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Dreamcatcher’s “Summer Holiday” Release Week Spoils Fans With Content, BEcause Reasons

Frank Sanchez

Frank Sanchez

— 7 min read

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

K-Pop’s resident rock/pop girl group blitzed fans with the final lead-up to “Summer Holiday”, with title track “BEcause” taking the lead.

Dreamcatcher’s group pic for M! Countdown, July 29th, 2021. Credit: hf_dreamcatcher
Note: Dreamcatcher is officially on the comeback trail, and there are many ways to support the group — be sure to check them out and pick what you want to do!

Comeback release week is always busy for a group, with the final lead up and hype-building culminating in an album release and a bunch of content surrounding all the excitement from fans for new music. In this respect, Dreamcatcher is no exception to other K-Pop groups out there. That said, the sheer amount of content leading up to release this week was nothing short of gargantuan, with the group and Dreamcatcher Company delivering a plethora of stuff for fans. There’s a ton to recap this week, so let’s get right into all of the fun leading up to and right after the release of Dreamcatcher’s latest album, “Summer Holiday”.

The week happened to coincide with our first video and audio indications of what “Summer Holiday” had in store for us, and the Lyrics Spoiler, MV Teaser, Highlight Medley, and Dance Preview all did their respective parts in adding tiny parts and pieces to the puzzle of the album. With the track list and concept pictures revealed, lots of speculation showed up about what a Dreamcatcher summer album would look like, and some even thinking that we might get a severe departure from what we’re used to. While some “darker” concept pictures from last week seemed to alleviate this a bit, there were still nagging doubts.

These were, of course, erased gradually. The lyrics spoiler hinted of a light and peppy track, but after a week of bright ocean blue presented a blood red and black background that definitely hinted at something a bit more sinister, something which was confirmed in the MV Teaser, which depicted what appeared to be an abandoned carnival and some pretty disturbing smiles from the members as they stared into the camera. More importantly, the MV Teaser definitively showed that at least on some level, we were getting core Dreamcatcher rock/pop, with the heavy guitars and drums layered over a head-banging beat.

The Highlight Medley, as always, provided a nice insight into what the full album would look like. What we got was a peek into a hugely varied album with a bunch of different sounds, both old and new. “Intro” provided the disturbing carnival-like leadup to title track “BEcause”, “Airplane” seemed like the opposite end of what came before it, “Whistle” gave off some dance club vibes, “Alldaylong” drifted into JiU’s desired citypop territory, and “A Heart of Sunflower” filled the ballad slot with a plaintive melody and sound. Finally, though the Dance Preview didn’t quite give away as much as it usually does (more on that in a second), it did show off a disturbing, dark, mirror image vibe that gave hints of the MV to time. All in all, the official content did its job with building intrigue, interest, and excitement for Dreamcatcher’s 2nd comeback of the year.

I mentioned just now that the Dance Preview didn’t give too much that wasn’t already known. That’s because it came out on Thursday, after we saw content that displayed the choreography and the title track “BEcause” in its full glory. The reason for this was due to the unique schedule around release — the Olympics ensured that a bunch of music shows that Dreamcatcher would usually employ to promote the album would be cancelled, pushing the release date of the album to a Friday (July 30) but giving Dreamcatcher an opportunity to promote things earlier, which is exactly what the company and the group did.

The fun started on Weekly Idol, where Dreamcatcher partially explained why the title was named as it was (the song is about “love turning into obsession”, and the crossed arm pose was meant to reflect the Hanja character for “BE”, meaning “sorrow” or “sadness”). Layered over this was a horror-like choreography and feeling that was partially-based on references to movie “Us”, a 2019 thriller whose premise was characters being replaced with evil doppelgangers.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHvHkwrWCHM[/embed]

The combined result was a horror concept of being replaced by evil, marionette-like doppelgangers, augmented with stilted, doll-like movements and a song presumably from them that talked about a twisted, psychopathic version of love — both scary and compelling. We got this presented in all its glory on M! Countdown on July 29th, 2021, a full day before release, and on the only music show to likely broadcast until at least the 10th due to the Olympics. InSomnia who chose to tune in got a treat — not only did they see an increased budget due to the haunted carnival set, but they also saw a pretty creepy intro with JiU kind of “winding up” her fellow doll-like members for a performance, a twisted smile playing on her lips briefly. The performance did its job — Dreamcatcher trended on MelOn search briefly as a result and interest was most certainly raised for the release.

[embed]https://www.vlive.tv/video/256924[/embed]

All of this led right up to the album and the title track MV dropping at 6pm KST on July 30th, along with the usual comeback showcase and performances on vLive. I’ll likely be writing about the album and its songs in a separate article, as I want to give it a few days for my impressions to sink in, but my initial thoughts are this: This is Dreamcatcher’s take on a summer release, contains, as they said before, a bunch of things they haven’t tried before, and is their most varied mini album yet. There are so many genres put into the tracks we got and the result is a summer release that shows the length and breadth of Dreamcatcher’s talent and skill working with many different types of music.

As for the MV, this was very much “classic” Dreamcatcher — a self-contained story that returned to their “Nightmare” storyline roots (along with some likely unintentional callbacks to prior title tracks), but which showcased how they’ve matured since then. This was very much “Fly High” vibes — seemingly innocent on the surface but sinister underneath — and all of the imagery and choreography displayed on the video showcased that. It was a creepy, summer horror counterpart to all of the traditional happy K-Pop summer songs out there, and is ultimately a worthy addition to their discography.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqViUN-pqBQ[/embed]

Accompanying all of this was a ton of other content that will likely help to bridge the content gap left by no music show performances, including:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRDBPCNn1w[/embed]

…and though it was indirect, and slightly lost in the shuffle, the finale of Dreamcatcher’s reality show Dreamcatcher Mind also served as a way to help promote the upcoming album in its own way, by showing the group at their casual best with a show of food and drinking games, the final TL;DR of which was:

  • Dreamcatcher, clad in clothes they’d normally wear around the dorm, being served a generous amount of alcohol and food, accompanied by a surprise gift from the production staff of shot glasses and tumblers.
  • JiU organizing the hongsam game to make the drinking more interesting, leading to Siyeon losing a couple of times and having to drink the penalty drink as a result.
  • Cameos by two of Dreamcatcher’s friends in the idol community via phone in order to play another drinking game — SuA called Kei of Lovelyz while Gahyeon contacted Arin of OMG.
  • Yet another drinking game in the form of the shuriken game, where you have to act like you were hit by an imaginary shuriken if someone mimes throwing one at you, and drink if you laugh or show your teeth — resulting in lightweight Yoohyeon having to consume a couple more drinks.
  • A final toast to Dreamcatcher and their fans, as well as a successful first season run of a reality show.
  • SuA consuming just a little more food and alcohol and stealing the rest for a continuing drinking session at home with the group, after which a clip montage of moments from the reality show play.
Gahyeon and Handong toast to Dreamcatcher and their fans. Credit: Dreamcatcher official

I really liked this episode, and as I said before, it built hype for the inbound comeback in its own way by breaking the mold of the pristine K-Pop idol a bit. Depending on the group, you may almost never see them consuming alcohol on camera or doing other such casual activities, but Dreamcatcher Company, along with a few others in the industry, have what appear to be more progressive views on at least some of what idols should or shouldn’t do. That the company allowed this to happen and for an actual episode filming shows a recognition that Dreamcatcher, already in their 20s and above the average for a girl group’s age, are adults and can be treated as such. There’s probably a long way to go in the K-Pop industry as a whole in this respect, but at least for this episode, we’ve seen a Dreamcatcher that for a good chunk of the day, are people just like you or me with a career (albeit a highly public one) and aspirations they’re trying to meet.

Dreamcatcher completing their first fansign for “Summer Holiday”. Credit: hf_dreamcatcher

We are officially in comeback territory, and even though we likely won’t have music shows, there will certainly be a bunch to report on next week as “Summer Holiday” promotions continue. Be on the lookout for another article from me going over all of the tracks from the new album, and aside from that, look forward to yet more recaps from all of the comeback content we’re getting from Dreamcatcher! I look forward to your claps, comments, and signal boosts as usual for all my work.

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