Henry: WHAT?!
Umu: So now you're reacting to the five-member boy group called MBLAQ, who debuted back in 2009.
'This is War' was released in 2012 and is a song about love and betrayal.
The music video depicts a man who declares a war against a friend who won over his girl.
This is one of those music videos I'm showing to you guys for the sake of the music video and music supporting each other.
So you have my permission to pay 50% of attention to music and 50% of attention to the music video,
instead of the 90/10 ratio I usually ask you to do.
Kevin: That's so much math man, I'm a musician!
Isaac: uhuhuhUHuhuh
Umu: The song is composed by Duble Sidekick. Henry: Okay
Ready? (whispers) 3...2...1
Henry: We start off pretty intense...oh my god...oh my god. Cloud: Cello!
Melissa: He mad! James: Oh my god
Melissa: He's so mad, he's playing a cello. That's what I do when I'm mad.
You can tell it's war because there's snare drums.
Henry: Oh!
Ooh!
Cloud: That was really fast. Henry: Oh my gosh, that's dramatic.
This—Oh my god why do they look so emo, this is great!
Oh my god
Cloud: What? Dude, dude!
Elizabeth: Wait, I actually really like this.
Ooh I like that piano, ostinato thing. Owen: Oh shoot!
Elizabeth: God, that descending bassline? (Owen: Mhm) That's dramatic.
Owen: And you can make anything dramatic with a big, low percussion and snares going in the background.
Kevin: This, this is already very convoluted.
Isaac: This piano line is so funny Kevin: Like we have a love triangle, but I don't know any of the characters,
because you know, I usually need some development.
*Isaac laughs*
Isaac: It sounds like Backstreet Boys.
Kevin: It's good Backstreet Boys though!
Because it's got that percussion that K-Pop usually has.
Isaac: This is so confusing.
Kevin: Yeah
Melissa: Well it just—it—now it's a different song?
Okay, is this the aftermath?
Why does he still have a gun?
James: Piano's really pretty.
Henry: This is like...
That wasn't like...(Cloud: I mean like—) I mean that wasn't a musical transition,
(Henry: that was a cinematic transition.) Cloud: Yeah I feel like I've just been watching...like a...like a movie
Henry: Yeah I mean I'm kind of into it, but...
James: The piano octaves are pretty.
Melissa: Yeah James: Except he's pointing a gun like—Oh my god!
Melissa: They have—oh, target practice.
Okay, so when they're trying to have like, evoke a really sentimental feeling,
a lot of the time in music, they'll use quarter note triplets, um and...
You know, sometimes it can be a little cheesy,
but that's okay...because we're already
...shooting bottles in a landfill.
Owen: Cadential 6/4!
Or maybe just sus4
Elizabeth: This is too much.
Henry: Their voices sound really strained too.
It's a cool like, hard effect with their strained voices like it's a very "Ugh! Oomph!" power.
But I think it adds more to the clichéness of like, movie trailer.
Melissa: I love the string part here. James: The strings!
Both: *singing the string line*
(Isaac: Oh god) Kevin: Listen, that string line is some 'I Will Survive'-level goodness that I can get behind.
Elizabeth: Yeah, see Owen: Now you've lightning, this thunder in the background, now everything is dramatic.
Elizabeth: This chorus, It has like the strings in it and then it has like the really boomy bass
So it's just, just like meant to be very overdramatic.
James: Oh shit... Melissa: That's the tea!
James: What if she doesn't want to go with you, bro?
Melissa: Yeah! Like...
Melissa: You can't just steal a person! James: Oh shit!
James: Oh shit... Melissa: Yikes
Henry: I think Cloud: Oh, it's a lot more electric guitar now.
Henry: Yeah, yeah. Now that they've pulled out the fists, they've pulled out the
rock & roll, or the electric guitar.
Cloud: It's time to rock & roll!
James: Oh...
Interesting.
Melissa: Oh, so it's showing how they got there.
Okay, fine.
Now we're back where we started.
They have the same string motif.
Oh.
Okay.
Henry: Oh, did he curve? Did he curve?
(whispering) Yo, what?
WHAT?!
What the f—?!?!
Melissa: Was that a boomerang bullet? James: Did we just have a key change?
What the fuck??
Melissa: I'm so confused.
The key change shows that he shot himself?
Instead of his friend?
Henry: Oh my god they have a standing orchestra now!
And the strings are more intense!
James: I think that redeemed it for me.
Like that, that was—
Sorry, someone was belting I had to stop talking.
Kevin: This, this brings me life, it's so good! Isaac: So melodramatic
Melissa: That was so much...oh, there's more!
James: They're like, "Dude, what the fuck?"
Melissa: Are they just like, forgiving each other now?
Melissa: What? *laughing*
James: Oh my god, but he—
Stop laughing, Melissa, stop laughing!
This is serious! (Melissa: That low key—I don't know)
James: No, this is meaningful. I feel like we shouldn't be laughing.
Elizabeth: I just, I—I couldn't tell you the plot of this.
I can't tell you, I was not paying attention that hard.
Umu: Anyways, do you think—how did the music support the visuals?
Did it make it more confusing, or did it support the mood well, and how did it do so?
Owen: The music had two ideas, they happened a lot: it's big and dramatic, it's small and piano.
Although the layering does complement itself a lot. Like having the piano play different rhythms stuck from the strings,
probably different stuff from the guitar with the percussion.
It all comes together to be a pretty nice just group of sound.
James: So he...he knew...
that the bullet wasn't gonna hit them because he practiced with the bottle and it went around the fucking bottle.
Melissa: But how does a bullet...turn around??
James: Hey! Umu: It's a music video!
James: This is K-Pop! This is...
Melissa: Whooooooooo
This is like The Matrix, okay? We don't question things in The Matrix.
Melissa: I don't know, bro, that's a lot.
Umu: It sounds like a complicated relationship. How did you think the music do?
Melissa: Well, like I mentioned the quarter note triplets,
when he was, you know in the dump.
Shooting bottles with curvy bullets and it was just like,
"Oooh feelings, he's sad. Have some quarter note triplets."
And the way they used the highest and the lowest notes on the piano,
they just kind of threw them in there. Like yep, here's some feelings! You know?
James: I did think some things were cheesy but I didn't mind them
when they were like dancing and then like the strings *singing the string line*
Like up top, you know? Like that was very like,
"Oh we're going through some hardship" like, we're— "This is epic!"
Like sort of sounds but like I was fine with it, I was really interested in
the storyline, what was happening, and I thought it contributed to it in a way.
Melissa: Can we just talk about the low note on the piano when he died?
That was just like
Like...yeah, he died.
James: I didn't hear that Melissa: Low note!
Melissa: That was like, the very last note. James: Hey, that's like, that's programmatic music!
Melissa: It's very programmatic. James: It is!
James: They're like—by "programmatic" I mean the music
literally represents what's happening in the music video.
Melissa: ?? Strauss would be proud!
James: Yes.
Kevin: I'm not even gonna call this so bad, It's good because they did it with so much confidence.
They did that final bullet, the 360 bullet thing with so much seriousness and
Importance that I'm just gonna give it to you. Sure, I still watched it in a more comedic fashion.
But I would, I would show everyone this! This is my kind of, I think what Red Letter Media calls 'schlock.'
Yeah, the story's melodramatic and they're things, you know, that I wouldn't usually like,
but they deliver it in a way that it just, it's like a curveball!
This video is like a figurative curveball for Kevin. It's curved bullet, yeah.
Bruh....
Isaac: No, it's just it sounded very much...boy, boy band.
A lot of reverb.
It sounds like they're in a really big space and I don't know, I think it's just my—
I keep referencing Backstreet Boys but they have they have the sound where
it just sounds like they're huge mass, mass group of boys and
in the same case they're— Kevin: I think they're specifically talking about 'Everybody'
Isaac: *singing* Everybody! Keivin: Yeah, yeah, because a lot of the more intimate songs, they sound pretty tiny
Isaac: Well that one, specifically just it sounds very vast. (Kevin: I would agree with that.) Bigger than life
Kevin: A lot of pop songs nowadays they use strings, especially high violins in a way
that sounds a bit gimmicky, bit more rhythmic. (Isaac: Yep.) Like, you're not even sure if they're doing a percussion instrument or a melody.
There's always that almost existential crisis. Like what am I doing (Isaac: What am I?) as a string instrument?
Yeah, but in this one, it reminds me of some of those classic stuff. Like, like 'I Will Survive' has that, that interlude.
*sings interlude from 'I Will Survive'*
It's so good! Even musically, it's a—it definitely surprised me (Isaac: No.) and the plot was also quite surprising.
Isaac: Mhm. Kevin: Yeah.
Kevin:What is MBLAQ stand for? 'My Beautiful Lark A-wisted Quantasy'?
(Umu: What the—?)
(Isaac: What?)It's a Kanye West album, some of you will get it.