Jay Park’s New Song ‘Remedy’ Is a Dystopian Love Story Gone Wrong
Jay Park, the Korean-American artist and hip-hop sensation, has returned with “Remedy,” his brand-new English track, packaging it with audiovisual elements that give you an all-new Jay Park song—and honestly, no complaining with this one—the song will draw you in, evoking the mood of an intense dystopian K-drama.
If you’re familiar with Park’s music and his previous hits, including “Mommae,” “All I Wanna Do,” “Solo,” “Ganadara,” and “Why,” you’ll see that “Remedy” is very different than before, as it moves away from his usual contemporary R&B and hip-hop roots for a more moody, synth-heavy sound. Produced by popular American songwriter and producer Brian Lee, the track’s ambient sound design is an effective backdrop for its grim visual narrative and Park’s emotive vocals.
“Remedy” lyrically explores the impact of addictive love and toxic obsession, as seen in its lines like “Need your poisonous remedy/Take my head into the cloud/Don’t plan on ever coming down.” The oxymoron “poisonous remedy” underscores the paradox of “chaos and healing that comes with addictive love,” as noted in a press release. The title “Remedy” is itself ironic, implying that the object of desire is both the poison and the remedy.
The cinematic music video opens to a dystopian world with the lines, “In the near future, only two factions remain. The Regime. The Walkers. The war is no longer fought by soldiers, but by clones. Assassins who burn their memories to be reborn. Again and again. No past, no future. Only the mission.” The frame then cuts to a close-up of Park sitting in a dark, enclosed space, contemplative, before transitioning into a larger space amid masked dancers. He’s introduced as Agent X, representing the Walkers, a ruthless assassin locked in a fight with Agent 42 from the Regime side, played by popular Korean actress Chun Woo-hee.
The visuals are intense, alternating between tension—Park’s bloody altercations with Chun, hinting at the all-consuming nature of their toxic relationship—and release, his slick and crisp dance moves. Their fights in a cycle of violence, where the two agents kill and are reborn in a loop of simulations, mirrors the nature of toxic love, where pain perpetually cycles back, something you just can’t escape. The lyrics “Scars, they got no meaning/’Cause I’ve seen that kind of bleeding” hit hard in its relatability, as Agent X and Agent 42 are reborn, their memories erased, but the pain still lingering.
As Park sings “Dearly departed/It seems like it just started/Deep in my core/I’ve died a million times,” the words echo like a haunting reminder of the cyclical nature of their love. As their story reaches its climax, the two kill themselves—the streams of blood from their lifeless bodies slowly flow towards each other, symbolizing the inescapable pull of their toxic bond. And in the end, it’s not a love story, but a fatal loop that repeats until there’s nothing left.
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