Stephen: Oooooh!
Stephen: That's nice! Seiji: Yeah...that's nice (x2)
Umu: Now you're reacting to the boy group Golden Child and their song called 'Wannabe'
which is about the internal struggle between who we are and who you want to be.
This track highlights the theme of the album where they are rebooting from their more youthful image and introducing a new image for the group.
Cloud: I support changing yourself to be who you want to be.
Just don't change yourself to be who others want you to be.
[Umu slow claps]
Umu: The song is composed by *blssd* (Nick: What?) or BLSSD, maybe it's probably "blessed" but *blssd*
Kevin: Three, two, one, WANNABE!
Henry: It's like an anime intro.
Henry: I like the sausage-ing
Elizabeth: Oooh, I like this sort of push and pull of how it
fades in and sort of fades out in one measure.
Fiona: It just like, opened up. It sounded like it was coming from the distance.
Daniel: Yeah, yeah. And now it's like right in your ear. Fiona: Yeah, now it's here.
Kevin: It's the type of sound that I don't think should have a pitch, but yet the pitch is also so clear!
And my brain does not know how to handle it.
Aaron: It's kind of like New Age Minimalism.
Nick: It's so nuanced.
Nick: Like just the little tiny...
Nick: Those drums.
Stephen: Oooooh
Stephen: That's nice! Seiji: Yeah...that's nice (x2)
Stephen: It's just like, laid back, you know what I'm saying?
Seiji: It's so smooth!
Stephen: It's SUPER smooth, man!
Takin' notes!
Kevin: Oooh some brass, some brass!
Even the type of minor [singing]
I usually don't like that.
But this is really...
Really endearing, and I'm really charmed by it.
Kevin: Wooooooooh!
Henry: Dang, this is a lot of sounds!
Cloud: It was a lot more tinny, that last time. (Henry: Yeah.)
Henry: A lot of sounds, like...
Kevin: WOW.
That is so sparse!
Kevin: Woooh!
Owen: That was COOL!
Elizabeth: To have the synth go down like that? (Owen: I loved it! Yeah!)
Owen: I've always loved transitions between chords by having
like glissandi between the notes (Elizabeth: Yeah.) with it sort of melting into the next chord.
I think that's such a fun effect that they did really well.
Henry: He's got an interesting voice.
Owen: Ah, the chromatic descending line! I love—my friend
described harmony to me as like the setting in which all your characters live.
And so even though he was singing in the same like melody,
because the setting had changed it had a totally different feel to it
Daniel: Oh...OHHHH
Cloud: That's such an earworm.
Henry: [singing] *do ti do mi*
Kevin: Ah, that's different from last time! The post-chorus.
And it ends early.
And yet I want to listen to it again!
I mean, not like for reaction purposes, but I want to listen to it just for my enjoyment.
So that's AWESOME.
Seiji: It was nice, it was real nice!
Stephen: You know, there's just something about subtlety and
and it's just really nice how like when you get to a chorus and you
want people to dance...
Sometimes you can build it up, right, with a dubstep where it's like—
Something like that, where it's just like it's fast
and then like you'll have an overpowering groove.
That is just like, "Okay you're gonna dance right now."
But it's just nice right here where it just kind of pulls you in,
but then when it actually drops it's still nice and warm and inviting.
Also, what's really cool is the reason why it has this kind of nice lilt to it is because like
This is a quarter note, but if you think of it in double time, which is like
One, three. One three.
One-two-three-four-one-two-three-four.
They're playing a rhythm on the "and' of 2 and then on beat 4.
Cloud: That's going on my workout playlist! Henry: That's a lot of really fun...
Henry: I want to say like "expectation benders" as far as timbre goes, and then EDM style.
Cloud: They really change up the synth as they go through, yeah. (Henry: Yeah, yeah.)
Henry: It's like the sort of sound you'd expect to hear in like a...
pop song with EDM more dancey pop.
But then they play with the sound by like cutting things short like even the low brass.
They cut it off, like shorter. And the pre-chorus is that little staccato section in which
—That was really, really nice it catches you off-guard.
Nick: I really liked their use of voice
...replacing where synths would go in like, other types of the same genre of song.
I thought that was really clever and I don't see why more people don't do that.
I thought it was really nice how subtle they were with their percussion, especially at the beginning.
They started out really low-key...
a very few instruments, and then they like exploded from there and it made it really special!
Especially the first half of the song.
Elizabeth: I like the emphasis on like shaping of notes.
It's not something you would ever hear in like what we do.
I feel like so much of, especially like French horn, the way we talk about is it's all about like
continuing a line through every phrase.
So this sort of like wah wah wah is like...
Very discouraged but I actually...(Owen: It feels kind of bubbly.)
I think it sounds like really cool in a pop setting because you have this like...
It feels very ethereal in a way. You're feeling like you're being like...
pulled. Push and pull, like different directions.
Even like within one measure it would like there would be like a hairpin like crescendo decrescendo sort of like—
But then each individual note was also like that
and then a lot of the lyrics were written to have that sort of effect built in.
So, there was definitely a huge emphasis on that which was really cool.
Kevin: I definitely thought the highlight was in the instrumentals
because there is just so much cool stuff going on.
And I think it just...
I don't know if I can even list everything but it just brings to mind—
The conclusion that I have after listening to this is that, you know,
you can have a song that follows pop structure
but when your song is creative and it even does familiar melodies
and familiar drop
hooks...
in creative ways, it shows! And...
It becomes enjoyable, it becomes something special.
This is a reference to the stuff I've heard them say when I saw them live in their debut.
I think they're slowly morphing into a group that...
You know, have that something that special something.
Because they always call themselves a group with a special something that is rare.
While this isn't to the point of like, "rarity" and total just...
Breaking the mold, but they are becoming something special.
This song is something special!
Fiona: I love the gold.
Fiona: OOHHHHHH Daniel: What if—