Umu: I'M ALIVE!
U: Hello, my name is Umu, I have been on hiatus from making reactions for the past month or so on this channel
but I am back, and with a lovely guest reacting with me, you might have not seen him for the past few years
but he is appearing in this video! Please give a warm welcome to:
Yunyi!
Yunyi: I got three hours of sleep last night.
I am from the earlier seasons of 'Classical Musicians React'
but then I had to be off the channel 'cause I had to move to the other side of the country
and now I am back because everything is online,
all the reactions are online and I guess distance doesn't matter anymore.
But I am Yunyi, I play piano and harpsichord,
yeah (U: Yes), I am ready for some Girls' Generation today.
U: You mean some Bling Bling.
Y: Wait, I thought we were reacting to Girls' Generation?
U: The reason why you thought it was Girls' Generation is because I said it's a solid girl group song, I said "solid GG song".
Y: Oooh. There you go.
Well that, yeah, there - that - the mystery is cracked, okay.
Y: I am really excited to react to some Bling Bling today.
U: Yes!
Y: Going in this completely blind blind.
[t/n: Didn't we all miss Yunyi's puns?] Y: Going in this completely blind blind.
U: So, I am taking a little semi-break from my hiatus to react to this
because our network has given us the amazing opportunity...
which is a secret right now, but I will tweet about it later
and I am super excited to listen to this,
I thought they had a lot of promise with their debut song
and I have head only good things about this song.
So, shall we go?
Y: I'm ready for this. (U: Okay) Let's do it in 6/8! (U: Okay?)
1 - 2 - 1 2 3 - 4 5 6
U: Okay!
Y: Oh my, the "uh uh" in the background is so catchy.
U: I can already tell they are gonna have smart uses of silence throughout this song.
U: Keeping the four on the floor but changing the samples in the background.
Y: Yeah, it's like a tricked out warehouse, but it's like...
chaotically decorated.
U: Fitting the vibe - oh, hello melody!
Y: Yeah, going halftime with the beat.
U: OH!
Y: Oh, so good!
They're doing that thing that f(x) does a lot,
where they keep the verse kind of not really in a key, just very percussive, uptalky...
yeah, and that allows them to go between keys so easily.
U: I like how they added a progression to the originally shouted part with no harmony...
U: ... it's a nice development. Y: Yeah, exactly, they're keeping the harmonies kind of like...
Y: oh god there's so much happening.
U: Brrr (*imitating song sounds)
U: I like the little triplets that they use to transition,
slower rhythms to slow it down.
Y: Yeah no, the rhythms are really the highlight of this so far, stealing the show. (U: Yeah)
U: I love this drop so much!
Y: Yeah, see, it's just the total lack of harmony here, you know?
Y: They're not really giving you solid pitches (U: Right)
Y: Like they are kind of playing with the microtonal tunings, too.
Yeah, and that just allows them to go anywhere they want.
U: And their spoken parts almost have harmony because they have people speaking in lower range and some in the higher as well.
Y: Yeah.
U: You ARE flexing.
Y: Okay, I also love the fricking, like single take video.
U: Oh yeahyeahyeah. Y: That ding was nice.
Y: I wish I didn't talk over that ding.
U: One last go?
Y: Dude, I'm getting Gwen Stefani vibes from this.
Y: I don't know, do you? (U: I don't know) It's a little bit of that early 2000s coming back.
U: Yeah, okay.
Dididididew (*imitating sounds)
U: So much just happened!
Y: Wow, now that was fantastic.
You know, I gotta say, when we were going into this, (U: aha)
with the song titled 'LA LA LA' by the group 'Bling Bling',
I really wasn't expecting too much.
I try not to underestimate or really go in there with any preconceived notion of what I'm gonna see, (U: Right)
but that was not - that was simultaneously both something I expected and something I just completely did not expect.
U: I think what drew me to this track the most was how they decided -
they laid down the land with certain motives, right?
And then they combined them and chose to add in new things the right amount.
And so the transitions probably stood out to me the most,
which rhythms they chose to use and which sounds,
because the ding that you talked over,
It sounded like a coin flipped in the air, like the sound effect that they use for that.
Y: Yeah, like in Super Mario or something? (U: Yeah!)
Y: It sounded almost like a little arcade sound effect. (U: Exactly!)
U: I'm gonna go back and just review a few sections so I can try and wrap my head around it a little bit more.
U: "Oh oh oh oh", (Y: Aha) and then we got like the droning, the deep deep bass in the back...
And so whenever we move to the more harmonic sections,
I think it might have been the pre-chorus, where it's literally just all melody and harmony
it makes those moments stand out so much more...
making it so much more colorful (Y: yeah) it's almost like you're going from black and white to colors.
Y: Yeah, but even then they don't go too far with it, (U: Right)
'cause they kinda keep the uptalky,
like the kind of talk-singing voice in there
and that keeps it a little bit ambiguous,
every time they do that they kind of like,
they stray away from I think the melody that was in our ears for a moment.
U: Right right. Y: You know?
Y: It kinda disrupts our perception of where the harmony was
whenever they started shifting the tonic.
Another thing they did really smartly (U: yeah) was
they used like a lot of just semitones in there...
U: The *singing synth sounds*, or wait, am I singing, well, the talking part?
Yeah, you know, *singing high synths*, like that stuff?
Y: There was one specific little part -
oh my god, I can't believe I'm trying to do this myself,
but when they do like: "Hot and Baby", right?
You hear a little bit of a semitone between "Ba-by"
and that's actually a cadence in the voice
and that actually contributes to, I think, the melodic line that is missing in a lot of this music;
not missing in like the bad sense (U: Right), but you know,
like that kinda fills in the function of melody (U: Yeah) without actually giving you a melody.
So it's like they make those cadences in their voices, which is really cool.
U: Yeah, this would be a completely different song if it was just monotone like: *demonstrating*, you know?
Y: Yeah, and they mess with the pitch in the instrumental parts, too.
U: That's what I was trying to imitate, like the detuned synth. Y: It's just detuned a little bit.
U: *imitating* Y: Yeah, that's what you're trying to imitate.
Y: Yeah, they mess with the tuning there,
which is like, that mirrors what they are doing with the voice, cause the voice is kinda playing around,
sliding between those pitches but not actually singing any pitched melody in specific, most of the time.
U: And at moments like 40 seconds in, when they actually have singing,
and then it's almost like a call and answer between a single melody line and harmony.
Y: Yeah
U: That just adds so much more depth to this song as well,
'cause we go from this quirky, super fun, upbeat
to like almost floating, a little bit more mature kind of sound.
Y: Yeah, yeah exactly.
U: And it's just like, it's like the bow on the top of this very colorful sparkly gift... (Y: Yeah)
Merry Christmas!
Y: I think microtonality is the future,
like I have seen so much pop go towards that direction,
like even in a lot of kind of like dreamy little tracks,
like when they have an upper line they will detune it a little bit
to give it that kind of nostalgic feeling, like, I don't know,
BTS is on my mind because we just listened to BTS (U: Oh yeah...)
but they do that a lot (U: Right, right), you know?
I think that's the direction that a lot of pop music is going
and they really really use a lot of that in this track,
so it sounds super fresh to us,
but also it sounds very experimental and yet not too far out there,
because it's not giving us straight dissonance,
it's kind of just shifting what we're expecting, right?
Yeah, really cool!
U: I really really enjoyed this.
And to end this video, I am definitely going to look forward to Bling Bling's next comebacks, I absolutely love this song,
and for those who are wondering about this possibly appearing on our main series,
I have already started running it by our voting panel,
and the reason why us two are doing this duo reaction this week is
because of our network reaching out to us, asking us to do it this weekend,
it takes like a month for me to put together the 'Classical and Jazz Musicians React' videos
and we're on break right now, so...
Happy holidays everyone, and happy new year since that's coming up,
hopefully next year will be so much better.
Y: Happy end of 2020! U: Sending y'all a lot of love.
U: Yeah, happy end of 2020!
U: Bye! Y: Okay. Bling Bling. Bye Bye.