I hope he knows how much he is loved. 🩷
Music has always been so important to me. I didn’t have the best childhood, and large portions of it were extremely isolated—I lived in a bad place on a dirt road and didn’t go to school and often had no internet (and when I did it was satellite lol if you know you know). I don’t think I would have made it out without going crazy if it hadn’t been for sporadic trips to the library with my grandma where I’d check out a gazillion CDs. The Beatles was the first thing I really connected with my brother about, too. I was obsessed with them and we used to dance together to I Want To Hold Your Hand lol.
More recently though I’ve been playing instruments! I’ve gotten to where I can play some really lovely music on tenor and alto recorder (including Pied Piper lmfaooo), though I still have a lot to learn. It’s a huge source of comfort and strength for me, and I feel like I can play out emotions I can’t talk about easily in these pieces, some of which date back to Medieval Europe. Idk I think that’s a really cool connection to have with people who lived so long ago. 😭 I met a really cool friend who I’ll cherish forever and who I instantly connected with through the recorder.
I had to stop my cello lessons because they were honestly big bucks lol but it was a part of my eating disorder treatment (also big bucks lol) and honestly speaking the most helpful part.
I really really really love that Yoongi has helped bring music to so many young people and helped them to find their own voices in that way. It’s such a powerful tool that it’s honestly shocking to me that it isn’t used more.
(I’m sorry I feel really lame gushing like this and I’m mildly embarrassed lol forgive me if this has been an awkward read)
For local recommendations, I don’t keep up on the local band scene, but I’d encourage everyone to check out their local university’s student and/or faculty recitals, which are usually both excellent and free, and local jazz clubs, which can range in price but is sometimes a very small cover fee and the vibes are immaculate. 🙂↕️