Is she a lost love or just a figment of his imagination? SB19’s Justin De Dios has debuted as a solo artist under the mononym ‘justin’ with his first single “surreal.”
On February 2, justin dropped the trailer for “surreal” to the surprise and delight of his fans. The trailer was so creative that it made a lot of people analyze it, looked for symbolisms, formed theories and looked for hidden easter eggs.
And today, February 29, justin’s debut single is officially out and can be watched on YouTube and streamed on Spotify, Apple Music, Deezer, and iTunes.
I was one of those who excitedly waited until 12 midnight to watch “surreal” and it didn’t disappoint. It was able to achieve the goal of making its listeners feel something – a happy feeling. The feel-good melody, the positive lyricism, the love that it wants to express.
But the visuals help in giving us the bigger picture of the story. While the lyrics and music are no doubt happy, the video tells us that it’s about a lost love or maybe an imagined love? Either way, I feel his pain. (For context, justin captioned surreal’s trailer as “this is just a figment of my imagination.”)
The video started and ended with justin being dreamy and melancholic and only started to smile in his dream because the girl he loves exists there. He appeared to be acting like he has got company.
I don’t know if this is just my imagination, but based on this blurry photo, looks like the girl was real. She was wearing in this photo that white blouse that was hanging on the clothesline next to the tent. I could be wrong, only justin knows.
Plus some of the items in his dream/imagination are also found on his bed in real life.
Anyhow, justin and the team behind this music video was successful in making me feel something – which, really, is the goal of every artist, to make people feel something out of their masterpieces. The build up and the adding of more layers as the song progresses, the sudden full stop in between verses and the visuals add to the heightened musical experience. Goosebumps here and there.
Aside from being the performer, justin is also the writer of the song and the creative director, along with Xi-Anne Avanceña, of this music video.
His SB19 co-members are also part of the team behind this song and music video. “surreal” was produced, mixed and mastered by RADKIDZ (PABLO and josue) while the content producer of the music video was Stell Ajero and Kim Eneria. PABLO and Stell are justin’s co-members in SB19.
Also notice that Gelou from the girl group YARA was included in his Special Thanks section, I’m guessing that she’s the girl in the music video and the one who provided the backing vocals to justin.
justin is known for his creativity and was the mind behind some of SB19’s mind-blowing music videos. So it is no surprise that his own music video is topnotch.
