billlie deserves all their flowers
a year of beautiful thinking with billlie's 'the billage of perception: chapter 3'
hello hello! can you believe march is already coming to an end… april is almost upon us… i hope this month has been good to you and that you are all staying safe and resting well! i visited home last week and just hermited for a bit, and it was quite nice.
onto today’s much-anticipated topic (anticipated by me)… happy 1-year anniversary to one of the best EPs to ever exist!! i’ve been trying to write this substack entry for a whole year and i am finally, finally getting around to it. i’ve come to terms with the fact that there’s not much my words can do to do this album justice — it’s just so good, that all i hope my words do is bring you to listen to it yourself.
“the billage of perception: chapter 3” is the latest record released with all seven members of kpop girl group billlie, and it has been ranked as #15 in billboard’s best k-pop albums of 2023 as well as nominated for ‘best k-pop album’ at the 2024 korean music awards — next to newjeans and jungkook, among others! the album traverses a wide spread of genres, from synth-pop to latin hip-hop to reggaeton to r&b, adding another whimsical volume to their bibliography.
this entry will briefly introduce the group’s lore, discuss this lore in regards to this album, and also features my overall billlie discography top 10 ranking at the end!
on loss, grief, and the courage to continue on
In their story’s legend, when the 11th bell rings in the middle of a purple rain something strange will unfurl. To keep the strange event a secret, the girls will lie about what actually happened.
[for people unfamiliar with kpop: a lot of kpop groups have fictional lore attached to them — as in they are given a storyline that defines their group and their discography. (for example, the girl group aespa’s ‘lore’ is that the four members are synced to virtual versions of themselves, called æs.) this lore is explained through their various promotional content and their music’s lyrics. that’s what i’m talking about here!! now back to billlie]
with each of their “billage of perception" albums, the friend group ‘billlie’ ventures through the same general storyline in multiple universes. in each universe, the story starts when their friend Billlie Love goes missing. only the girls know what happened on the day Billlie Love disappeared, though they also don’t have all the details. sometimes they’re the direct cause of her disappearance; other times, they’ve left Billlie Love behind while running away from a dangerous situation.
all of the albums explore the night of Billlie Love’s disappearance and the secrets circling it. as more time passes, the group slowly starts to lose their memories of their dear friend. each chapter shows a different perception of this event: the convoluted feelings attached to losing a loved one, the guilt of their involvement, the guilt of forgetting — and how to process it all and go on with your life.
I remember vividly that we used to laugh so much, back then. But there are some things I can’t remember, like the clothes we wore, or the conversations we shared. Maybe that ambiguity is what makes it more dazzling; maybe that’s what memory is, that dazzling ambiguity.
— Billlie | 'enchanted night ~ 白夜' : a prequel film of Billage of perception
“the billage of perception: chapter 3” is especially pertinent to the memory-loss aspect of grief, and more than the other installments tries to encapsulate the healing process from this guilt. in their title track EUNOIA — from the greek word meaning ‘beautiful thinking’ — the group tells themselves to embrace even their most regretful aspects, to live as truthfully as they can. their b-side track extra-ordinary shows them processing how their friend has changed and how they want to help them return to their ordinary, extraordinary self. the last track on the album, nevertheless, depicts the struggle of staying connected to old friends when you’re both getting pulled away into different universes. you’ve both changed, and are losing sight of each other, and maybe you’ll greet each other as better versions of yourselves someday — but right now you have to move on, nevertheless.
there are so many things i love about this album, from how the song titles create an acrostic for the word “eleven” — a number crucial to their lore — to the overall daringness of each song’s instrumentation. perhaps what i love most about it, though, is its message of forgiveness amidst the grief.
while researching, i came across album details for tbop:c3 on the streaming service site melon, where each song has a paragraph describing its message. under EUNOIA, they write: do you know the best way to start understanding yourself? by forgiving yourself for what you’ve done; by forgiving yourself for who you are.
in becoming one with grief, you’re not losing the person you once were; you’re absorbing it as a part of yourself. it reminds me of that idea that we are every age we’ve ever been all at once — from this short story by sandra cisneros, which funnily enough, is titled ‘eleven’: what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. … because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. this is what moving on is: cradling all of our past dolls inside ourselves as we continue to grow. our mistakes and broken pieces still contribute to the mosaic of our bodies.
something else i’ve come to appreciate more as time passes is the longevity of the album’s message, especially with the unfortunate context it found itself in with the passing of member moon sua’s brother moon bin (astro) just a few weeks after the album’s release. loss is never easy; it comes with so much grief, often anger and speculation, regret about what you did or didn’t do when you were still with them, and an eventual distance from their memory.
but loss can also strengthen the bonds with those still close to you, can shine a new light on your previous memories, comfort you when you remember the warmth of their love. all of our lost ones are like stars; even though we know they’ve already left our universe, their light still reaches us years into the future, guiding us through the rest of our journey. i hope this beautiful album comforts the seven girls of billlie as they go through their own grievances — that the messages they sent out to their fans also comes back to them, informing them in their lives outside of being ‘billlie.’
top 10 billlie songs, the aufferings official ranking
if you’re looking for somewhere to start with listening to billlie outside of just this album, here is my ranking of my favorite billlie songs!!! here are playlist links so you can listen along: spotify, youtube
star — while writing this i found out that this song is actually not an original but a cover… original song is by heize! but it really fits billlie and their universe so well, i just love this song and their version of it. the lyrics kind of relate to the star symbolism i was describing above!
heize often co-composes with another artist i love named davii, who also contributed to this song! of course he did, what a delight to find this out. if you’re on the hunt for new, non-billlie music, i recommend his songs “angel” and “remember (feat. haeun)”
B’rave ~ a song for Matilda — something about this song scratches an itch. i think it’s because the beat punches in all of the right places. this is from “the billage of perception: chapter 2,” and i think the carnival/eerie whimsical nature of this album really comes through the soundscape used here!
various and precious (moment of inertia) — a song dedicated to billlie’s fans! it holds such an uplifting message and also is just so fun. a little skip in your step. you are so special, so true!
extra-ordinary — every song except one off of tbop:c3 is on this list (sorry lionheart, you’re great too). this song packs so much attitude and confidence; it really has such a strong drive all the way through. i do love billlie for their lyrics, but i think their instrumental, intonation, and groove are what i love most about their songs, and this is a prime example of that
nevertheless — oh my god. the zenith of this song!!! it sets the mood and then strings you along for the most amazing ride about longing and regret and needing to move on. there is so much pain and confusion laden in the vocals, but also i’m jamming? i am pacing around the room!!! it’s just so good!!!
BYOB (bring your own best friend) — UGH!!! this is girlhood!! this song is so fun. both the korean and english versions have such sapphic undertones, and the instrumental in general has such a dreamy whimsical violet hue about it that’s irresistible. they filmed part of this music video in a grocery store and that’s perfect for this honestly. ‘BYOB: bring your own best friend / BYOB, without your boyfriend’ sooo true
my B = the Birth of emotion — what the hell. this song is phenomenal. it’s like if someone put gum in your ears and kept stretching it in and out of your earholes and somehow that created the most buzzy, headscratching static sound ever. i almost put this as my number 1 song which i know is strange because it’s at number 4 and not 2 but that’s just how good billlie is
enchanted night ~ white night — loved this song so much i read the book that it’s inspired by and hated the book so much i wrote an essay on how much i hated it. reacttothek’s kevin said this gave off boy group song vibes and i get it
EUNOIA — this was my top song on spotify wrapped last year! i used to think it was because it’s the title track that i listened to it so much, but i’ve come to realize i just love the song. there are so many separate parts that come to form this confetti-bursting youthful conglomerate of a song that i love to bop to
fl!pping a coin — this song makes me jump like no other. i should not listen to this in the car or else i will speed. i kept flip-flopping (reference to this song and ‘eunoia’ hahaha billlie pun central) what to put in this number 1 spot, and i finally landed here because the layers of detail this song has is unmatched. the coin rolling from one ear to the other, the vvvvveeeeeerrrr of a car going back at the height of the song’s bridge, the percussive vocals and their intonations — it all meshes together so well. i can really imagine a casino scene and a high-speed car chase at the same time
thank you for reading if you’ve made it this far!!! this piece is very self-indulgent; i love this album so much and i hope you come to love it too. goodbye for now, i hope these last few days of march are good to you! and stream billlie… <3
this was a really nice piece to read :') i've been sitting in my grief recently as some death anniversaries have passed for my loved ones so this was very timely and resonated a lot. i love the piece you said about passed love ones being like stars shining into our lives even past death...that's so true and a beautiful way of looking at it!! also thank u for expanding upon the billlie lore bc that's such a cool concept like absolutely sickening... love parallel universes with a bit of a crazed and eerie yet fun vibe... i will be listening to their albums with a changed perspective now <3
this was written so well and it’s so nice to read about billie as someone who got into them because of you posting them. i’m still pretty new to billie but i can confidently say that i think they will totally be on my most listened to artists this year. just want to say thank you for introducing billie to me 🫶🏼