The Album "Fever's End"

The artifact I chose is the album called or “Fever’s End” by Tablo, a Korean hip-hop rap artist. The inspiration behind the album comes from his hardship death threats and harassment from the society to him and his family (If you are interested in the reason for the death threats, look up “Stalking of Daniel Lee.”). The harassment almost ended Tablo’s musical career until this album came out after a year of solitude and escape from the society.

There are two parts to this album, each containing five tracks. Few songs I want to mention is the song called “Dear TV,” “Origin,” and “The Tide.” “Dear TV” is an English lyric song which talks about what goes on in the media today by portraying the media to a television. Some notable lyrics is “Dear TV, desensitize me. Give me more genocide please. The world is your aphrodisiac, so you stay turned on every minute, every second I breathe.” This song well describes the evil in the pop culture and the things that are being forced upon people like the matrix in the movie Matrix. I recommend people to listen to this song because the song is only one verse which is also in English.

The song “Origin” talks about how we have to thank the origin of where all our comforts come from. Some of the lyrics, translated by myself, is “A cup of coffee, from poverty,” “people who made my shoes are bare feet,” “one’s luxury means one’s poverty,” “but I need technology, build me another factory please!” “doesn’t matter of the forest is gone. Only focused on a single apple on a branch.” This song well portrays the social class in today’s society and how many luxury people get is from poverty and sacrifices from another. “For the fuel that runs your car, someone runs the battle ground,” says Tablo. This song also connects well the song of Mary and the Right-side-up Kingdom of God. The last verses go like “for the people who keep quiet because I talk, thank you and I’m sorry.”

The song “The Tide” talks about how the world traps people in cages and cell that has no escape by comparing people to fishes. “You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.” This song also relates to how the world is like a matrix. It can also relate to the Seahaven in The Truman Show where Truman is locked in a city bounded by sea which he can’t escape.

The whole album reveals that humans naturally live for their own goods and that the world is becoming a prison with no escape. This album itself does a bad job revealing anything about redemption and the whole album is felt by many people to be depressing. However, his later album as Epik High called “99” has more hopeful and somewhat redemption relating messages. 

Q1: In the song "The Tide" 

“You try to escape/resist from the tide, when the world is an aquarium,” “you try to escape the fish hooks, when the world is a net.”

do you agree? and how realistic is this lyrics to everyday life?

Q2: Can Christian songs contain the kind of lyrics and messages as in Tablo's album "Fever's End"?