Liam: Hahaha, yeah, I'm vibing.
[Rossini Semiramide Overture]
Umu: You are reacting to the girl group CSR
which in Korean is 첫사랑, which means First Love.
Jory: Cute.
Umu: And the reason why they are called First Love
is because it is the first time in K-pop history
that they are a group of all 17-year-olds.
They are all the same age
and so the company decided to call them First Love
so that they can show various interpretations of first love
and tell the story of the members as they grow up
year by year.
Jason: Okay.
Umu: Wha- why? Was that like-
Umu: That wasn't even an eye roll, that was an entire head roll? Jason: Both of us were just like, Hhh...
Umu: What's wrong with showcasing- Jason: More young love and...
Brian: Boo!
Jason: It's not real! It's not real!
Umu: Love isn't real?!
Jason: NO!!!
Umu: I think life has jaded you.
Jason: No it hasn't.
Jaded has lifed me.
Umu: So you are now reacting to the girl group CSR
and their 2022 debut 'Pop? Pop!'
Kevin: Pop pop pop!
Kevin: I mean, it's just- Owen: Pop! Pop!
Kevin: YES!
Jason: Hey, Kevin and Owen, good job, that's funny.
Kevin: Pop! Pop!
Liam: Why is the first one a question?
Umu: Good, good, good question, Liam.
Rachel: Are we about to find out?
Umu: This song is composed by 김진환 (Kim Jin Hwan).
Alight, are we ready for pop pop popping?
Adam: One person?
Umu&Cat: Yeah. Adam: That is crazy.
Cat: Are you gonna press the button, I'm feeling nervous about it.
Adam: Okay.
Cat: Okay.
Adam: Three, two, one!
Cat: I've never been that happy to read.
Rachel: I love nature.
Stephanie: Oh, I can smell the flowers.
Liam: Oh, the piano, dude!
Jory: A little key change.
Kevin: It's a new spot.
Liam: Is that a whole-step modulation, like, immediately?
Brian: Oh wait, the corn!
It's corn!
Adam: That's kind of cute.
Liam: Oooooh~
The swing on the last couple beats of that.
Brian: What was she eating corn?
Leon: Hm~
Stephanie: I like that sound going up and down.
Leon: Yeah, yeah, that one.
Leon: Ah.
Liam: Ehehehe, yeah, I'm vibing.
Kevin: Oh man, this is like...
It's like you put the K-drama and the GFriend.
Adam: The back kind of sounds like, like a Wii sports background.
Like the strings.
Cat: Yeah, I'm ready to do some Wii summer sports.
Adam: Yes!
Adam: Oh wow. Cat: Oooh.
Jory: Cool.
Will: Ah!
Liam: Oh, the hemiola, yes please!
Liam: Ooho Rachel: That was cool.
Will: Wow.
Kevin: They never go back to the first key, cuz it starts in like G♭ major?
Stephanie: Yeah, the melodies are really catchy.
*Jason singing melody*
That was cool, that was almost like a Disney melody, kinda.
*Liam singing harmony*
Liam: yes!
Owen: I love how this bass sounds. (Kevin: Mm)
Owen: Like, I could listen to only this bass line and be happy.
Liam: Oh, I love the synths.
*Jason singing line*
Jason: Yeah, good way to bring it into kind of a dance groove [?????]
Brian: Oh!
Jason: Oh.
Liam: Half-step mod[ulation]?
Oh my god, what?
Stephanie: Mm~
Leon: Okay.
Owen: What a great counter line.
Kevin: Oh man...
This is why I like girl groups.
This song reminded me of why girl groups are cool.
Liam: YYYEEEESSSS! Kevin: AAaH there it is! I mean, it has to happen!
Jason: AAAH key change! // Kevin: It had to happen. Owen: Yeah. It had to, it did have to happen.
Jory: That's the best melodic part.
Brian: Oh?
Liam: Oh my god!
And then a half-step mod, Jesus Christ!
Jory: Hng~
Will: Wo-
Liam: Wow.
Kevin: Wow.
Liam: That-
Rachel: Huh?
Liam: That was insane.
Owen: Pop?
POP!
Owen: That was great.
Kevin: Yeah.
Owen: I loved it. It was poppin'
Rachel: WTF?
*Umu cracking up*
Liam: Uh...
Rachel: That was like GFriend on steroids.
Umu: YES!
Rachel: It's just like the chorus reminded me of GFriend specifically
but then it just like, everything around it was just like so out,
I was like...
...what?
Kevin: Yes. This was great.
It's like, you have things that are very familiar sounding, you know, that's why the K-drama-ness of it is in there,
but when it's done with this much conviction,
plus this much creativity in the key changes and the ♫pop pop pop pop♫
there is little surprises along the way while still managing to sound sweet.
That's just fantastic.
Umu: HH?
How dare you?!
Tell us, tell us, what are your true feelings?
Brian: All I could think of during this was whenever,
whenever I hand Jason like a dessert or something, and I'm like, "Try this, it's good!"
and Jason is always like: "It's too sweet!"
That's what I thought about this song.
Jason: It's too cutesy for me, for my taste, so I am not gonna talk about my taste.
Cat: I'm always here for something cute.
That's my goal in life so like, that's fine that, like, I understand their goal is to be cute
and I totally can appreciate that, it definitely was really cute.
Adam: It was really cute.
Cat: I just wish I was in the music video.
Like, I want to be in their world.
Jason: I do think that this is in itself kind of like for a message of young love and stuff,
it is an Ophelia-esque thing of like the beginning of her,
of like they're 17 years old, they're talking about love and they're heart throbbing and all that...
cutesy sh*t
but it's like it's nice, you know, like,
this is kind of like a timepiece of an age, like we've all felt that, you know, when we were young,
and people who are young, listening to that, they can feel that, which is good.
Umu: Yeah. Jason: So it's good.
It's a place for somebody to go when they want to open that door.
Kevin: I've grown a little cautious of songs that like do the sweet sound but there's like this edge to it,
like either it's like really fast and the percussion is just like *intense*
or there's something going on where there key changes maybe are a little too angular, a little too jagged,
or like they give me too much whiplash, right here, that's where the whiplash happens.
um... yes.
but this song really towed that balance nicely.
And I still like how it started in a different key!
Umu: Do you feel like all the key changes add to that young love feeling?
Jason: Yeah, sporadic and kind of not organized in not really knowing where it's going,
which is, that's what young love is.
Leon: Finally the first time the key change does make sense!
*Cheering all around*
Leon: It's a beautiful key change. Stephanie: Mm.
Leon: Even where they go to G major at the end I feel like that's a wise choice
instead of only going up a half step.
Because it originally is F and then usually people go to G♭ and then they go to G.
It's like more uplifting and plus, you know, like, sharp keys are usually more uplifting than flat keys,
I don't know, that's just a theory.
Stephanie: Like it opens up.
Leon: Yeah.
Stephanie: Mm. Umu: Yeah.
Will: This adds a little bit of like, "All right, cool."
You know, it's like, you get you get the same chorus again but it feels a little different cuz it's in a new key.
Jory: A little brighter. Will: Yeah.
Leon: Like, what they did is like, is like:
♪ D♭ - Cm7 - Fm7 - B♭m7 ♪
Something like that, I don't know.
♪ E♭7sus4 - A♭ ♪
♪ A♭9 - D♭ - Cm - Fm7 - B♭m7 ♪
♪ C9sus4 ♪
And it just goes super bright, just like:
♪ B♭m7 - C9sus4 ♪
and then:
Umu: F!
Leon: Yeah, F, yeah.
That's how they modulate.
And then, I really like, they do a really classic J-pop ascending to vi
Yeah, it's like, something like:
♪ F(add9)/C - B♭maj9 - C7sus4 - A(♭9)/C♯ - Dm7 ♪
Leon: Like that's so, like, all the time J-pop uses that. Stephanie: Yeah...
Leon: Like every time it has to go to vi.
Like ♪5-♯5-6♪, that motion.
Will: A good amount of the melody was definitely familiar
but then every once in a while there was something different,
I was like, woah!
Stephanie: They're all, like the very last time they hit like a higher note in the melody,
Stephanie: They like change it up, that's like "oh that's nice" Leon: Oh that was so beautiful, yeah!
Stephanie: Like I always love when people do that.
*Jory singing along* Will: It's like, yeah...
Will: That was also my favorite melodic part.
Cat: Cuz you always ask me like, "Did you notice the difference in their voices?"
And I'm always like "no"
I could tell the difference in their voices!
No, but there is one girl,
she was like almost like reddish, her hair was,
she had like a deeper voice.
They all had like inflection to their singing that makes them all sound younger which is like...
I think it was like an effect that they were doing themselves to sound like uniform
but they still had different sounding voices when they sing along- alone.
Owen: The end, so you know how the main singer was doing *sings melody*
and then there was another singer that the music video introduced
in the sort of descant way that we have in pop songs, of like:
You know, where it's the counter melody that's super up high.
But!
In this song it was so...
relaxed
It was so easy for her to sing that and like, that was a very nice breath of fresh air
because a lot of other songs you hear that same line sung with so much more intensity,
but because it was so easeful, it made the song - yeah I don't know, it was going on here,
but it it made the song very unique and special, I think for that,
Owen: so I really loved how she- Kevin: Unique...
Both: ...AND special!
Kevin: True.
Owen: I really liked how she sang that line.
Stephanie: And that like rhythmic thing they did was interesting, what, where was it?
Will: I like the very like chopped off like "pop pop"
where it's like, there is like, they clearly were like cutting everything at exactly like, you know.
Like there is no- there is just dead space in between each of those hits.
I kind of dig that, I thought it was cool.
Jory: There's a lot of momentum in it.
Stephanie: It reminded - sorry, another food reference...
It reminded me of like rock candies.
Liam: Like, it's a very odd grouping of notes.
Like, 7 doesn't really fit really well in a lot of grooves, traditionally.
Like, you have to kind of base the whole thing around 7 in order for it to really feel comfortable.
Here it's just, the turnaround makes it satisfying, like where it lands.
So like, it grounds you on that last beat.
Rachel: The first time it has a turnaround back in 4.
But the second time it goes, it has-
Liam: It has a build of 3. Rachel: It just has 3, that's what I was saying.
Liam: Yeah.
Rachel: Instead of:
Liam: It's that everybody do the conga thing and that's where it's like, you know,
You know?
Umu: Yeah!
Liam: It's that landing on the "a", it just gives it some crazy momentum in the groove.
Umu: So your thoughts on this song?
Kevin: HUH?
Owen: Oh the bass made the song for me. Kevin: It's great. It's fantastic.
Umu: Owen, why is the bass so good?
Owen: It's, well it's got the right fuzz.
It's not clean, it's not dirty, it's just in the middle, and it's perfect.
Second, we have the perfect articulation that I can't even sing because the bass just does it so well, like...
I want to listen to that other part because it was really good.
Oh it's so good, it's so good!
Like, go to, yeah, at 2:19
you're hearing all these, every note is is differently spaced,
some of them are legato with just a tiny bit of thread that connects them but still a little bit of space,
and then you have the fast notes in there:
Just all of the articulation was so varied and so perfect for the exact moment that it was within the beat
and it always carried the groove and the vibe and the harmonic feeling of it super well
because it wasn't just stuck on one note either, it was moving up and down and...
Also the harmonies were really experimental and fun
so then the bass could like not have to work too hard to make the harmonies all filled out
and I am running out of steam because I was so excited about the bass.
Kevin: Pop? Pop!
Owen: Thank you.
Kevin: CSR?
Classical...
Owen: ...Sousicians React.
Umu: Sousicians React?
Kevin: That's like people who only play in susical and musical. (Owen: Sousaphone)