Nothing is more powerful than love, that’s all that matters. — 창섭 오빠, Show Your Love 2020

Right now, I am in the phase of my life where I am obsessed with this person (a South Korean idol) by the name of Lee Chang Sub. I vaguely remember when this all started. The culprit is BTOB 4U’s Show Your Love era. The song is really quite pretty, a vibe, so I got hooked. Changsub oppa’s notoriety as a funny man was already pretty established by this time too, what with the BTOB boys finishing up their mandatory military service. My favour and bias towards funny man overtook any other criteria at that point of time, so I gave them (BTOB) a little chance and tried to get into them.

I’ll be honest – It was not until BTOB’s appearance on Dingo’s Killing Verse that I finally started to get in deep. I was a casual fan, but their vocals and performance skills cemented them almost immediately in my top 3 Korean idol groups. There is no particular order because it is difficult to choose, but my current top 3 are Dreamcatcher, GOT7, and BTOB. For some reason, I feel like these groups are not popular and recognised enough in South Korea. They are hardly in the mainstream conversations of, say, “Idols with Best Live Vocals” or even “Best Performance Idols”. That in itself is such a crime and I want to protect these kids a lot more.

For one thing, it is not wise to assume that the likes of B.A.P, INFINITE, or SHINEE have been forgotten by me. I think it has a lot to do with where I am today – age, period, generation, point in life, emotional needs, etc. Dreamcatcher has absolutely no skippable tracks. BTOB’s maturity in their discography is commendable because, after Pray (I’ll Be Your Man), their discography controlled by Hyunsik hits a specific spot for my 30+ year old heart. The emotions these 2 groups exude in their songs have got a strong hold of me. GOT7 remains precious because they were the first proper stan, what with all my collection of their albums and merch in the span of 3-5 months?

So once I start diving into BTOB, I was hooked onto Changsub oppa. It became an obsession, but it felt like it was meant to be. The 3 previous boy groups I mentioned just moments ago are pretty obviously my oppas. They are a lot older, but BTOB is not. The three older brother of BTOB – Eunkwang, Minhyuk, and Changsub – are the only oppas. The remaining four younger brothers are my juniors in age. It feels like I can assimilate myself amongst them better if my dreamer ass’ wish ever comes true that I get to hang out with them lolol

Changsub’s vocals and emotional delivery were the first things I noticed. What got him settled as my ultimate bias though was his personality. He is the very ideal man I had always hoped to find. Sure, he isnt stunningly handsome, but he is handsome enough. There is something so humane but magical about his entire being that I am so fucking obsessed.

BTOB’s latest comeback as a complete(?) team of six on 2nd May, their album Wind and Wish, revealed to me just how much I really adored Changsub oppa and the entire BTOB boys. Upon first listen, the track that I needed to loop immediately after was titled “Your Love”. There is a particular nostalgic, fluffy, tugging feeling when I listened to the song. Changsub oppa opened the song; one of countless BTOB songs that he starts on. You know it’s gonna be a great song when Changsub oppa starts the song.

Before all this, I only loved the national songs of BTOB: Missing You, and Beautiful Pain. Beautiful Pain truly lived up to its name because it’s difficult to acknowledge it as one of BTOB’s signature songs when the original track is missing one member, Eunkwang oppa, because he was in the military. Truth be told, cross my heart, I often find myself mindlessly singing Beautiful Pain’s opening verse. It carries that much emotion that I cannot help but to latch onto it everytime I needed to belt out an itch.

There was another song that grew onto me almost immediately, but understand that it’s strange for me to put it that way. The reason is because I never really thought I’d like <Pray (I’ll Be A Man)> as much as I do now. All it took was for me to watch a recent video showing them performing it live. Understand that this particular song was from 2016, so the growth and maturity of their vocals and performance had yet to peak. While I could appreciate their vocal gymnastics and harmonies, I’d mistakenly assumed they were not gonna be able to pull it off beyond that year/period. I was proved wrong because immediately after that, the National Songs of BTOB came in droves! After much digging and consuming their content – boy, do they have a lot of content!! I am so excited to crawl through slowly – I came across the next best, under-appreciated song: Finale (Show and Prove).

The epic quality of this song is only evident through Live Performances, where all the members are present. I saw one video of their recent, 2023 New Year Concert, and it was so epic. Despite the video being a proper authentic fancam, it did not betray the kind of majestic grandeur the song was actually capable of – something that Kingdom, the survival show where it originated from, cannot deliver. While I love Changsub oppa in his every versions and entirety, when you need a solid bass to open the song after Peniel’s intro, Hyunsik is the man. Dont be mistaken though, Im not saying Changsub oppa cannot deliver the opening. Instead, <Finale (Show and Prove)>’s first singing verse just needs the pure bass. Changsub oppa actually proved he’s got one of the widest, most stable range in the group but for the sake of the grandness of the song, one needs to start it strong and low. So you bring in Hyunsik the master baritone in the group.

Essentially, BTOB is added into my way of life. They have definitely helped me through some parts of my life as of May 2023, and the instant change is in how happy and light-hearted I am. BTOB was able to return some vitality to me that’s befitting of this point in my life right now… something that GOT7 is slightly lacking for now though I cannot blame them since they are going through the storm of military enlistment periods~~

If anything, these 3 groups have proved to me true, safe friendships actually exist. Really nice, good people exist regardless of the camera recording. These people… they are just genuinely sofa king nice and it puts my heart at ease. So much peace that I have begun to incorporate their personas as motivation and inspiration in my daily life.

I cannot fuss over Changsub oppa enough. He has my entire heart and this is just wild to me. I need to witness his every move, track down every video of him, trace his every activities, and just consume all content on YouTube about him. His solo discography is also brilliant. This man is a full package: an artist, a superb vocalist, a musical performer, a clown, a swag dancer, a kind human, a giving human, an incredibly patient and wild individual, and most importantly, a warm person.

Lee Chang Seob. You are so damn beautiful.
I'm gonna need to look for images of all the concepts you have done because right now, I cannot get enough of you huehuehue

Labels: Born to Beat, BTOB, Changsub oppa, Lee Changsub, 오빠, 이창섭, 창섭 오빠