Nick: That! That's the rhythmic thing that's like nearly impossible...
to do...with the precision that he's doing it.
Umu: Baekhyun? Cloud: Mhm
Cloud: Yeah...if that's how you say that
Umu: Just call him Bacon.
"You can call me Bacon" - Baekhyun on The Ellen DeGeneres Show
Umu: So now you're reacting to the solo artist Baekhyun, who's actually from the boy group EXO.
UN Village is an area in Seoul, where the rich and famous live with beautiful views of the city and the Han River
The lyrics are about a man wanting to show his favorite place to his lover,
and to spend time together watching the moon.
The song is composed by LIØN and dress.
Henry: Baekhyun, Lettuce, Tomato sandwich!
Umu: *laughing adorably behind camera*
Melissa: This is cool, this is like noise music.
There's people who get literally degrees in composing music like that.
James: Oooh
Melissa: This is cool.
And now it's like...
hip-hop.
Daniel: Oooh
Fiona: It just sounds bougie!
Daniel: It's like
R&B harmonies
and like these staccato bursts
Fiona: I like that tiny like slappy percussive sound,
Fiona: sounds like money! Daniel: It's like
Daniel: the popping bubbles that you get at bubble tea
and you bite into it like "pop pop"
That's how it feels like.
Fiona: But made out of gold!
Melissa: He can— he lets you hear his passaggio sometimes, but sometimes not.
Kevin: Ah what is this weird effect?
Like the notes are crunchy and jazzy, but everything just sounds
equally dissonant because of the timbre.
Cloud: How can you not pay attention to those visuals? Henry: I—
Henry: It is really cinematic
I love...the lighting Cloud: The lighting.
Henry: But I love even more
how easily he navigates between his falsetto and his chest voice, head voice, his mix. Cloud: ????
Cloud: It's all like a very... nice percussive sound
and you add in the strings like you want them to be like... Henry: Yeah
Henry: It's simple, I like it!
James: Interesting...
Melissa: See, that's an example of when he lets you hear his passaggio,
like going through it.
Both: *singing*
Kevin: It's just an octave but it feels wider.
Kevin: Ooh nice harmonies
Elizabeth: There's a lot of references to older sound media,
like with the crackling of the vinyl in the beginning
Owen: The crackling and then that past section too Elizabeth: Yeah
Elizabeth: Where the voice was distorted a little bit
Owen: Like at the top of something they did
they could really get the effect
Elizabeth: Like it was playing from a phonograph or something, yeah
Nick: I love all the triplets just on top of this like
on top of the super duple bass
Aaron: Yeah the
Nick: It's just something that I really love in music
when they just totally play with where exactly
they're singing and the rhythmic
like divisions it's always exactly on the beat
it's just total mastery over the agogic accents,
and where they fall.
Melissa: Oooh okay and now we get like continuous chords for the first time.
Kevin: Woooow there you go! That's the sustained notes are so welcome!
Owen: I like how that section too,
it feels like the music video and the music itself
is either playing with either very clean and very sharp stuff
or um like the phonograph and having it to be a little bit duller in sound.
Kevin: Geez
What a weird last image. Isaac: Interesting
Isaac: It's very pleasant
and the way they,um I can't pronounce his name.
So "medium sliced bacon with low sodium" Kevin: WEAK
Isaac: What do you mean weak?? Kevin: Got to get all the sodium in!
Isaac: Yeah it was very smooth groove
You have these piz(zicato) that are so—
If anyone plays a string instrument, it's the pleasure of plucking an instrument
is you don't know...you can pull out one angle
and then you can do a Bartok pits where it just snaps on the fingerboard
*Isaac demonstrating*
It makes a very crisp, strong attack
or you can do something nice and pleasant.
*Isaac demonstrates*
Kevin: Or you can program a pizzicato sound onto a keyboard
and just the keyboard. Isaac: *whack*
Isaac: But I thought it was interesting because it sounded
different...maybe it was the way the layering
or the volume Kevin: Yeah the layering is key
Because I think that same pit sound
in other songs mixed badly even in the same
song mixed badly
would just stick out, especially to our ears. Isaac: Mhm
But the way it's mixed in here, it just worked,
which is really nice.
The reverb, yeah it's exactly what they implemented
in here that a string instrument can't necessarily
sustain by itself or produce in that matter
so just having that extra reverb was just like wow
it's very nice that they chose this decision because it adds to the effect
of just relaxing and almost like watching a wave just go by.
Yeah, the atmosphere was there, there's the depth
that is created through the singing.
and yeah great voice, so it's pleasant overall.
James: Yeah I was kind of tapping the whole time
like conducting out the pattern because I think the tempo
has a big part of why this song is so chill.
It's a very slow and deliberate four three... one two
and they go back and forth between like sixteenth notes like
*singing beats*
and eighth notes
and they even did like triplets in some parts
so I think it was just the way he was inflecting certain things like
um singing things a little bit behind the beat, in some ways,
almost made it seem like it was really like free flowy
and like free I guess
Elizabeth: Is the name of the album City Lights? Umu: Yes.
Is that a reference to Charlie Chaplin?
Umu: I don't know.
Because that's a classic Charlie Chaplin film.
Especially because there were a lot of references
to not only like older sounds of like sound fidelity
when it comes to playback, so like the sound of the vinyl or
the sort of distortion so it sounds like it's coming through a phonograph or something
but also like references to older kinds of films
black and white and then there was the
like black and white footage being shown on the side of the building
there were references to older kinds of media
which I think that nostalgia for
kind of older versions of
media production and viewing and listening
that's very hipster that's very in to be sort of retrospective in that sense
So it would make sense to me
Umu: Okay, so you're going to be comparing 'UN Village' to a b-side released on the same album
as it called 'Psycho'. And 'Psycho' is originally a solo stage for Baekhyun when EXO held concerts
fans have been asking for a studio version of the song for a while so it was included as a bonus track on this album
The lyrics describe a Jekyll and Hyde kind of relationship
Baekhyun says that he's psycho because there's someone in his head trying to take over
The song is composed by Zayson and Megan Lee
Isaac: City Lights
Kevin: Oh good movie—3 2 1
Isaac: Where are we going? Kevin: Okay, that's not what I expected
Isaac: We're on a space ship!
Isaac: Waaaaaahhhhh
Kevin: Mhm half-diminished
Kevin: Mhm
Elizabeth: Ooh the rhythm is kind of—the meter is hard to
pinpoint right now
because you have a guitar
pattern but I think it's in three even though the meter is in four
so it's harder to tell Owen: I think it's...
Owen: It does feel like it's in four. I think it's just having the three being over the four
Elizabeth: Yeah
Owen: The three eighth notes
Henry: Aw man...
His falsetto is so killer!
Cloud: It's hard for me to feel grounded with this though
Like I feel like I'm just floating away
Henry: Hm I see
The little sirens in the back maybe it's going to ground you soon?
Cloud: That was it
Cloud: That's like a heavy settle though
Henry: That's not a drop—that's not grounding though
I feel like they kind of just...that's like RKO to the ground.
Cloud: That's like a monster drone (???) like when the big monster's coming out. Henry: Yeah
Fiona: Sounds evil
Daniel: I don't know, I think the hazy sounds might
imply like hazy state of mind, you know?
Nick: That! That's the rhythmic thing that's like nearly impossible
to do...with the precision that he's doing it. Aaron: Mhm
Elizabeth: Ooh that sounded like a distorted siren. Yeah. Owen: The alarm, the siren? Yeah.
I was wondering, I was actually going to see if the siren is like a
warning that the chorus is going to come in
like the evil side
Elizabeth: There it is, yeah you're right!
James: Mhm! Melissa: Whoa, that was cool!
Melissa: The rhythm is like fighting with itself
Henry: Oh my gosh
Cloud: Ooh we're moving!
Henry: I don't know what instruments they're using for the percussion
but it kind of evokes bucket drumming, you know?
Henry: Like that very city style, street drumming Cloud: Ohh
Elizabeth: There's also a lot of sounds that remind me of the Dark Knight
soundtrack in that the way that they got
the Joker's theme was by putting razor blades on the cello strings
so that kind of crunchy sound is kind of what we're getting here too.
James: Dang
James: *sings*
Melissa: Oooh I like how the echoes were like
slightly out of tune on that last thing...
That was cool, I love that song! Could that be on my playlist? Umu: Mhm
Isaac: It sounded like Pong, the game of Pong just
dah dah
But instead of just keeping strict rhythm of it
it's dah DAH dah DAH dah
Just back and forth
So there's this unnerving transition from
"Oh I'm stable" and then "I'm not stable" so...
They have these very visceral, aggressive growls just
just pulling up synthetically
and yeah I guess that really worked out.
Daniel: Like we had these two main characters that were going on
and one of them was like, as I mentioned it, felt like a hypermeter.
This huge four
and all these different like sounds
It seems like it's not tonal right?
Or you just hear these sound textures and they're
kind of like spurting everywhere
and then his voice is kind of like singing in this huge arc above
that's tethered to the hypermeter
but then that just feels so...spacious
Fiona: Yeah
And just like kind of disorienting, yeah overwhelming Fiona: Overwhelming
Daniel: And then you hear this other character,
which is a lot more like floaty than
like there is no hypermeter that can ground it
it becomes even more like disengaged
or like there's only one line
where he's just like singing
like a single line in his voice
and he weaves it with another like entrance
Fiona: It was very new music-y.
I felt like 'Psycho' he created a big spacious soundscape,
it was like a sound universe.
'UN Village' was more of like a typical song, Daniel: Yeah
and I think that's more comfortable, for me.
Daniel: Yeah, it was more like conventional Fiona: As like a normal listener
Fiona: Yeah so it was more catchy
Daniel: But the 'Psycho' is definitely like, it felt experimental in some ways Fiona: Cool and out there, yeah
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think the soundscape that they created
to portray that idea works very well.
And I think the chorus especially was well-constructed,
in the sounds that they used
I don't know, I just sort of...I don't really like the term "psycho"
I think it tends to reduce what is actually a mental health illness
as something to be afraid of
It's distancing yourself
from people who actually suffer from mental health problems.
As opposed to accepting them for having like a legitimate illness.
You sort of run into problems when you reduce
mental health to something scary and crazy.
I don't know, it kind of moves me the wrong way.
Owen: Mhm Umu: Yeah
Umu: Understood
Umu: What did you think of this song compared to UN Village?
Melissa: It's like the opposite vibe because like I was saying
with 'UN Village' very short chords, very chill vibes.
This is like BIG BASS SYNTH AHH like the whole time
like continuously
James: This is a lot of crazy, really really really cool stuff.
A lot of differences like there were some bits where
the singer would go up in like head voice
and be very soft and then
the last time we heard that it was
belted, just barely like, soft belt.
Like at the top which is hard to do.
It was just a really good showcase of great singing.
Aaron: Yeah I definitely like 'UN Village' more
because it just felt like in a sense it easier to listen to
because he did the same like a triplet group of half notes over
two four-four bars, which is like...hard
to like—if you're not subdividing, which I don't think he was subdividing
and I think he just did it by feel which is like, bravo!
Nick: When we were saying like when we wanted the other song to push him Aaron: That, exactly!
Nick: to his limits as a singer and a musician,
this is the song that does that! Aaron: Yeah
And I guess it makes sense as a bonus track in that way
and it makes sense with like the 'Psycho'
you've got someone struggling against you in your head
and that makes sense in terms of why
he would—or someone would write something
and he would perform something that
that would be so technically difficult.
Because there's really no need for that in the other song.
Aaron: Yeah, that's true. Nick: It's a great song, it worked super well
Nick: Basically no percussion for certain sections in the song, Aaron: Yes
and then he's singing these incredibly complex and hard rhythms over no percussion
and he lands exactly where we all feel he needs to land.
Aaron: Yes, yes!
Nick: That's hard!
Aaron: There was like such strung out like
multiple measures of no downbeat like "I need a downbeat please"
Nick: Yes, and he does all sorts of crazy things and then he gives it to you
Aaron: Yeah
Daniel: Oh wait, I had a dream about food last night too!
I was trying to buy all these Hot Cheetos and they rang me up for a 100 bucks
and I was like, "This is not...
I didn't buy a 100 bucks worth of Hot Cheetos"
"This is like, 10 bags"
Okay, sorry.