Umu: So, now you're reacting to an R&B solo artist named Crush,
Lindsey: He's real pretty. Umu: He's very beautiful.
Umu: and his 2018 song called 'None'. However...okay,
so, in English it's 'None', but actually, in Korean it means 'You'.
He continues to sing directly to his former love, and in this perfect
post-breakup anthem, Crush things about all the ways his life is meaningless without her.
James: Get ready to be alone. Melissa: I'm so ready.
James: Heartbeats. Melissa: Yeah
Melissa: Heartbeat is the original music. James: Okay, it's actually making a beat. That's kinda cool.
Melissa: Yeah. I like that.
Oh, yeah, cuz it's like sixteenth notes--da, da da da, da, da da da...
Kevin: Oh man, here we go again. Isaac: (singing)
Stephen: I like it.
I like the intro, it's nice and chill. Like, very inviting. Seiji: Um, hmm.
Henry: This style of music is so specific to American culture,
but this is actually very cool. I really like this.
Jeremy: His voice sounds a little raspy and maybe a little damaged, but it's R&B, so it's okay.
Hugo: He's also got a bit jaw tension for affect.
Davis: Man, he's got some control up there. Lindsey: Yeah
Lindsey: That falsetto. Davis: Cuz he's not singing like very strong.
You know? Lindsey: Yeah. Davis: It's like, as a male, to be able to control the notes like that, that's pretty friggin' impressive.
Lindsey: It's definitely a falsetto thing. Davis: Yeah LIndsey: But like,
Lindsey: not everyone has that
strong of a falsetto. Davis: Yeah
Lindsey: Consistent of a falsetto, I guess, is what I should say.
Melissa: now it gets lower.
Oh, this is so sad.
I feel sad.
James: Wow
Melissa: Whoa!
Davis: More a capella, dude. Lindsey: Yeah, but it's all him!
Davis: Yeah, it's multitrack. That's what you want. Lindsey: That's insane.
Davis: That's how you want it. I mean, who better to blend with you than you, you know? Like, of course.
Melissa: Yeah, that was so good! James: The heartbeat is stopped, too. Melissa: Yeah, it's like,
that stopped my heartbeat, because the heartbeat of the music stopped, and I was like, oh, my God, they're just singing!
Kevin: This section has different chords, and I really like how the first chord is a tritone below or above the tonic.
Sieji: There's like a slight reharm going on here. Stephen: Um, hmm, yeah.
Henry: That's very interesting, this sort of departure from the...
It's like,
it's a reharmonization of the same arpeggiated notes--it's got different notes in the base. That's very cool. That's cool,
when you're making a transition section. You have a ghost.
James: Wow
Elizabeth: Wow
He lets his voice get soft enough and breathy enough that it just like almost breaks. I like how that adds emotion.
Seiji: I imagine like this is the more...the darker side of the song, I take it?
Stephen: Darker, more emotional, for sure. Seiji: I don't know the words, so it's hard for me to know, but...
Stephen: Oh, interesting, that's where he ends it.
Seiji: Yeah, I'd imagine that's what it is, right? Stephen: Yeah. It's funny that he leaves it at that note, because usually most songs end with some sort of resolution
or like some sort of hopeful, you know, thing to cling onto. Seiji: Yeah
Stephen: He doesn't. And then it just fades to black.
Seji: Yeah, it's just a lot more dissonant. It's definitely musical in that way. Stephen: Yeah
Stephen: One thing that was interesting too, is like, when it got more towards the end, like some of the instruments that were accompanying him kind of
backed off,
which is really cool. One thing that struck me about this song that
was really interesting is I feel like a lot of
K-pop songs, or just pop songs in general, even if they're dealing with darker
themes, will still, either in the bridge or some way,
maybe at the end, have some sort of climax, where, you know, things get more loud. While they're were,
you know, rises in dynamics and stuff like that, it was really nice to hear a song where
the intensity increased maybe towards the end, but it didn't have to resort to the whole like, oh, we're gonna build it!
You know, only for it to get loud and then
resolve. It just stayed where it is, which is really cool, cuz I mean like his whole, like the
emotions that he's feeling, they're not really resolved, he just feels the same way, and maybe you can make an argument like,
with the way it ends and the lyrics, feels even more so that now, so that was kind of cool.
Isaac: Wow.
Isaac: Yeah, he's a very virtuosic vocalist. Kevin: Um, hmm. Isaac: He really knows how to work on
different sections of the piece. The texture of the piece, I was just like,
visualizing, it's like you have this really low bass, it's almost like a heartbeat,
and then the other instruments you have, the very beginning, it just unravels with this nice
chord.
It just springs open and just allows people to just like, "Wow, look at that--a rolled chord!".
And then, throughout the whole piece, you just have rolled chords. It's so inviting, the whole entire atmosphere, and you just have him just
floating along on the ether.
But...
Yeah, it was such a nice, he's such a great
vocalist. Kevin: So, I have to plug Crush really quickly. This question
was in K-con LA, and he did this song
on the first night, this weird club-bar event, and it was a smaller stage and
he did this thing
where he started a song and the instrumentals
started, but it only played the intro, and he did the entire song a capella. And that was the moment I realized that this guy
Isaac: He's very good. Kevin: Yeah, because he sings live just like that. Isaac: Okay
Kevin: Yeah. And note perfect. Isaac: Hmm. Kevin: And now let's go to the piano, and I will show you the Crush chord.
So near the end of this song, we have this chord that I don't know.
It doesn't fit any
studies that I have in my brain. That was really weirdly worded. But, you have an A bass,
and you have this F--a half step between--and you have a G here,
You just learned the Crush chord. Let's make it a thing. Call it the Crush chord, okay?
And then it goes like...or something like that.
Henry: Wow.
Elizabeth: I like when singers do that very like breathy thing, but it also like, my throat hurts for them.
Put some air in there for my vocal chords, please. That sounds like it's uncomfortable.
Yeah, no, I made the comparison with Debussy because
like Debussy's whole
style of composition was to say
why do we have to have harmony that resolves places, why can't we just
write things that sound good to our ears? Why can't we just write music that
sounds beautiful and
pretty. Henry: He did it. Elizabeth: Yeah, and so he just wrote these like
eternally spinning, like nebulous, ethereal pieces that
are so gorgeous to listen to, and that's kind of the vibe I got here, with like you know every chord
was a seventh in some way or ascended, and so it just kind of kept going and going and floating, and
I really liked it. Yeah. Henry: It's a very American style of writing. It stems from jazz music and R&B music
specifically, and its adaptation into like, the sort, of hip-hop,
electronic world, more or less. That is the thread that I have always seen, those are the the mutual genres I have always
perceived. And so, a lot of times when that is
imitated in any K-pop music it feels a little bit forced. This did not feel so. I thought it was actually really nice.
Jeremy: Like I really enjoyed the song. The music was really good, and it was a very well written song.
His voice was sort of...I don't know, it just sounded...there was something bothering me
about his voice. Like maybe, I think it was the raspiness, honestly, but...
Hugo: It really fit the style. It does really fit the style. Jeremy: It does fit he style, yeah.
Jeremy: But it was like, oh, you're hurting yourself. Hugo: Well there was just, there was a certain
tension, like he chewed a lot of his consonants, if you notice, if you watch singers, and basically just look at how their jaw works
when they're singing. Like I wanted him to just take his fingers and be like, okay,
you're gonna put them right here, and see how well you
can sing without moving your jaw, or moving it as little as possible, because there was just so much
accentuation that it really felt like he was holding a lot of tension there to kind of control that tambour--control that
line, as opposed to having the control and support be from his diaphragm and from his breathing mechanism.
Jeremy: Yeah. He was also really singing off the breath, like not really supporting at all Hugo: Yeah, and it's just,
I worry about a sustainable that is. Cuz it's not like he was like,
screaming any high notes or anything; he was doing it mostly in falsetto when he went up, which is fine,
but it's just gonna lead to problems
later. I feel like if he was more on the core of his voice, he would still be able to obtain a sound that
he wanted in a healthier way.
James: He's a really singer. And you kept mentioning that like, breathy quality--I think the reason it
was so delicate and so breathy was he seemed to be sitting like at the very, very, very top of his chest, like right before
it breaks and goes into falsetto, Melissa: Yeah
James: and he was pretty like, adept at switching back and forth when he was doing like runs and stuff. Melissa: Yeah
James: You couldn't really hear it, but he was at that very top of the chest voice, where it gets really breathy and quiet, and
kind of an intimate and beautiful. Melissa: Right. Because when you're in-between head and chest voice, you
can't really tell which one you are if you sing softly enough. James: Yeah. Melissa: If you just let it be breathy,
then you can transition. James: He stayed that way throughout the whole song. Melissa: Yeah.
James: And I think it communicated the emotion really, really nicely.
And just the vocal agility stuff, too. Melissa: And I love that he let
his voice kind of like break, in a way. James: Yeah Melissa: Like toward the end, it was so soft that like, it was almost like,
oh, is he gonna get sound out? Oh,
he did! He manipulated his tone to get the emotional character of the music really well. James: It's like that wilty sound.
Melissa: Yeah.
James: When singers like him that are that good, that's an intentional choice, Melissa: Right. James: that he chose to
to let his voice break and rasp a little bit, Melissa: Exactly James: to communicate
the emotion of whatever he's singing about.
Davis: Yeah Lindsey: That was beautiful.
Davis: Yeah Lindsey: It was so lovely. And like, I mean I knew he was like, really attractive, but his voice is just, it's just so pure.
Davis: So pure. Anybody can say I'm an R&B artist and like,
sing over some like super-extended
harmonies, and like do whatever. No, this guy actually like, finessed the sh*t out of that. Like that
was really good. Lindsey: I like how you just censored yourself by saying sh*t.
Hello, everyone I'm Umu, and I'm the channel runner of React to the K. I really hope you enjoyed watching this video. I you're curious about
the videos that we'll be reacting to in the future, I put a link to
a doc with our release schedule in the description. Last but not least, if you'd like to support our channel, you can help us out by pledging
any amount you would like on our Patreon. On Patreon, you can get access to full, unedited pair reaction playlists,
reactions to Japanese releases, and much more. And of course, a huge shout out and thank you to our superstar patrons.
Thank you so much for your support. Bye