As an exercise in rediscovery, every other Friday we will place a single ATEEZ track under the microscope to explore its deeper meanings, both to ATEEZ's discography and universe and to ourselves.
Today I'm going to talk about my beloved, my queen, Celebrate.
Celebrate
Release Date: March 1, 2021
Album: Zero: Fever Pt. 2
Lyrics: Eden, Hongjoong, Ollounder, LEEZ, Peperoni, Oliv, Mingi
Composition & Arrangement: Eden, Hongjoong, Ollounder, LEEZ, Peperoni, Oliv
You will notice that, although there is a special performance video for Celebrate, I embedded a live version of Celebrate for the purposes of this discussion. And that was purposeful.
Please, enjoy another one here.
Even in a discography as diverse as ATEEZ's, Celebrate sticks out as different. It has an almost gospel sound and a straightforward melody, but at the same time, it has all of the hallmarks of an ATEEZ song. Jongho's iconic and powerful belting high notes fill almost every space of this song, and it utilizes a very trademark chant-sing style that ATEEZ has perfected.
But it is the type of song that if perhaps another group sang, I possibly wouldn't return to it. But another group doesn't sing it. ATEEZ sings it. And so, to me, it is a perfect song, and I won't accept any argument.
I will, however, address the argument against it because that's why I'm here. My understanding is that this song is more popular amongst domestic atiny than it is international atiny. The domestic thing could be totally wrong, but I do know that it ranks at the bottom of many international atiny's lists, and I'm not entirely sure why other than it being different than the 'standard' ATEEZ sound.
In general, there are ATEEZ songs that I love instantly upon first listen, like Halazia or Turbulence, and there are songs that take a while. Celebrate was a song that took a while, which reminds me a little bit of my relationship with Jongho.
Jongho is part of my bias line, arguably my ultimate bias, but I didn't get Jongho when I first entered the fandom. And now I firmly believe that there are only two types of people in the world: those that love Jongho with their whole heart and those who don't get Jongho yet. I think it's the same with Celebrate.
If you get it, you get it. And if you don't, it's because you haven't gotten it yet. And it's so hard to make someone understand why something is great. It's easy to explain why something is bad or no good, but greatness always feels so much more ethereal. Who knows why a certain song hits? I just know that it does.
I think there are some songs that are the type of music that I'm naturally drawn to, and perhaps if I was educated in musical terms and theory, I could find some connective tissue between those songs. But my guess is that Celebrate wouldn't fit into that category, and yet, I would still rank it amongst my favorite songs. When I was dream planning the Break the Wall tour, I had Celebrate at the top of my dream setlist, and yes, when it appeared on the tour, I did feel like they did it for me.
To me, Celebrate is like I'm 8 years old, and it's my birthday party. All of my friends are there because it's my day, and we're having fun, and no one is worried about any thing because it's just a happy and fun day. That's how I feel when I listen to it. I'm not an adult woman in her mid thirties with bills to pay and responsibilities; I'm sitting at Leaps and Bounds (a now defunct indoor play-place, I'm pretty sure) and everyone is singing happy birthday to me while I'm about to blow out the candles.
It's all about me, and I'm perfect the way I am.
And if you read the lyrics, that's pretty much the message of the song.
Celebrate for you
Celebrate for you, yeah
How do you feel when you face the mirror?
Congratulations for being born as you
It's a song about loving yourself and celebrating the life that you have. It's about believing that you are valuable even when the world says that maybe you're not. In a world of 7 billion, you are you, and that's pretty damn cool.
And in my humble opinion, ATEEZ is the perfect group for a song with this message. From debut to now, ATEEZ has always done exactly what they want, exactly how they want to do it. When people ask them to change, they don't, and to me, that's really precious. They know what they want, and they are true to their own colors as they attempt to achieve it. They live the message of this song.
And they have so much fun doing it.
There is nothing happier than ATEEZ performing this song live. They love performing it, and I for one hope they keep it on every set list for the rest of forever. So please enjoy my not great fancam of my beloved Hopaz singing Celebrate (I did try to record Mingi's rap, but the girl in front of me was too tall).
So perhaps you think you don't love Celebrate yet, and that's fine. There are all sorts of sentimental facts I could share about the song to help convince you, but honestly, I think it's best to discover those yourself because I know that one day, Celebrate will click for you too.
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