Kevin: WHAT
Umu: Now you're reacting to the seven-member girl group Oh My Girl and two b-sides off their 2019 album, 'The Fifth Season'.
First you'll be reacting to the b-side song called 'Vogue', performed by four of the members.
The song is low-key about the "vogue" model life,
posing for the camera, and feeling empowered.
The song is composed by MooF, Ashley Alisha, and JJ Evans.
Daniel: Would you like to do the honors? Fiona: 3...2...1
Daniel: Oooh
Daniel: Feels like I'm doing a runway walk, you know like Fiona: Yeah!
Daniel: ...when you're like walking
It's like a good walking tempo...strut!
Elizabeth: Ooohhh...there's a lot of reverb on all of the background instruments.
Isaac: Are they in a rebel mood?
Kevin: It's a lot of swag.
Kevin: Oh My Girl is full of surprises.
Brianna: Oh, I like this drum beat in the back,
it reminds me of Africa.
Aaron: It's like everything is on an off-beat...like the bass.
Aaron: Oh, well okay it just changed but
Kevin: Psychedelic, though? Isaac: Bell chimes!
Kevin: You know with all those lights flashing onto you?
It can feel a little dizzy—oh!
Elizabeth: We went from like, sort of like
laidback, cool vibe in the verse and the prechorus to like,
peppy girl group!
Owen: And then we're back
Fiona: Wow, sensual slide
Brianna: I like this transition.
Owen: I like how the percussion gets so much more engaged once you get in the chorus.
You feel much more into it, much more like you can dance along.
Kevin: Oh wow, extension! It doesn't go into the major immediately.
How cool is that!
Where's the psychedelia? Bring it back!
Oh...Oohhhhh
Isaac: Triplet triplet
Kevin: It's like Madonna's rap section .
Elizabeth: This is like a little grungy...
Elizabeth: The bass is doing a lot of syncopation. Owen: That's true, yeah.
Owen: yay, picardy 3rd
Aaron: I love this, because I feel like I can work out to this and get pumped and sweaty,
and still feel beautiful <3
James: So pure!
Yeah
Elizabeth: I feel like their voices have more reverb in the other sections besides the chorus.
Owen: The chorus is much tighter. Elizabeth: Yeah
Nick: It's such a nice melody though!
Aaron: It is, it is!
Nick: I feel like you could fit that into any song, and it would still be beautiful.
But then you put the bumpin' bass underneath it
And it's like runway, or working out.
Aaron: I mean you work on the runway so—
Except work with an "e"
WERK
Nick: Where?
Aaron: What? What do you mean like
Nick: Like at the end...?
Aaron: No! Like "werk" like "W E R K" Nick: Ohhhhhh
Nick: Sorry I don't know...
Aaron: That's what it makes me think it's like
Nick: I don't know a second thing about the runway. Aaron: W E R K
Fiona: If this were a color it would be, like
blues with purples but shiny like sequins lights.
Daniel: I haven't thought of it as a color.
Daniel: Um, in the beginning it started off stylistically
How shall I say?
Unique?
Um, in that they have this "runway" type of feel
I felt like harmonically, or even melodically
I think it's very nice
It has a definite like lush kinda feel to it but
I didn't feel too much of a variance between the type of characters
that they're proposing. Yeah,
I thought it was really nice though, overall.
Fiona: I agree. I thought that the kinda undertones, like the syncopated
beats and all the small beats underneath
that gave it that walking feel or like really refreshing, and nice.
And it was cool how much—like how did that
create that image in my mind of a runway, you know?
It just made so much sense.
Isaac: Yeah this was very pleasant to go from each section
and then see how they explore the material that they're using.
The beats at the bottom really—I guess the really low bass,
really contrasted with the really high M7 in the chorus line.
Yeah, it has very high tension moments
and then there are a lot of releases. I guess
the part where it's dadadadada
it's just repeating the notes.
I thought that was very appropriate, because you have all these techniques
that are so spread out but you have to
make sure you make these connections with it,
and then you have a moment of breath
where it's just one note.
Kevin: I like it! It's like a spiritual sequel to Madonna's "Vogue".
Kevin: And that's one of my favorite songs of the 90's, and maybe all time.
So this is, this is pretty great!
Umu: So you're going to be comparing that to Aaron: Oh!
another song that's on the same album. Nick: Oh Aaron: Okay
Umu: This is called "Crime Scene"
And the "crime" being referred to is falling in love,
and the girls are trying to solve the mystery of why they are attracted to a certain person.
The song is composed by David Amber, Sean Alexander, and Mayu Wakisaka.
Isaac: Okay
Fiona: 3, 2, 1
Fiona: Whoa
The voices, like, mimic the bumbadambam
Elizabeth: Is this like, harmonic minor?
Owen: It sounds like some mode of harmonic minor because-
Elizabeth: It's like definitely minor, but you get that little bit of
like, it's like #7 or something that makes it really pop.
James: Oh!
James: This is what I want! This is exactly what I want,
I'm happy!
Kevin: WHAT
Isaac: What is this?!
Isaac: Wow
Kevin: It's like you're nervous about committing the crime.
And now you're just...doing it!
Owen: It's vi, vii
Elizabeth: Hell yeah!
to i
Elizabeth: I don't really Owen: I don't know what's going on
Elizabeth: I don't really know what they're doing with the modes there! Owen: That's a thing...something people do in music!
Owen: This is a long chorus.
Kevin: Oh, now we're in major,
it doesn't even go back to that minor.
Fiona: It's just confusing when they sing that happy major things
above the *sings*
Daniel: Yeah, there's like a tritone in that too.
That little beep, right?
Fiona: Yeah
Fiona: Okay, the chord changes are further apart now.
It gives it that spacious feeling.
Kevin: Yeah!
This feels vogue-y as well,
there's a bit of a vogue in there.
Say "Hey!"
It's so colorful!
This is my kind of pop!
Nick: Okay, now we have some, like
either well-synthesized or live
live instruments with the guitar
Aaron: Oh, I like that!
James: Stripped down...
James: Variety! Brianna: It's the same chords as the chorus,
Brianna: it's just slower.
Kevin: Oh, those are some crunchy chords right there!
Fiona: I like Daniel: There's that
That's interesting to me,
I never expect it. Every time it comes back I'm like, "What?!"
Owen: I've always wondered, you know how
there's so many choruses, right, where the
lead into it is...
Da
badadadada
And they hold that, and then Elizabeth: Yeah
There's that one note and then they're singing
the rest of the chorus.
Owen: Like, that's got history behind it.
Because I feel like there's also that part
like, Tchaikovsky violin concerto,
and Bottesini, where's there's like there's a lead up to it and then they hold
the note while the rest of the
orchestra keeps carrying the chorus.
Owen: And it's like, very cool how people Elizabeth: Yeah
Owen: how they continue that.
Fiona: That was pleasurable for me, because there were
a lot of fun sounds in it including
the *ding ding*and the *aaaa*
Daniel: Yeah, I thought
this was a lot, um...
Fiona: Interesting, a lot more interesting than the last one.
Daniel: Yeah, I think the characters were a lot more clear cut.
In this, there were at least four different
harmonic progressions...
Daniel: or like "slices" if I can consider them that, Fiona: Yeah
when it loops in that like associated with each character.
And that made it like, very clear.
Daniel: Yeah, also there was, like
random—very beginning there was that
motive, that kind of beep bop beat motif
Uh it was like synth-ey
Fiona: It sounded vocal Daniel: It's like major and then
it like introduces a tritone.
It's like a dissonant interval.
And, I thought that was
fitting, I mean if they're talking about love, which is
a "crime scene" you know?
You have like these like very nice like
this poppy, kind of like feel-good material.
And then they introduce a tritone, which is you know,
a very sinister—
banned in the Catholic Church—
when Western music was first starting.
A definite head to that, a nod to that so
that was interesting, you know,
combining those elements.
Kevin: That was really cool!
I'm gonna go to the piano now and
And teach you a little music theory lesson!
Alright, so let's talk about what that riff is
—note. It seems to be
sort of like a mode, it seems
to be major and minor and weirdly exotic.
Well,
the song kind of plays around that because
it likes to go from
from Gb major to
D major or Ebb
Let's call it Ebb, just for kicks
because that's technically Gb major to Ebb major.
And that's the mixture because you have
these two notes
So
It's a little weird because
there are always some notes that don't belong,
but that's the main thing that it's playing with.
And similarly in the minor we have
Eb minor
with
B minor or Cb minor
Bb minor Cb minor
Which also
kind of...
plays along with that
that weird half step little..
And the bridge is especially interesting
because
it sort of adds a bass to that idea
except it doesn't ever play the riff
it just plays the bass idea
so together it's like
that makes sense
but
it it kind of
completes the other side of the puzzle
without ever giving us the satisfaction
of playing them together so
all you hear is
but it has that 90's power chord feel.
Except, that's kind of what the songwriters were going for.
It's like they give you this weird little riff,
and then they give you a bass separately,
and...I guess
those of us who are more music theory-inclined
are supposed to put that together.
And the rest of us just enjoy the music as it is!
Umu: Yeah, so what did you think of 'Crime Scene' vs. 'Vogue'?
Which one did you like better and why?
Elizabeth: That's hard...
Elizabeth: I'm not sure they were... Owen: They feel pretty similar
Elizabeth: Yeah, they weren't super different.
The number of people was different, obviously.
So you had more harmonic density
In the vocal parts in 'Crime Scene' Owen: Right, definitely in 'Crime Scene'
But I also didn't feel like that was necessarily lacking
from 'Vogue', like I wasn't
feeling like...there were less members necessarily.
And they both had sort of like
like a little bit edgier aesthetics in the verse as opposed
to the chorus which was so very upbeat
and happy.
I guess I think I prefer 'Vogue'
just...I think the sort of laidback vibe
that runs through most of it
I think I would rather listen to that, but that's just a personal thing.
Owen: I think I prefer 'Crime Scene', because
of how they change the scale a lot up,
between the verse and the chorus.
Right? Going into a much more happy
So I think that's cool how they play with that.
Nick: I think the part that I liked about the other song
as compared to this one, was that they have a really
varied range of what's the high and what's the low, um, pitchwise.
And then in this song, when they're thickening the texture,
they just cram a whole bunch of percussion in the middle register.
And, it's a little much at some points,
which I think is the point.
And it works!
Nick: But I liked the range and the variation of the other song. Aaron: Yeah.
Aaron: I think this is just because I am the way I am
Aaron: is I like the concept of vogueing more.
Vogueing for like, drag culture,
that's where it started.
Like that was the big thing is you would go to a club.
So I think that drawing on that,
to create like a K-Pop influencing was like really cool.
On his part, very creative!
Kevin: I'm a 'Crime Scene' guy. Isaac: 'Crime Scene'
Kevin: I like living dangerously.
BPM very high, and lots of colorful chords.
Even the melody,
it's just that peppy nice feeling
that I really like.
Isaac: 'Crime Scene' has much more of an edge
Isaac: that I'm looking for now. Kevin: It's also edgier, I agree.
Isaac: As you mentioned on the piano,
it's just there's a clash between all these
scales and keys.
And that creates,
I guess for musicians, or classical musicians,
I guess there's that need
to look for something that's a little bit...
explorative of these tools.
I think 'Crime Scene' really exhibits these criteria
Isaac: As opposed to...'Vogue' Kevin: 'Vogue'
Isaac: 'Vogue' is pleasant, that's for sure,
definitely not something
that's like "Oh [this is] best and [this is] what sucks."
It's just one's better and one's great.
Kevin: Right, and like I mentioned
'Vogue' is the spiritual successor of Madonna's 'Vogue'.
So, there is much to like in both songs.
Aaron: "Vogue". I love that word, "Vogue!" Like, *vogue* It's great. Nick: *vogue*