LOONA Wants You to Fly Like a “Butterfly”

“LOONA causes a butterfly effect through music for listeners to gain courage, find oneself and raise one’s voice.” Enough said. Okay, confession time, this was the first LOONA song that I have ever listened to, and I am impressed. Let's take a deeper look at LOONA’s music video for “Butterfly.”

The Song

“Butterfly” is the title song on the LOONA mini album [+ +] . At surface the level, the song is already gorgeous, with simple percussion and a wispy melody that makes the listener feel lighter than air. The lyrics of the song are full of hope and self love. The chorus of the song includes the lyrics “fly like a butterfly,” in English. The message of the song is to spread your wings and fly—pursue the dreams despite what others say or what stands in your way. This message is easy to see even if the music video did not have the English translation of the lyrics. This song is one I am going to add to my heavy rotations playlist.

The Video

Like the rest of the videos created in the LOONAverse, the team behind the “Butterfly” music video is DIGIPEDI. DIGIPEDI is the team responsible for many popular music videos such as “Born Hater” by Epik High, “Catallena” by Orange Caramel, “Dream Girl” by SHINee, and “Up & Down” by EXID.

While filming the music video, DIGIPEDI traveled to five different countries on five different continents; Hong Kong, China, Iceland, the United States, and France. They invited people of all races and religions to participate in the creation of the music video. Most noticeably was the inclusion of the gorgeous woman in a Hijab—I cannot think of any other music video in the K-Pop world that has included a woman wearing a headcovering. That alone made me so proud of this music video. These actors were featured in different scenes, such as a girl dancing down the middle of an empty street and the powerful image of students all climbing to the top of their desks (similar to a scene from the movie Dead Poets Society). All the images that DIGIPEDI put together all pushed for a message of self love and empowerment. I am so impressed with how they juxtaposed all the images from across the world into one cohesive story.

Digging a little deeper, the shots of these different people from across the world were spliced between shots of the members of LOONA. The colors of the music video depended on the location being shown: some scenes featured bright, vivid colors while others used muted pastels and monochrome pallets. The curious thing of this video is that it focuses on the other actors more than the members of LOONA. However, when we do see the LOONA members, they are dancing in a massive open space that looks colosseum-esque and is painted in pastel purple and blues with hints of greens for the majority of the video; other scenes are stark white with the girls dressed head to toe in black.

The imagery and visuals in this video were stunning, and I had to watch it countless times in order to do a proper review. I think my favorite thing about this music video is the fact that they included the credits in the music video. Every person who participated in the creation of the music video was listed, which is something I appreciate.

Final Thoughts

As someone who had never seen or heard anything from the LOONAverse, I can say I am very impressed with the work and message of the lyrics that they shared with their fans. Girl groups with powerful and engaging lyrics are something we so desperately need. Idol girl groups can spearhead ideas of self love and empowerment for girls everywhere. I think that I am ready to learn more about these wonderful girls and eventually…#StanLOONA.