Album Cover Digest: LOONA – Butterfly

“It surrounds me, holding me, wind
Feels like i’m being born again
Gaze that fills me up
You” – Butterfly (2019)

The kneeling at the center is what your eyes gravitate towards at your first glance of the album XX by LOONA. You notice that the girls’ faces are directed towards the three butterflies that are flying away from the center of their circle;  which more likely than not can represent birth. This sets up the feeling of the cover to be claustrophobic since the girls are framed from edge to edge of the cover. The girls all hand linked together to form a chrysalis in which they are soon to wake up from because of the already beautiful reflective wings that have grown form their backs. However, they are still sleeping, they are dormant, they cannot escape their chrysalis and therefore are stuck in this state. They can feel the flap of the butterflies wings that are above them and they too, want to fly like a butterfly. The desire to open their eyes, to be born, and to be able to fly away burns and yearns which is represented by the solar flare around them. Maybe the answer to escape, the answer to life is death. In order to live and be born, they must first die and burn.  Once they do they too will join the three butterflies that are above in pure freedom.

The beautiful gradient of blue and holographic lilac and solar flares make for something unique that LOONA themselves have never done. Besides the birth of butterflies, we also get the tracklist on the physical album:

1. X X
2. Butterfly
3. Satellite
4. Curiosity
5. Colors
6. Where You at
7. Stylish
8. Perfect Love
9. Heat
10. Favorite
11. Hi High
12. + +

The company that LOONA are from stated that XX was where LOONA was born, it was where the LOONAVERSE began. Fans of LOONA since they were formed have been fascinated by the LOONAVERSE and its storyline that revolves around a Mobius strip which signals that the girls are trapped in a loop that they cannot escape. XX is another part of the story that connects to the rest of the girls’ single stories (single as in, song single) and its something that has never been done in Korean Pop music.

From left to right: YeoJin, Chuu, Hyunjin, Jinsoul, Yves (Eve), Heejin, Kim Lip, Olivia Hye, GoWon, Choerry, Vivi, Haseul

LOONA with this creative, unique, unorthodox approach to the storyline and its relation to music have gained a loyal American fan base that shot this album to #1 in iTunes in 26 countries including the USA. That is something that is rarely seen especially from a group that is less than a year old. Their death came first with their debut album + + and their rebirth by death came second in XX.

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