[Review] Dream Bus – DAY6

DAY6 celebrates their 10th anniversary through the release of their fourth studio-length album, THE DECADE. Leading the album are the single INSIDE OUT and Dream Bus (focus of this post). The album follows the release of the digital single Maybe Tomorrow from earlier this year and the news that the band has re-signed with JYP Entertainment. Yay to more years with DAY6. But for now, let’s celebrate with my review of Dream Bus.

Dream Bus also tickles the DAY6 nostalgia, just like INSIDE OUT. But where INSIDE OUT felt relatively more mellow and emotionally driven, Dream Bus is more uplifting and positive in both sound and message. The song itself has been described as “a pop punk track with melodic chords”. I enjoyed the upbeat and energetic nature of the chorus, which pairs so nicely with the band’s warm vocals. You don’t need to know Korean to know that Dream Bus speaks to an encouraging and (as mentioned earlier) uplifting message. The instrumental and vocals just give off this exact feeling. I liked how the drumming and keyboard feel so pronounced in Dream Bus. The synths chosen for Dream Bus just give it such a well-rounded feeling. If you have been reading the blog for a while, it is obvious that I prefer more upbeat material. So it should be no surprise that I prefer Dream Bus over INSIDE OUT. But I love that both songs feel nostalgically DAY6.

The lyrics of Dream Bus likens the path to our dreams to a bus ride. Some of the lyrics make reference to holding onto bus handles, with the motions of the bus that causes us to sway on the bus whilst holding onto handles representing our the challenges or hurdles to get us to those dreams. In the music video, the bus is actually a caravan and the DAY6 members plays ordinary people – SUNGJIN as the carefree character, YOUNG K as the office worker, WONPIL as the curious minded and DOWOON as the young kid at heart who believes he has telekinesis superpowers (the dream). They all live and travel together, and we see pretty ordinary day-to-day interactions with one another. In the end, they stop in the midst of a meteor storm (which only WONPIL recognises). Some time after, we see DOWOON back in the caravan, successfully blowing up a pile of trash, showing us that his dreams came true. I really liked his smugness about it at the end, giving us a little comedic touch to the video.

Song – 9/10
Music Video – 8/10
Overall Rating – 8.6/10