Kevin: Oooh...
Very nice!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture playing]
Before we start grooving our butts off listening to 'Outsider'
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Without further ado, let the groovin' and bumpin' begin.
Henry: What's up?
Umu: Hi guys...
Cloud: Hi~
Umu: So you are now reacting to the boy group BTOB
and four of the members from the group
because the rest are in military service.
This is their comeback called 'Outsider'
and thank you to the producer whoever wrote this in the description
but this is about the story of our life
and how we get tired of repetitive daily life spinning like a wheel.
In a world like this sometimes we just want to be an outsider,
so what they mean by 'Outsider' in this song is
sometimes we just want to escape from the repetitive pattern of life
and set ourself free to be stronger and realize our self-worth.
Umu: wwwowwwwww Kevin: That's a good message
Kevin: cuz there are a lot of songs that already say that we are outsiders
and we're trying to embrace that,
but this one is about being stuck as an insider
and wanting to see something else
and using the word "outsider" is like flipping the meaning of it a little bit
(Umu: Right) and I really dig that, it's really cool.
Umu: This song is composed by Ryan S. Jhun, Cameron Warren,
Max Cooke and Shaun Smith.
Liam: Alright. Sweet. Rachel: Okey dokey.
Liam: 3 2 1
Liam: Oh, that's a really cool feel.
Got that cowbell going, on the quarters.
Jory: OH!!!!
Sam: There's kind of like a groveliness to his voice. (Raffi: Yeah)
Raffi: But then clarity as he ascends. (Sam: Yeah)
Ju Young: Peniel!
Umu: They keep changing up the rhythm of the vocal line
so that it interacts with the bass loop in different ways.
Kevin: Mhm.
Umu: I love that.
Oh, the guitar!
Kevin: Ooooh~
Very nice!
Jory: That's a great voice.
Will: Hm...
Oh yeah!
Henry: I like the little bit of vibrato at the end of those, it's nice and free.
Liam: Hm, that space. Rachel: Yes.
Rachel: It's just like slightly laid back on the beat
it's on the back of the beat.
Umu: Oh? And the loop changes!
Kevin: Oh yeah, the riff changes.
Rachel: OOOH! Liam: Oh hello!
Kevin: Of course...
Of course!
No cuz the first half of the rap was so laid back,
so then when he went there it was just so impressive.
Jason: This funk guitar stuff is really nice in the back.
Cloud: A little slide there.
Henry: Wow, that's good vocal control.
Jory: Woah. Will: Woah.
Kevin: Oh, G major?!
I don't know if that happened the first time.
Jason: Oh the harmony on that was crazy, I'm gonna have to go back to that.
Henry: Ahhh...
Jason: It's like Great Gatsby-esque -
yes, that's a nod to the Great Gatsby. (Ju Young: Thank you!)
Henry: Bridge!
Wow.
Umu: I love the hits- Kevin: That's a ♭II to i !
Kevin: That's a Brahmsian classical music technique!
Cloud: Dance break! Instrumental break! Henry: Ooooh! Bridge AND a dance break!
Jory: Sexy~
Henry: That muted bass guitar? Ohhhh... Cloud: Yes!
Ju Young: Hello!
Jason: The organ!
Raffi: It's getting, it's getting... what? Ah!
Sam: Oh my gosh!
woah
woah(x2)
woah(x3)
woah(x4)
woah(x5)
woah(x6)
woah(x7)
woah(x8)
Will: Woooooo
Liam: It's adding those cymbal crashes in the chorus
to really make it washy, like open up that sound.
Jory: There's like strings in the background, it's beautiful.
Cloud: This grooves, this grooves so good.
Jason: Slapped.
Henry: Yeah that was hot.
Cloud: I love having bari sax and bass together doubled, Henry: That was hot!
Cloud: that was so nice! Henry: I don't think I've heard that kind of sound before
Henry: or at least in a while, bari sax and bass guitar? Cloud: I haven't heard bari sax in forever!
Henry: Yeah, ohhh~
Henry: Man, that was like soulfully arousing.
Henry: Like, I was, they were pretty of course,
but I was biting my bottom lip for the music,
like that bari sax line is SO good!
Kevin: The ♯6 in the sax riff is very sharp!
Like not like intonation, *vocalizes*
They do use it quite a lot, especially in the bridge,
I wish in the bridge they could have done one or two more things
Umu: Slightly varied in harmony. Kevin: Yeah, the highlight of that bridge was the F major 7 chord
because when they got laid back they did an A minor
which is the first chord of the chorus,
and then they went down a little bit, that was cool,
but then I think in order to facilitate the dance break they kinda,
they just did a little sparse version of the instrumental, which...
Umu: Yeah, it works. Kevin: Yeah, it did the job.
Umu: And I think they added in some new guitar, electric guitars...
Kevin: Some electric guitar,
some synth pads that slowly crescendoed in...
Sam: The saxophone line and like that kind of lower woodwind
is so effective in terms of making it memorable as a bass line
but what it was really missing was some chord elements,
something that I could really latch on to in terms of a harmonic element,
so I think what makes the ending really special
is that it was kinda saving everything for that last big swell
so that way when you have that last chorus
it really feels like it's almost like it's,
it's like that game "Where is my water?"
"Where's your water?" on the ipad, where it's like the water...
Umu: The alligator? Sam: Yeah!
Where the water keeps filling in all the cracks and stuff like that
because it felt like it finally, it just felt like whole.
It felt as though before, like it was really good at the beginning
but I felt like it was almost missing just the tiniest bit of something
and the fact that it was brought together in the end
just made it that much more satisfying.
Sam: Yeah, I found it-
Raffi: I like their choreo.
Sam: Like there is just something like, it's almost like...
this is like very funk inspired,
like that part where it's like the bass line *mimics*
and then the guitar is like *mimics*
like that's very like - oh, this is so good.
Raffi: Oh you know, and then that whole build.
Raffi: What the heck? Sam: Yeah, it almost subverts your expectations
Sam: from being like "oh, this is a song that's inspired by funk"
to all of the sudden this is a song that just like...
completely swelled in a way where it just like... I don't know,
Umu: Became its own thing?
Sam: Yeah exactly, it became its own thing, I can't really draw a comparison.
Raffi: They said: "Gotcha!"
Sam: They say: "Fooled ya!"
"It was a prank all along!"
Raffi: "We took your water!"
Liam: Honestly, I just love the verse,
how freaking goovy it is, (Rachel: Yeah)
how powerful the bass synth and the bari sax sound is,
like it's almost like there's a delay on the synth sounds
so it even sounds more laid back.
(Rachel: Yes!) Like you can kinda hear that little leading into the next,
(Liam: next note.) Rachel: I love it when they utilize being on the front or back of beats.
Like a good example of a song that does that is
Jacob Collier and Daniel Caesar, their, oh my god what is it called?
Liam: All I need... Ah yeah. Rachel: 'Time Alone With You'
Rachel: like it's so back beat,
I love it when people do that
because it makes it so much more interesting to listen to
and so like groovy.
Umu: Yeah it's interesting 'cause not many other reactors
talked about the drums, so I'm glad you guys pointed that out.
Jory: Well like, I think the ideal thing for this genre is
that you don't notice the drums, you just only feel the groove.
Right? Because of course you want to notice cool hi-hat patterns
and stuff that's supposed to poke through
but if you're feeling good and not noticing the drums
that's how you know the engineers did their job.
Will: It's so full and just like *imitates*,
there is like those cool little hi-hat things going on
and it's like the layers and
there is a bunch of distortion, saturation going on,
it just like sounds so full.
Jason: So they're doing octaves for the bass
and then they're doing a third harmony on top,
there's a hierarchy, so you have the melody,
then you have, the second loudest is the bass being in octaves
and the third loudest is the third above
and it's like perfect balance for your ears
so that it's not overwhelming.
So it's almost like a vocoder kinda sound where it's like just...
very very... smooth, very smooth harmony.
Kevin: In jazz, I'm not a jazzer, but in jazz
ii-V-i
this is the most prominent chord progression
and the one where everyone gets creative with
because one of the ways you can do it,
and Brahms loved to do it especially,
is to change the V into a ♭II.
So we have the ii, then we have the [♭II-i]
Umu: Huh. Kevin: Famously used in the fourth movement of his 4th symphony
which is actually in the same key as this song, which is why it hit.
Kevin: There may be an actual deliberate reference. (Umu: Hmm)
Yeah.
Umu: Is there anything story-wise behind that Brahms symphony
that we could connect?
Kevin: Not really, he just got to the point where he...
wanted to use that chord a lot.
Kevin: There wasn't, yeah, that's just... It's just a Brahms thing, yeah. Umu: Okay, it's just a Brahms thing.
Kevin: There was one more thing I wanted to talk about and I can't remember...
Oh, right right right, it's not musical.
It's about the music video, so I like how the MV,
it's being, you know, the outsider very much is about the gangster life
because they're all wearing suits,
they're walking like the reservoir dogs sort of thing,
and this is, I think as far as the film world goes,
gangster films are kind of a thing of the past, like the 90s,
and I like that this song actually brings it back
through the message of being an outsider
and there is like the glorification of
how glamorous it is to be a gangster
cuz you can just wear tuxes and stuff
and it makes me just wanna watch Goodfellas again
so yey, music video.
Liam: dood
Umu: Mhm!
Liam: So sick!
Umu: MHM! Rachel: And they used that ♭7
*Rachel vocalizes*
Umu: You can play it on the piano.
Liam: Yeah, go for it.
Liam: There. "Outsider" Rachel: Yeah, that's what it is.
Rachel: I wanna go back to right before the chorus
they do some kind of chromatic thing.
Ah, that's ♭7.
Yeah
Liam: Yeah, it rests on a minor iv a lot. (Rachel: Yeah)
Rachel: Play it Liam! Liam's got some piano skills.
Rachel: Yeah yeah yeah.
Liam: So that's minor iv,
yeah, that...
Rachel: So... yeah, like that. Liam: Is it ♭5? Yeah.
Rachel: Leading tone to 5.
And that's pretty common in music
it's like doing an applied chord into V and then go to i, so...
makes sense, works really well, sounds great.
And everything was so nasty too!
Umu: OH! nasty~ Rachel: It was just nasty, like...
Liam: I was shaking my head the whole dang time.
Rachel: Just crunchy, crunchy sounds.
Cloud: Yeah, when it started I was like "the bass is so good!"
"The percussion is so good!"
"That bari sax is so good!"
Henry: I mean of course not to mention their singing
Henry: but also like... Cloud: Yeah, besides the point...
Henry: No, the singing was so, I mean,
I think they had a really good control over their vocal range
nothing seemed super strained, they had a clean,
on some of the sustained notes they freely opened up into vibrato
and I like that choice,
it just shows me a lot of easing of any tension
and that they have like free voices
which lets you focus more on their choices rather than-
as a classically trained singer, it helps me to focus more on their choices
rather than thinking "Oh, is that healthy?"
which I shouldn't really think all the time, too, but it is in the back of my head.
Jason: I like that line too.
Ju Young: I love how it started off with a little bit of legato
and then he just went totally into slurs in the beginning
I think that caught my interest
and then I was like: This is gonna be a good song.
Raffi: I liked the contrast of voices.
In the beginning it was kind of a little vocal constriction,
a little growling going on but I appreciated it, it was a nice growl
and then when the rapping kicked in
it was much more core in the sound actually, believe it or not,
and then there was a moment, I think we were talking, but-
Past-Raffi: He's on the roof, be careful!
Past-Sam: Don't fall!
Past-Sam: I really like what they're doing-
Raffi: If we weren't talking we probably would have heard it better
but there was very fast rapping
*Umu imitating rap*
Raffi: Yeah.
Umu: Diggidadiggida...
Raffi: And it passes you by very quickly, and I like that.
That made me feel things again.
Umu: And then of course that rap verse, he's just,
you know he's flowing like yeah, like cool pipes bro,
and then he just does that, I don't even know...
Henry: I liked that he switched up the flow,
he switched the rhythms within each part of the verse
but he repeated them I think at least once each time
so that they're legitimized in your ear and you're like
oh yeah, that's a thing he's doing, not just craziness.
I thought that was a really smart composition of that section.
Umu: I think what also...
*mimics rap rhythm*, and then they added in several other voices with it,
so while we had his voice, you know,
earlier in the rap verse it was just him and his inflection
and then at this part they bring in one or two other voices,
I mean it's himself doubling himself, but they're at different pitches and so...
Umu: I like how that developed. Kevin: Yeah. I like that too.
Kevin: I think this song is one where I can imagine the composers,
they take consideration of the rap verse,
they take into consideration of the swanky vibe,
I feel like they changed the bpm until it's absolutely perfect. (Umu: Oh yeah)
It just feels so perfect for everything that happens in it
where it feels laid back but it also feels kind of a banger, you know,
it just feels like you go one beat less per minute
and it probably would just sway too much the other direction. (Umu: Yeah, it changes.)
So yeah.
Wonderful.
Sam: Are those zombies?
Oh, now he's a zombie!
Raffi: That's how it works.
Sam: ...oh...
Raffi: If they bite you.
Sam: Okay.
So I probably shouldn't get bitten by a zombie then.