Music / DAY6

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DAY6 (Korean: 데이식스) is a four-member Korean rock band under JYP Entertainment^note More specifically, they are under the Studio J label - artists under that label exert full creative control over all aspects of their work.. They debuted on September 7, 2015, with the song "Congratulations" and its accompanying EP The Day. Since then, they have become well-known for their instrumental prowess, intensely honest storytelling and lyricism, tendency to blend rock with a host of other genres, powerful vocals and energetic live performances.

They originally had six members; Junhyeok left in February 2016 under ambiguous circumstances, and Jae left in December 2021, the reasons for this are also unknown.

The band has taken a couple of temporary hiatuses: first one was in 2021. At that time Sungjin and Jae were diagnosed with anxiety and thus had to take a break. The second one was in 2022-2023 due to mandatory military service. After the end of military service, DAY6 released two EPs in 2024, Fourever and Band Aid. The former brought the band a daesang award^*Album of the Year at Asia Artist Awards on December 27, 2024, which became the first in their career.

In addition to their work with the band, all of the members participate in solo activities. Young K, Wonpil and Dowoon are also part of the synthpop-oriented subunit Even Of Day.

Not to be confused for American R&B boy band Day26.

DAY6 provides examples of the following tropes:

• A Capella: Live performances of "I'll Try" are often done this way.
• all lowercase letters: "hurt road" and "days gone by."
• Audience Participation Song: While spontaneous crowd sing-alongs are a staple of live shows, "Time Of Our Life" in particular has become an anthem. "Congratulations" is another song that has taken on this role, and so has "Sing Me."
• Break-Up Song: A substantial chunk of their discography is comprised of these, although they're usually more on the bittersweet side.
• CAPS LOCK: The band's name is stylised this way, and so are a fair amount of song and album titles.
• Concept Album: Overarching stories and themes are almost always woven into their projects.
  • Youth - split into two EPs with Shoot Me and Remember Us.
  • Gravity serves as a precursor to Entropy, setting up themes of reflection and anticipation.
  • Entropy deals with the ideas of chaos and passion, and how it can affect a relationship as it blossoms and then falls apart.
• Darker and Edgier:
  • UNLOCK leans further into louder, more intense hard rock and ramps up the angst.
  • Entropy deals with heavier sounds and topics than Gravity, with much sharper lyricism, being more riff-driven and several songs ranking amongst their most hard-hitting tracks so far.
• Deranged Animation: The "art film" that accompanied the announcement of Entropy is heavy on this. It depicts a figure cradling its own, aflame heart, then transforming into a cluster of flowers that are then crushed by a pair of hands, which then transforms into a person curled into a ball, that then melts into a more detailed human heart with flowers bursting out of it.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Their earlier releases had a somewhat lighter musical tone to them, in comparison to the increasingly heavier soundscapes present in subsequent EPs and albums. The amount of rap bridges has also gone down somewhat drastically over time.
• Empty Chair Memorial: A downplayed version due to not referencing a death but a separation; the music video for "Letting Go" makes a point of leaving a place at the keyboards conspicuously empty. Along with the forlorn expressions of the remaining members and bittersweet lyrics of the song itself, this is a shout-out to Junhyeok, who had left the band a short while earlier.
• Everything's Deader with Zombies: "Zombie," naturally. The music video takes it a step further by intercutting the band's performance with the depiction of a zombified young man dressed in similar attire staggering through his daily routine.
• Face on the Cover: Most album covers have a portrait of the band in some form - usually from a distance and visually processed in some form. Aversions include MOONRISE, Gravity and The Demon.
• Genre-Busting: While rock forms the foundation, their work also incorporates strong elements of metal, jazz, electronic music, punk, power pop and even a bit of hip-hop.
• Gray Rain of Depression: "Stop The Rain," naturally, is built around this, and so are some other songs on UNLOCK such as "Falling."
• Growing Up Sucks: "Wanna Go Back" reflects on this idea.
• Improv: Live shows feature ad-libs and improvisations both within the songs and in segments set aside for each of the members to improvise on their instruments - both individually and as part of a collective spontaneous jam session.
• Incredibly Long Note:
  • Wonpil executes one of these in the bridge of "Like A Flowing Wind."
  • Young K pulls this off in "How to Love" near the end.
• Large Ham:
  • While everyone has their moments of Keet-level hyperactivity on stage, Jae takes the cake with his frenzied, impassioned stage presence. He's well-known for his spins, high-flying jumps and kicks, theatrical expressions and gestures, as well as often standing or perching on barriers and leaping off of stage risers in the middle of riffs or solos - and the fact that he still manages to not miss a single beat or sound out-of-breath.
  • "Stop Talking" is mostly quiet and subdued - until the chorus explodes with:
  "WHOAOAH, WHAT'RE YOU SAYING?!"
• Lighter and Softer:
  • Many of their ballads, like "I'll Try" and "All Alone", are based on quieter acoustic and piano-driven structures, with softer, more delicate vocals.
  • Their discography before the EveryDAY6 project was mostly this, leaning more towards electro-rock.
  • Gravity is this compared to Entropy, with some of the most positive, uplifting lyrics in their discography to date and a bright, summery sound.
• Lyrical Dissonance: A large chunk of their discography plays with this. A particularly jarring example is "Congratulations", a triumphant-sounding, lighters-in-the-air power ballad about being broken-hearted and bitter after a relationship gone sour.
• Melismatic Vocals: A prominent feature in several songs, usually supplied by either Wonpil or Jae.
• Mood Whiplash: A particularly startling example on Entropy - the track listing goes from the jazz-influenced "Sweet Chaos" to the light-hearted synth-pop of "EMERGENCY" to the impassioned and emotive hard rock of "Rescue Me."
• Motor Mouth: Young K and Jae are most certainly capable of this while rapping.
• Multilingual Song: Most songs, while predominantly in Korean, also have lines and verses in English. A lot of the titles are in English as well.
• Obsession Song: "Hunt" and "1 to 10" are two examples of the passive and aggressive variety, respectively. The former is a risqué take on the idea framed as a daydream, while the latter paints an unnerving picture of a lover refusing to accept the end of a relationship and continuing to try and stoke the embers of what's left.
• Ode to Youth: "Time Of Our Life" and "Best Part" are explicitly this.
• One-Word Title: "Congratulations", "Colors", "WARNING!", "Blood", "Hunt," "Wish" and "EMERGENCY", just to name a few.
• Perishing Alt-Rock Voice: A non-nasal variant - Sungjin's vocals are characterized by his gravelly, raspy timbre.
• Performance Video: Most of their music videos are just this, albeit with relevant flourishes or abstractions.
• Pun: Scattered throughout their songs in both Korean and English.
  • One example is "Hunt," which has a rather slick one in the chorus - the hook is "nan neol sanyanghae"^note "I will hunt you", which sounds very similar to "nan neol saranghae"^note "I love you".
  • The English version of "Zombie" gives us "today is a present that I don't want."
• Pep-Talk Song: "For Me" is one aimed at the self.
  I want to get to know you
  You, not anybody else
  The me trapped in the mirror, about to cry
  Now I want to know you
  You’ve done well so far on your own
  I’ll tell myself, for me
• Retraux:
  • The visual and musical aesthetic for Remember Us features plenty of this. The music video for "days gone by" has a distinctly 70s-inspired aesthetic to it, complete with kaleidoscopic shots and a faded colour palette, and is musically dominated by vintage synths and clean, reverb-laden guitar tones.
  • "Deep In Love" brings back the reverb and ring-modulator-drenched guitars, making for a sound reminiscent of an 80s metal ballad.
  • "Stop Talking" was directly inspired by 80s LA metal.
• Scatting: Pops up in several songs. "STOP" makes prominent use of it in the bridge.
• Sensory Abuse: The music video for "Breaking Down" features eye-searingly neon colours, flashing lights and several overlaid and vertically tessellating, glitched-out shots of the band performing or moodily staring into the distance while leaning against a wall or sprawled on a staircase. It still manages to be artistically pleasing.
• Solo Side Project: In tandem with their work in the band, Young K, Jae and Wonpil also regularly dabble in experimental side projects, and often also upload demos.
  • Young K releases stripped-back, rearranged covers filmed in various cities as Young One. He also has collaborations under his usual stage name.
  • Jae makes melancholic lo-fi indie rock as eaJ, although the project has also delved into other genres such as gospel and funk.
  • Wonpil mostly partakes in jazz-influenced collaborations and covers of ballads.
• Step Up to the Microphone: Dowoon usually doesn't sing as much, preferring to stick to drumming and backing vocals ^note although he has been taking vocal lessons in order to be able to sing more often - but he takes the lead on a couple of verses in "Finale" and "Beautiful Feeling," and provides the chants of "WARNING!" in the song of the same name.
• Street Musician: They spent a large chunk of their early days as buskers, and still occasionally put up street performances.
• Talky Bookends: "When You Love Someone" sets up a storyline that ends up running through three videos with a brief scene where Sungjin's character confesses to his lady-friend that he's been harbouring an unrequited crush on her, and that he understands if she doesn't feel the same.
• Translated Cover Version: They have released English versions of "Congratulations", "You Were Beautiful", and "Zombie." Japanese versions of "I Wait", "Time Of Our Life" and "Sweet Chaos" have also been released.
• Vocal Tag Team: They are known for their vocal interplay and trading off of lines in their songs.
• "When I'm Gone" Song: "Sing Me," where the protagonist even states that "fate cannot kill me unless you forget me."