Umu: Hi everyone, my name is Umu and I'm reacttothek's channel creator.
Sean: Hello, everyone I am Sean reacttothek's channel arranger and host of Classical Composer Breaks down the K
and this is Umu's and my reaction to 'Monster.'
U: WOOO! Red Velvet, subunit Irene and Seulgi.
I've been seeing all your comments asking where our reaction to Red Velvet 'Psycho' is and I'm sorry I didn't film a personal reaction to it.
I was taking a break from reacting on the channel when 'Psycho' was released, and I'm sorry I didn't make an official announcement or anything,
I know a lot of you guys are still confused and I'm sorry, but sometimes I just need to take breaks from reacting on the channel because running this channel alone is a
lot of mental work, and sometimes I just need to take a break from being in front of the camera.
So when I do go on hiatus from filming my personal reactions,
I do tend to check out the songs when they are released, because we have a vetting process
to decide whether songs are reacted to on our Classical Musicians React series or not.
And so I tend to listen to the songs right away so that I could put my vote in for that vetting process,
so I can pass it on to the other musicians on our voting panel and so pinned in the comments section
I have three different playlists that you guys can look into to see what Red Velvet songs are currently being voted on,
and which ones we won't be reacting to, and hopefully those playlists will answer some of the questions you have of
why we haven't reacted to songs or will you be reacting to these songs.
That being said, let's move on to 'Monster.' I have heard the first teaser for this. I'm-
You know what's the most amazing thing about Red Velvet is that you just you never know what's gonna happen next and
in whatever concept or soundscape they change to, they just do incredibly well, and the production level is so high,
so I'm really, really looking forward to this.
S: 3, 2, 1.
U: Whoa~
Ooh, *referring to the child-like voice singing* that vibrato~
S: Huh.
She learned counting from Joy I see.
U: And now she's (singing) right on the beat. Clean~ (Verse 1 sounded like they were laying really back on the beat)
WOAAAAAAAA
S: Oh.
I was gonna say, theres a woooo in the bass, it isn't that unusual but it was also kind of starting to granulate the pitches.
U: It's still the Red Velvet sound with the unison singing,
but the (instrumental) sounds,
oOOOoo.
Oh now we're (Seulgi's vocals) back to laying back on the beat.
S: Like that it was really just sparse and not bright textures, and then that really bright growl-y bass
U: WEEOOoooo
There's some like, baby noises in the track. *laughs*
OOooo
It's there even a pre-chorus in this song.
(vocal melody) climbing up the scale and then descending into the dance break.
We have [imitates the background choir]
[more singing of background high notes]
There's so many different of haunting noises in this track.
S: Okay, I was ex- I'm still guessing the dance breaks coming because I feel like that was in a teaser, and we've heard some bass growls
in the post-choruses and I was thinking it was gonna go right into one here, but
No? Okay.
U: WOoooo
Wub wub wub wub [mimicking the synth part]
And then...
Ooh, that sounds like a type of flute.
S: Okay, there's more of the full growling.
U: And it kind of pitches down towards the end.
And we're ending how we begin? Some laughs.
Is that a meow sound?
WUUUUHH
Bruh! Okay, I've never used this term before but I've seen a lot of other reactors use this term, but that song was
deeeeeeeeeep in the pocket. Because it was so incredibly hard-hitting without being hype,
you know, this song is lit without the generic EDM you know drops and stuff.
The pre-chorus sounded like- I don't even know if we had a pre-chorus- but we didn't have any typical form lead ups.
And I just love the marriage between the choreography and the sound effects that were sprinkled in throughout the song.
Oh that was, that was, that was great.
Let's go through once more. Three, two, one.
I love this affected voice at the beginning. It sounds like a child's voice, but the vibrato shows that it was
maybe one of them, that they affected so much to sound more nasally and childish.
S: I feel like... Irene's
rapping style feels a little better suited to this than what a lot of a Red Velvet- like full red velvet raps are.
Like her lower rap sounds I think sounds better than a lot of the-
I mean, Yeri's definitely the higher voice rapper- but I feel like Irene still tends to be kind of high voiced.
U: And now we have harmony in the vocal part.
Back to octave.
They're getting low on the floor when the bass comes in.
Wooow.
Right, so here, it's like there's no bass and it's- and then
[mimics last line sung] Lots of sliding between notes.
S: This does a good job just switching between
these very soft bits, and the more- and the heavier hard heading bits
U: We have a lot of subdivisions going on in the chorus, which keeps us moving forward because of the verses are so laid back.
S: The slide into five on this makes me think of 'Love Shot.'
[sings said slide, and then sings the 'Love Shot' chorus]
The slide from four to five meaning...
Like the violins are possi- well
possibly just synth- yeah, it's drifting around like it's kind of staying around pitches, it's not just a riser,
but it's really sort of sliding slowly and you get these moments where it's
really not in tune with the rest because it's moving into the next pitch
And it does a nice bit just destabilize that.
U: I love the move with the synth part.
Yeah, and that flute sound.
[mimicking the synth]
Little sprinkles of dubstep.
S: Oh, this is the second teaser.
Sure was that's the I think it was the outro because it has a little
high-pitched laugh.
U: And the piano at the very end is so much more muffled and echoing than before.
It leaves you with goosebumps
S: Okay. Well, it's a third listen 'cause Umu's just starting her second.
Three, two, one.
The colors in this look really nice.
I'm not... I don't know.
This will be more interesting when PD reacts to it, and they can talk about
how this actually looks the way it does, but like that-
there's really good saturation in like the window- stained glass window behind them
I also just like all the blues and pinks.
Yeah and the choreo's still really- it's a good
It's a good choice, also, I think to have it right at the end, so it's like- it stands out.
It's like NCT having that... slowly spreading out their legs on- I think it's the
Na na na nanana, nana na na na-
I've run out of finger flexibility before I ran out of that musical phrase.
Right. But like that happens once there, I feel like
So it was like, it stands out and it's kind of it makes it a more iconic moment be-
in some ways- because it's not just the chorus choreography that happens two or three times.
U: Where to start man
S: I thought it was a nice combination of some like moments that-
a nice contrast between moments that would be fairly chill and held back, and then these really growly
EDM basses and like really kept flipping between them too- and but also like
Some- some continuity. It wasn't just like- it wasn't
like we've heard some songs where it's just like there are two very different things, and it kind of seems like it was just two songs shoved together.
But like here it's like they actually blended from one to the other,
it wasn't just like music type a, music type b, music type a, music type b.
U: Very true, and that's like thanks to like all the background noises that they like spliced up and sprinkled in throughout
like we have (S: Yeah) the very beginning nanana na, that had just like little bits and pieces (S: Yeah) throughout just the whole entire song, right.
S: Right, like it's- U: And then we have little like creepy baby noises too.
S: Yeah U: Yeah, yeah, yeah, the laughs and then of course like the little interruptions of like the dubstep EDM bass.
And then like we had the trap hi-hat going on throughout, and just like, it's yeah the song in total
had a lot of variation in between sections just based on the rhythms that they choose and the way that they sing it,
right, so like belting versus like quieter and like more sultry on the back of the beat, and then like putting more emphasis
and articulation on the notes, so. A lot- a lot of that energy came from Irene's and Seulgi's vocal parts.
S: Yeah, and it did a good job contrasting, I feel like- there wasn't a strict correlation- but I feel like Irene tended to get some of the
like sparser lighter textures and Seulgi tended to get some of the heavier ones what I think makes sense, like Irene's voice,
is often a little bit toward the breathier side where Seulgi's is often towards the a little bit harder edge side. U: Right.
S: Um, and, although I also liked- I felt like the sort of vocals Irene got to do in this song suited her well, (U: Yeah) like I felt like her
Like Yeri's definitely the highest voice rapper in the group,
but I feel like Irene's rapping in like full Red Velvet song still tends to be a little bit high,
and sometimes slightly, she's naturally a little bit breathy,
but like a little bit higher, and I felt like she got to rap lower here (: Mm) and I think it suited her voice better.
U: Oh, yeah, I was I was really impressed by that, because we- you know- we've seen Red Velvet in so many different ways,
but this this one was yet another doorway to the many concepts they can pull off so well.
S: Yeah. Yeah, and I feel like this is sort of them taking advantage of it being a subunit where it's like it's not
It's not really particularly red or velvet.
Um... (U: Mm) Like it's I mean, it's it's clearly not red, so sometimes pretty much everything that isn't clearly red people throw into being velvet.
But it's like velvet, velvets much more about like cord extensions and softer (U: R&B) textures.
I feel like. Yeah, it's like EDM basses, not really part of a velvet sound, but I thought it worked well.
So, (U: Yeah), I like that the chorus, the chorus- I guess actually no- the post chorus made me think a little bit of EXO's 'Love Shot.'
Just 'cause it [both sing the parts of 'Monster' and 'Love Shot' that are similar] U: Yeah.
S: So I thought of that, and also I feel like even structurally, like the- the intro of the song had the
na na nanan na, but like filtered even more heavily than...
usual filter process or whatever and I think that EXO's 'Love Shot' also starts with like a
low past, naa na na nana na na na
U: The- yes, you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
S: So I felt like maybe the composer's were thinking a little bit of-
of that song and how they set it up. U: And then they sprinkled some SHINee 'Everybody' in (S: Yeah) at the very end.
S: Yeah. U: Overall, it was just a marriage of what like a wonderful soundscape and I can't wait to see like all the
the, I know there's like a lot of theories going around for what this music video is inspired by, and like- it was like
what was it, like vampire girlfriends or something or I- I don't know. I saw something on Twitter.
S: Okay, yeah. (U: It really was interesting) Yeah, I don't know. I don't- I mean clearly leaning toward
clearly leaning fairly romantic with them, like that was...
that's clearly how it's set up. I'm not trying to say whether Seulrene is like actually a ship, but like it's clearly...
It's clearly being presented that way in the video. U: It's beautiful, (S: Just like-) and like I love the outfits, I love everything.
S: Yeah, no. Like this- they really did, like Ezra really did a good job producing the video.
U: Yeah, and now we're gonna be moving on to listening to the album.
I've heard that there's a lot of velvety songs and I'm looking forward to
the Moonshine and the Andreas Oberg songs because we've liked a lot of their stuff in the past, so.
We'll see you guys then! Thanks so much. Both: Bye~