Kayla Rae: Pff- Jacob: OH HAHAHA!!
Jacob: WHAAAAT?!
*random Adam scream*
[Semiramide Overture - Rossini]
Liam: Oh god, I see TAK!
I see my favorite, my favorite man.
Umu: You guys are now reacting to the Korean solo artist 라온 (Raon)
and this is her first Korean digital single.
Jason: AAAaAaAAH!!
*clap clap*
Brian: Good for her.
Jason: Sorry, I got- I'm tired.
Umu: She originally debuted in Japan back in 2022
as she was most known for her anime OST covers on YouTube.
Her 2023 Korean debut was written to highlight her unique charms.
The song is composed by Giga and TAK.
Both: OooOooooooooohhhhh~
Leon: Okay~
Umu: Are we ready?
Owen: Three, two, one,
Ragu!
Cat: ~♡Like Like♡~
Adam: Oooooh!
Oh, I like that chord!
Liam: Ohohoholy sh*t!
Stephanie: Chaotic vibes.
Leon: Mm.
Stephanie: What? What?
Stephanie: Interesting. Leon: Uh!
Liam: The percussion is SO eclectic.
Adam: Oh-
*Cat hums melody*
Adam: I love it!
Stephanie: Mm~ Leon: Yeah.
Stephanie: I like this! Leon: Yeah, it's so good!
Stephanie: So unique!
Owen: That was cool, that was great.
Cat: That was so cute, what?
Brian: It sounds like a construction site!
Jason: 1, ... &4, 1, FIRE!
Owen: Yeah, the percussion is fantastic.
Liam: Oooh, that ♭6? Rachel: Flat, yeah.
Kayla Rae: That is very interesting.
Rachel: Mm~ Liam: Ohoho.
Jory: Jesus Christ.
Adam: Oh, we're somewhere new. Cat: Yeah.
Liam: Oooh, I like how they kept that synth line from the... yeah.
Leon: Uh! Stephanie: Hm.
Jason: Bass going nuts.
Ooooh, nice harmony.
WOW!!!
Rachel: The clapping. Yeah, the clapping. Liam: 4 of 3 modulation, yeah. Metric modulation.
Leon: Yeah!
Kayla Rae: Pff- Jacob: OH HAHAHA!!
Jacob: WHAAAAATT?!
*random Adam scream*
Kayla Rae: It- wow.
*Kayla Rae riffing along*
Liam: A completely different vibe.
Jason: Jesus Christ, that was such deafening silence.
Liam: Oh, these riffs!
*Jason mimicking bass sound*
Jason: The bass is just nuts!
Jacob: And I feel like with her timbre,
like she has a very bright top but then towards her chest she opens it too,
so it like, it kind of reminds me of an anime OST, honestly,
in like the way that singer would sound.
Liam: "Ooh~"
Rachel: She's got a good voice.
Jason: Really cool, really great chords though.
Stephanie: Yes, you tell them!
Liam: Oh, I like those, I like those chords underneath that.
Owen: Cool.
That was a lot, that was crazy, as in...
Owen: ...all over the place. It was wild. Kevin: I don't know, oh man.
Owen: It's a ride. Kevin: This is one that requires time to simmer in my brain.
Liam: Oh my god.
I love him so much!
Rachel: Good sh*t, good sh↓t.
Liam: aaah~
Leon: Wow. Of course. Stephanie: Oooooh, sick!
Stephanie: Ooh, she's a queen.
Leon: Can you make, like, at least one bad song?
Stephanie: Hmm...
. . .
Umu: I don't think, I don't think it's humanly possible for TAK to make a bad song.
Brian: It felt a little bit like getting hit by a car.
Umu: * e x h a l e *
Brian: But not in a bad way.
Cat: No, I had a fun time. Adam: I had a blast!
Cat: What happened though?
Liam: Hahaha, it's so good, there is so much to unpack!
Like, there are so many great decisions
that just like make the song flow
despite how many different places it goes.
Will: There's a lot going on. Jory: You know how this, like,
Jory: immediately sounds like it was produced more recently?
Like, compared to that last song?
Will: Yeah, um- Jory: It's like really wide and it's really dry in places
Will: Yeah, that could be it.
Yeah, I kind of noticed that too, like, immediately.
Will: Just sonically. Jory: It's just more modern, somehow.
Will: Probably just, I mean, just certain semi-minute decisions
with things like dry (Jory: Right), really dry sound design.
Jory: They also weren't balancing like a gazillion band members
(Will: True) Jory: so it could give them like way more freedom with, you know, extra sound design.
Jason: You know when you're a little kid,
and you go to elementary school and they're like, you get a color,
and then you take every single color and you mix them all together
and then it turns into nothing and it's just this brown crazy- (Umu: Was that the experience?)
Jason: Because there was so much going on that I was just
*overwhelmed*
I was just like in shock, I was like *confused sounds*
Will: Sonically...
very good.
Jory: Pretty cool. Will: Um, sound-design-wise very good, mix-wise very good,
Will: just not...
Jory: Just too much.
Will: Just too much, yeah, just too much, it's like,
Pick one out of ten elements to make little changes to, to add quirkiness.
Don't make the harmony quirky and the melody quirky,
and the drum production, and the sampling of the chords,
and the time feel change, and the, you know, like, (Jory: And then change the beat half way through.)
and the video being crazy, and...
Kayla Rae: I don't know, I feel like it was so,
there were so many things that kind of like popped out as like interesting
that it's like, I don't really know if I have a favorite section.
Jory: I have a visual in my head of like pancakes,
stacked with chocolate syrup and then maple syrup and then sprinkles and then marshmallows
and then like fµcĸing like lollipop stuck in it,
and it's just too much, you know, like,
you'll never enjoy the whole thing because
you'll be stuck trying to eat one pancake and dipping it a little bit in this syrup
and then, "Oh okay, that was nice, okay, I guess I will suck on a lollipop now"
But you will never get the cake and lollipop and sprinkles and syrup,
you know, it's just too much for you to focus on.
So it's like, if you're really determined you can go back and try and consume it as a whole thing.
But at first listen, you are just like, ehehe?
Rachel: It was very clean. Liam: There's so many sounds he packs in,
Liam: But there is always just this clarity from the little bit of space between everything.
Liam: I don't know how you do that. Rachel: Especially at the beginning.
Rachel: Like, the way that he was like layering it on at the beginning with all the synths (Liam: Yes!)
I was like, what the f#%k is happening?
But like, but it worked!
Liam: It did.
Leon: I feel like he is the only person that can add so many things in one song
Leon: and then still make it not like- Stephanie: Yeah, it's so cohesive.
Leon: Yeah, still cohesive, yeah, and still really interesting.
Will: A lot of the sounds and things that they accomplish in the production were impressive.
I mean the only, like the things that I remember are the one beat that was cool in the middle,
and then the crazy weird transition to get it going into that beat, (Jory: I just remember-)
I was like, wow.
Leon: Is that a metric mod[ulation]?
Stephanie: Oooh.
Kevin: There is definitely a relation there.
Owen: No, there's not.
Kevin: Like, I'm not, I don't wanna spend time analyzing it,
Cuz like, I feel it, maybe it's some like... perceived... (Owen: 1,2,3,4)
Oh, here we go.
Rachel: Yeah, was it, is it 4 over 3?
Liam: I'm pretty sure, yeah. Rachel: Like rhythmical, I think, yeah, cuz it was the clapping that like,
Rachel: I'm like, okay, well this is definitely a modulation, cuz it's the clapping.
Rachel: Yeah, yeah, that's so cool, yeah. Liam: Yeah, it's 4 over 3.
Owen: Mathematically I don't see a normal relationship. Kevin: Oh, it's a couple of notches above over 100 [BPM].
Owen: Yeah. It's not a hundred, if it were a hundred, yeah.
But it's not.
Kevin: What if it was originally 100,
Owen: Possible, and they were like... Kevin: And they thought, let's just move it up a little bit.
Leon: Yeah, cuz it's so super cohesive,
it's not like just some tempo change and like "oh what the hell is that?"
Stephanie: Yeah.
Rachel: It's interesting that the metric modulation was like,
usually I feel like it's easier to find, like, from the first, like from where it goes,
so like, but it was, we were able to figure out the metric modulation from the end of it, not from the beginning,
cuz usually it's easier to go into it and harder to get out, but like,
it was like the opposite, it was easier to hear.
Liam: Yeah, cuz it just, it's a ritardando into that.
Rachel: Yeah, it's just a rit.
Liam: And then coming out of it, was it- Rachel: So I was like, "is that a modulation?"
Rachel: But then when it came back I was like, "oh it totally is." Liam: Yeah, you can definitely hear it,
Liam: Like, it's clearly a metric modulation relationship,
but you don't hear it like that
because of how the transition into it works,
it's just a ritardando and then lands right on that.
Kevin: When the style changed, I know it's meant to be like, "Wow, it's something new!"
It actually felt like something familiar to me, something a bit more grounded, something that,
yeah, like, where I could pin-point, not like-
basically what type of atmosphere and mood they're going for.
Jason: Some of these changes didn't feel natural.
Some of these changes really felt like premeditated and like,
like that, like that one felt, I don't even remember,
that one actually felt fine, but the other ones, sometimes it felt like
it's so overtly planned out that it's just like...
there's no natural quality in it,
it's just very mechanical and kind of gears moving and shifting in response to one another.
Brian: Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
Jason: It's a thing.
It's not good or bad, but it seems a bit methodical in its mechanic changes.
Owen: I actually think that tempo, that that section would be better slower.
Kevin: Really? Ah, no. Owen: Yeah, just a little bit slower, definitely, no.
Cuz it's like:
Owen: But if you like lean back a little bit, come on, no, it jams, it would jam!
Kevin: This jams. Umu: It jams!
Kevin: This jams.
Owen: It does, it does.
Umu: It would jam even more? Owen: I think, laying back on that, yeah, that would be nice.
Leon: Just the chorus itself, it's already super dope, super inspiring,
like, I feel like TAK is the king of changing chord qualities.
Stephanie: Mm~
Like this is supposed to be, like let's say in minor ii-V is supposed to be half-diminished,
but then he uses like just straight minor 7 to make it really bright.
Sometimes people use like regular V,
he will use a lot of different notes that are just not expected.
Liam: Yeah, there's a lot of nice modal mixture too,
The E major - E minor.
Rachel: E major - E minor thing.
Liam: Yeah, did she do a little, a little bluesy, blue note in there.
Owen: Whenever she duetted with herself and did harmonies,
like that was also, that was always amazing.
I think her voice lends itself well to itself.
It was really nice.
Cat: I like her voice (Adam: Yeah!)
Cat: It seems like she has a lot of control over what she wants to do with it,
She had a lot of like different accents,
like sometimes she's like, "like like~"
and then she's like
"WOOOOOOAAAAAOOOOWW!!!!"
Like, there was, I- if you were like, "What did you think of all these girls' voices?"
I'd be like: "There is a lot of different things going on."
But it was actually one girl this time, so...
Umu: Did you have a favorite kind of character that she embodied?
Cat: I liked that she could do it all.
Kevin: And the vocal delivery is also insane.
Kevin: I have not heard like such...
rambunctious, unabashed, and, yeah, confident type of vocal delivery.
Owen: I think beyond that she also had amazing range
in what she was able to do with her sound.
She made runs that were so smooth and flawless
and then also had talking vocals and screaming vocals that didn't sound polished at all,
even though we know that she can do it because of the smooth runs that she did before,
but there was an artistic choice, and she just had such different timbral colors
and in her melodies, that I think made them really interesting.
Rachel: I can hear that she would do OSTs,
Rachel: She has like a very powerful voice. Yeah. Liam: Very powerful.
Jacob: Yeah, so she just had a very bright forward sound towards the top,
it almost sounded like there was a little bit of [ɛ] in all of her belt.
Just like a very bright, sort of nasal,
she kept it open towards the bottom too.
Kayla Rae: She maintains the colors throughout her voice,
it wasn't just like, "Oh, she had like the top",
She also had a little bit of chesty color in the middle to low,
but it was very bright.
55", you kind of hear her open up into a chesty belt.
It was just kind of very like, yeah, like, it opened up rather than thinning out,
and it just kind of had a warmth, I kind of liked that.
Stephanie: Like, her voice, there is a certain edge to it
and it's like, kind of like, not necessarily sassy all the time,
but it's got the power to it and kind of like the silliness of all the animals
and all these patterned clothes and stuff that's part of it too,
but it's like her owning it and that's like kind of her personality kind of a thing,
and you can hear that in her voice tone too,
cuz with this song I thought it's so unique
and I feel like it's bringing out a certain personality of the artist.
I bet it's like a contribution from all of these,
like the producers and the singer and stuff
but just so unique, I love it.
Cat: I liked it.
I ♡Like Like♡d it.
Adam: I ♡Like Like♡ it too.
*Jason begins to play a demented, minor version of Mary Had Little Lamb*
*help mom, i'm scared*
Brian: Don't get me started