Henry: Uuuh~
Henry: OOHH!!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture playing]
Umu: Alright, we're starting off today's film session
with the solo artist IU and her title track 'LILAC'
off of her fifth studio album titled, also, LILAC.
So through this album IU embraces the symbolism of lilac flowers
as memories of youth to bid an emotional farewell to her twenties
and say a hopeful hello to her thirties.
So some background information on IU,
she debuted as a soloist when she was only 15 years old,
she was forced to grow up under a magnifying glass
as she struggled with her identity,
but with this album she is ready to say goodbye to that time in her life
as she continues growing as a person and as an artist.
Raffi: I'm excited. Sam: Yeah, me too.
Umu: The song is composed by
임수호 (Im Sooho), Dr. JO, 웅킴 (Woong Kim), N!ko...
it's N!KO, (Jarod: Alright, alright.)
and the lyrics are written by her!
Jarod: Wow. Daniel: Ooh~
Ju Young: Aw, I really love this beginning, look at this!
Umu: Did you read what...?
Ju Young: Yeah!
Owen: 3 2 1 !
I like the set.
It shows her past albums, probably, judging by the date? Cool.
Kevin: Oooh, very personal. (Owen: Mhm)
Cloud: She looks like a freshman, walking into college for the first time,
Cloud: like excited, rosy cheeked, bright eyed... Henry: Mm, what a fun little soundscape we got here.
Jason: Ah...
I like this solid muted bass sound.
Daniel: It's so smooth...
...her voice, but it's so articulated at the same time.
Jarod: That guitar is nice!
Henry: Uuuh~
OOHH!
*Henry imitates line* Cloud: So slidey~
Sam: I feel like this, or the instrumentation,
is very like glossy and very like...
like glitzy.
Cloud: This song sounds like lilac flower petals.
Henry: Ooh, the little bit of bent on that "spring".
Kevin: Plot twist, there's a zombie outbreak in the train.
*stifled sounds*
Jason: The guitar strumming, like that's super-
super nice - oh, and the horns, nice 80s style production stuff.
(Ju Young: Wowww~) super nice - oh, and the horns, nice 80s style production stuff.
And with the funk bass...
Now a grand piano.
Ju Young: Ah, the addition-
OH MY GOD, IT'S HIM!
Sam: Oh, she just punched somebody!
Kevin: Also I think there was a little piano riff
that's probably a reference to one of her old songs.
Cloud: Oh. Damn, get it, girl! Henry: Aaahh...
Cloud: Yeah!
Daniel: I love the *vocalizes*, very delicious.
Jason: This really high guitar panning left and right
with the high notes are just like super ethereal.
Owen: Nice call and response between the
*sings instrumental* and then the *sings melody*.
Stephanie: Oh!
Henry: Uh, those keys, synth hits for the bridge? (Cloud: Oh!)
Jarod: She's having her anime glow up right now!
Having her anime glow up...
literally.
Daniel: Yeah, yeah.
Ready to surrender her past into her future.
*Kevin is reminded of 'Adore U' by Seventeen*
Sam: It's really interesting cuz her voice is so clear
but as she goes more into a chest tone
it doesn't loose any of that clarity (Raffi: Yeah)
so, very interesting.
Henry: Uh, I love that outro sax in the back! Cloud: I love that we have sax in the back!
Jason: The strings, synth and glockenspiel reverb sound is really nice,
that makes the atmosphere...
match really well.
Cloud: NoOo~
Henry: Oh, there is more...
Hey, that's the guy that was playing the sax! (Cloud: Yeah.)
Cloud: Wait, so they just left without her?
Or they dropped her off and now she's sad?
Mmmm...
Daniel: So it did happen.
It's not a dream because she took something out of her hair.
Owen: Bye-lac...train.
Owen: It's the polar express! Kevin: I was just gonna say that!
Jarod: It's gonna cut, it's gonna end!
The train is gonna arrive, it's gonna pass, it's gonna end! (Daniel: Right...)
Does she get on, does she not?!
The tension, right?
Daniel: Mm.
Daniel: Oh, she looks at- Jarod: What?
Jarod: Looking at the camera - I missed -
Jarod: the subtle smile at the end, the realization, (Daniel: Aw)
Jarod: it all coming full circle! Daniel: Oi, it says something at the end.
Jarod: What, does it? I think it's just- Daniel: Yeahyeahyeah
Umu: "Spring is short but it comes again"
Daniel: Oh, interesting. Jarod: "Spring is short, but it comes again".
Jarod: Wow, the new chapter, you know,
she lived the 20s of the grandest adventure, you know,
spring is short, the spring of your life is arguably your 20s
but it does come again because, you know, it ain't over when you're 30...
...wait a minute...
Wait a minute!
Jarod: She's onto something here! Daniel: You sound like a poet just now,
Daniel: You're like speaking truth into existence.
Jarod: Dude, I'm not speaking truth, she spoke all the truth,
Jarod: that just, I'm just a messenger... Daniel: Wow, oh my god!
Jarod: I'm just a messenger... Daniel: He keeps going, he just keeps going!
Jarod: Something that I appreciated about this song
was that it did not rely heavily on the drums for rhythm.
The drums were like a foundation,
but the bass and the guitar were
very emphasized for their rhythmic values
and the differentiation against the drum beat pattern,
so I thought that was really sick.
And there was a lot of sonic things that they were doing with the guitar
where it was almost incredibly high notes
but they were kinda panning kinda left to right in rhythmic ways,
that I thought was really cool.
I thought that just the layering of, and I said it,
like the glockenspiel, the strings, and there was a synth,
like the layering of those to create kind of a *whistles line*
just kind of a cascading countermelody, almost,
that was very reminiscent and paid a bit of an homage to like,
once again, kinda like Quincy Jones style.
To kinda have like this classic funk bass going on,
and these sounds and instrumentation and styles
that are super standard funk,
she's looking back and creating almost like f-
then in her mind now, as she's looking,
here's like a futuristic funk sense,
it's like she's taking this, using this kinda genre in this sonic area
to help her move forward, you know? That was pretty cool.
Stephanie: It definitely felt warm and... yeah it felt like the spring.
I thought of this as spring going into summer,
maybe that's like 20s going into 30s... something like that. (Leon: Oooh, true...)
Umu: Yeah. Okay, so you talked about this song sounding
like a bunch of perhaps flower petals fluttering around,
what musical elements make you visualize that?
Cloud: It's the higher register, the...
the motion of falling and then like the rising up is just *ugh*,
and then the instruments,
there was like a second of trumpets somewhere in there,
there was the saxophone at the end,
they kinda like switched out the instruments,
but it also had like that 80s kinda vibe going off in the back
but it was so light, and her voice of course is just so effortless, so...
I thought, yeah,
it really paints a really nice picture of a lilac color for me.
Henry: Consistently I am so impressed by IU's vocal flexibility,
how she is able to -
like I feel like all of her songs are just like a wash of
a beautiful thematic soundscape
with her voice front and center, floating right on top of it
and it's beautiful, it's so nice to like -
there is always such a good blend of sound.
Cloud: And that *sings melody*, like -
I don't think that was in the right key, but like that,
it feels like a nice little gentle breeze,
it really does and I really like it.
Kevin: It manages to be sort of lyrical
while also being a very funky song because of her vocals
and I feel like every time I listen to it
I gravitate towards one side a little more, then the other, and I love that.
Owen: And I think also she has such vocal abilities that
in the chorus, when she went *demonstrates,* (Kevin: Mm, yeah)
or maybe, was it *sings other versions*
either a tenth or an octave, either way,
huge leap.
Kevin: Yeah. And then she jumps to an F,
*demonstrates*
yeah yeah yeah, which is also super nice...
Owen: Also really great. Overall,
the groove was really good, her lyricism and the vocals were fantastic,
I also felt like it was gonna resolve to the 1 at some point
but it kept resolving not to 6, but to 4, which is even more removed,
but also it felt more satisfying because it's a major tonality, too.
Kevin: Mm. That's why it took me a while to locate the key,
I'm like "I know what chords they are, but which key is it?"
Owen: Mm, but you do feel grounded in F
Owen: because the guitar playing... yeah, for sure, Kevin: It's pretty grounded in F.
Owen: just *imitates guitar line on F*, just forever.
Henry: I love how it opens up into the chorus, "Lilac~",
and she, cuz it goes higher into her register, it's very light,
and then she hits you with that chromaticism,
From like 5-♯5-6, oh, it's so cute.
Leon: At first that C♯, it kinda made me surprised
but I don't really think that is necessary, though.
Like I think it can be just like C-C-D or like C-D-D.
Umu: *C-C-D* instead of *C-C♯-D*,
is that what you're referring to? (Leon: Yeah)
I think it adds a little bit more color, don't you think?
Cuz it's almost like she curves through it, right,
slides through it... (Leon: Yeah...)
Leon: Probably because I listen to too much American music and jazz,
their composition technique tend to
really put diatonic melodies on the vocals or the main melody,
and then do really weird things at bottom.
Umu: Oh, so this is like the opposite, right? Leon: Like the countermelody, yeah,
Leon: the counter melody will be usually really chromatic and atonal,
but not the melody.
Umu: That's interesting, I never thought of it that way!
Leon: Yeah, like if you listen to Jacob Collier,
like 'Moon River' for example, that one, 'Moon River' is totally diatonic,
but the re-harmonization that he did is just crazy.
Umu: Yeah, I wonder what this song would sound like if we
keep the melody diatonic and then have the re-harm underneath...
Leon: Yeah, that would be super cool. Umu: ...go places.
Leon: And also there is a part, pre-chorus,
I think it's pretty cool, there is a chord...
it's like... what is that chord?
[t/n: Piano Time!]
*Piano*
Am7(♭13)
like that chord is really beautiful,
I think it's because the guitar just kept playing the F
[half step above E in melody]
so that's why there is that thing, but the second time it's
*playing*
it's just like a normal 7th chord.
Umu: Yeah. // Leon Yeah. Stephanie: Aw...
Stephanie: Yeah, musically I kinda wanted it
to go to more different textures and things like that,
it kinda felt more static throughout
than some of the other ones that I've heard,
but the visuals, the visual was just so entertaining
and it just fit the lilac so well with that costume and everything.
Raffi: Can- to be honest, can I say like-
the choreography, I felt like it was like musical theatre (Umu: Ooo)
but I don't know,
it just played really well on what was there rhythmically
but it launches right away with like the-
you know what I mean, it's a little more acoustic,
and then it goes into something completely different,
the groove starts, you know, there's like a pre-groove moment,
so that was kinda cool how it transitioned,
it catches your attention and takes you in.
And then I think the message is clearly, clearly there at the end,
just in terms of what they did with the video
and that last glance right at you, and you're like:
"Uff, I know it"
You know what she's thinking, like what she's feeling, yeah.
HUFF.
Umu: What would you say your favorite moment of the song was?
Jarod: I think when it all starts to come together,
because you have that *vocalizes*, like that blossoming sound,
you hear that early on
but you don't get to experience it visually and story-wise until later,
and then you have that confetti at the end,
you have everyone literally blossoming with the chorus, right?
Like again, just the layers sonically, story-wise, choreography-wise,
when all three elements come together,
that creates a really heightened experience,
and that's probably my favorite.
Daniel: And at the end, as you're talking about,
it's hinting that it's coming back again,
cuz she's left in the dark
and she's taking out these confetti out of her hair,
and then she looks towards this new feature
and she doesn't know exactly what that train looks like,
or you know, we don't know what it is,
but when she smiles at the end she knows there is another blossom,
that there is gonna be another blossoming, whatever it looks like.
Jason: Everyday we live is a day closer to death.
A-HA, sad.
Hopeful, though.
Because on to new adventures and chapters, right?
But scary, in her face, cuz she's scared seeming.
But she should smile at the end, cuz she should be excited...
Oh no, smile!!!
[t/n: !!!HEADPHONE USERS WARNING!!!]
YYYAAAAAYYY!
There you go.
*Umu loling*
Jason: Sorry, HAHA!