Hello everybody, I am Sean, ReacttotheK's channel arranger and host of 'Classical Composer Breaks Down the K'.
Normally, Umu and I react to new releases together,
but I am doing a solo reaction because
we are on different sides of the country,
and I wanted to react to this 'cause I am a fan of Red Velvet,
I think they have been really doing some of their best work in the last year
with 'Power Up' and then 'RBB', which is such a distinctive and great song,
and then 'Sappy', which is, well I think, their best work
and also one of the best pop songs ever,
so they have been at the top of their game lately
and I am very excited to hear what they do with 'Zimzalabim',
I have heard - well I have seen the special invitation
I heard a few seconds of the music and then muted it
'cause I want to go into this essentially unspoiled of what it sounds like,
I watched the teaser, I've not listened to the teaser,
I don't know what this sounds like.
I assume it's Red side, not Velvet side,
but beyond whatever guesses can be made from Red side,
I am going into this pretty well unspoiled.
3 2 1
Okay, that is not a synth I would have expected from Red Velvet.
Wow.
Bells. Non-harmonic bells.
WOW!
That is a very dirty bass for Red Velvet!
Leading into some of the f(x) background.
Okay, nice. SM chords.
Flat six
...
So I guess, was that the chorus that just happened?
Some odd post-chorus.
I really like the sort of tonal void that we're doing with the bells.
OKAY!
I was not expecting a drop in a Red Velvet song!
Nice
Some more Velvet side chords.
This is quite different from the other choruses!
Wait, unless - was that - was that just the end of the bridge?
No, this is outro now.
Okay, that was, that was a lot, that went a lot of different directions.
I think this succeeded in doing what they've been ...
What they've been doing a bit with the last few comebacks
is combining bits of the Red and Velvet sides.
I mean, overall, this is clearly more of a Red side song,
but the bridge, as with the bridge in 'RBB', is much more leaning Velvet.
They are doing some things that I wouldn't expect, like I, I feel like -
Obviously Red Velvet is already a flexible group
in that they can be anywhere on the sort of Red to Velvet spectrum,
but there are certain things that I don't generally think of falling on that spectrum,
like having an actual drop, that seems much more like, I think of f(x),
obviously because of that being another SM group, but also,
I mean there a few other groups who do, who have much more focus on drops,
and I didn't expect that from a Red Velvet song,
but I liked it being in there.
Usually with bells it's often rather than having a clear overtone structure,
they just have various pitches that sound,
but they don't fall into an overtone series,
so it makes it a bit harder to perceive
what sort of the pitch of the bell is,
and so I'm not -
I'm sure there could be a sort of analysis of what those implied pitches were,
but it is not so natural to hear with bells as with a lot of other timbres.
Yeah, like that's - it's a really interesting way of
sort of destabilizing it harmonically with those,
and then sort of locking it back in
when the more sort of conventional synths come in.
If I have a critique, it's that I think they may have leaned
a little bit to heavily on rap, for their group.
This is something I think they've generally gotten
a little bit better about with recent comebacks is just recognizing,
like, some groups work really well with larger rap sections,
because they have really strong rappers.
Much more of Red Velvet's strength is in singing than in rapping,
so they tend to work best with small amounts of rapping, not quite this much.
Still, there was interesting stuff happening around it, to, like,
it was not lazy composition around the rapping.
Kind of want to watch it again, 'cause there's a lot in that song.
3 2 1
They have a bit of this snare drum,
and then they have the visuals of the snare drum later.
So actually the bass here is pretty similar to the drop,
it just sort of doesn't register as much of a drop
because it's sort of still moving forward with the singing
and doesn't seem to have just sort of landed.
So, I'm figuring out, is the 'zimzalabim zim-zim-zalabim',
is that the chorus itself, or is that the post-chorus?
This is part of the verse,
it doesn't feel like it's building up to a cut chorus.
Like, this might be - this might be the pre-chorus.
Okay, yeah, and that pre-chorus was cut short.
And then there is a drop, which I don't, I mean ...
yeah, like, where are you gonna put this formally, like,
do you put this as post-chorus effectively, or is this taking a place,
is this sort of technically part of the bridge?
Okay, and, so yeah, this is a different,
like, the 'zimzalabim zim-zimzalabim' is kind of rap,
but they're doing a different chorus,
or a different contour to it this time.
And yeah, there is a lot of stuff coming together,
like this is some of the very Red side stuff,
but also the very, the ah ...
sort of similar to the drop in the bass.
Okay, so something I am noticing more on a second listen is how -
it is something they were starting to play with a bit with 'RBB',
is the sort of breakdown of the really clear pop song form.
Like, a lot of pop songs have a sort of standard form of like,
maybe intro, verse, pre-chorus, chorus, verse, pre-chorus, chorus,
bridge, maybe pre-chorus, pobably just last chorus, maybe outro.
And 'RBB' did follow that, but the sections were really blurred as to
where one started and where one ended, like you can figure it out,
but it is not as immediately obvious as with a lot of pop songs,
and I got like this is doing a similar thing, where
it's a little bit hard because
there are either extra sections stuck in,
or if something doesn't sound quite conventional for a particular section,
it's a little bit tricky to figure out quite
where the boundaries of each section are,
even though it's essentially following the standard form.
So, yeah I think it's a good solid comeback.
I will also be filming a reaction to the full mini-album, so watch for that.
I also have a 'Classical Composer Breaks Down the K' on Red Velvet's 'Ice Cream Cake', [t/n: There is one for Zimzalabim now, too!]
'Classical Composer Breaks Down the K' is a much more in-depth series
where this is just sort of immediate reactions and thoughts,
'Classical Composer Breaks Down the K' is like scripted and
edited with graphics to really explain a topic much more thoroughly, so
if you want more Red Velvet,
check out 'Classical Composer Breaks Down the K' on 'Ice Cream Cake'.
Thank you.
Bye!