What did the winged horse leave behind? A rewatch of CRAVITY's 'LOUDER' music video

The album introduction for 'sonorous', which CRAVITY released on September 30, includes a telling passage. The album, it says, starts from "the mythic image of the Muses and the spring of inspiration, symbols of the origins of music and art", and portrays the nine members as "beings, each with a different wave". In Greek myth, the spring guarded by the Muses, goddesses of the arts (Hippocrene), is said to have burst out where the winged horse Pegasus struck the ground with its hoof. Rewatch the title song 'LOUDER' with that story in mind and several scenes line up on a single thread. All times refer to the music video.

1. 0:13, Pegasus running above the clouds

A figure in white rides a winged white horse across ground that looks like cloud. At 0:19 a member leans against the horse's body in a forest, and at 2:00 the horse spreads its wings and soars above a member's head. That's the scene in our lead photo.

2. 0:16, the moment the quiet breaks

Vocals drift in softly from 0:08, then at 0:16 everything gets louder at once. The label describes the song as "a resonance that breaks the stillness and bursts out". From there it stays at close to full strength until the end.

3. 1:32, a waterfall over a face

At 1:32 a waterfall is laid over a member's face. Water keeps coming back: around 2:00 the members dance on the shore of a quarry lake, and around 2:30 they dance in white by the water at night. Water that recalls the mythic 'spring of inspiration' sits between the forest and the clouds.

4. 2:05, silver nails on harp strings

At 2:05, next to a member wearing a silver ear ornament, long, pointed silver nails touch the strings of a harp. It's as if the album's "Muses, symbols of the origins of music and art" were put into a single shot.

5. 2:06, a cliff pushing into the city

Right after, at 2:06, a white cliff and clouds of dust push into the far end of a street between office towers. The label describes the video as scenes where "the quiet world of myth and the turbulent air of the present overlap". The shot at 0:59 of a member climbing the wall of a high-rise holding a white rope belongs to the same idea: the white rope the members clutched in the forest turns up in the city too.

6. 3:00, the 'C' a hoof leaves behind

The final scene. At 3:00 a hoof fitted with an ornate horseshoe strikes the aqua-colored ground, and as the spray clears, a 'C'-shaped mark is left behind at 3:01. As the camera rises, the 'C' becomes a pool of water, ringed by a ruined city. Pegasus striking the ground to make a spring and CRAVITY's initial meet in one shot.

7. The album title, hidden in the lyrics

Five members, Wonjin, Allen, Serim, Hyeongjun and Taeyoung, co-wrote the 'LOUDER' lyrics with danke, Lee Seuran and Kang Eunjeong. The music is by Josh Cumbee, Edwin Honoret, Ben Samama and MLITE, arranged by Josh Cumbee. One line, "I don't wait, I resonate / From a hush to a roar", spells out both the album's central word, 'resonance', and the song's own arc from silence to a roar. The album title 'sonorous' means "resonating deeply and richly".