Henry: Whoa, what's going on?
Umu: So ITZY is a five-member girl group under JYP Entertainment.
You, not you,
reacted to their debut song called 'Dalla Dalla' last school year and now you will be reacting to their first comeback release.
ITZY's member, Lia, says 'ICY' is an extension of 'Dalla Dalla'.
Those two share similar meanings, but 'ICY' sounds more seasonal and festive.
Both 'ICY' and 'Dalla Dalla' talk about confidence and self-acceptance.
For example, in the chorus the lyrics state,
'I see that I'm ICY. I see that I'm good and how much potential I have'
'You keep talking, I keep walking!'
James: 'ICY'? We love an icy girl! (Brianna: Icy.)
This song is composed by JYP,
Cazzi Opeia, Ellen Berg, Daniel Caesar, Ludwig Lindell, Ashley Alisha, Cameron Neilson, and Lauren Dyson.
Isaac: That's a lot of people!
Henry: You heard Logic's 'Icy' before?
(Cloud: Yeah.) Henry: 'I'm icy, I'm clean'
Henry: 'I'm a bad motherf*cka, I'm mean' (Cloud: I haven't heard a lot of Logic, but I've heard some)
Cloud: We are ICY!
Henry: *singing Farmers Insurance tune*
Cloud: We are ICY!
James: Oh!
Both: Ooh, those pants!
Brianna: Pants.
Fiona: I like the comic book effects!
Daniel: It's more speech declamatory.
Well, now this is different, but...
James: Oh my god
James: Oh
I like that little arpeggio.
Fiona: Wow, this vocal line is really empowered, and like you can tell it's still building by the music,
which is building under it. So it's like, where can they go? (Daniel: Mhm)
Henry: Is this a little pre-chorus buildup?
Whoa, what is going on?
James: Oh, this is cool!
Awweeee yeah!
Henry: There's so many layers standing out there
Badadadada
That's so, that's so great.
Call out to teasiness, you know?
Elizabeth: Yas!
Owen: I like how the—
The different synths don't feel like they have a different color, per se (Elizabeth: Yeah) it's just like the amount of grit that it's run through.
You know?
Nick: All these melodies are just extraordinarily short too (Aaron: Yeah) It's like three words three, three notes.
Elizabeth: Yeah this is— Owen: There's so much layering going on here
Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah yeah. Owen: This is crazy!
Owen: Like, there's so many different *sings descending line* Even there's a glockenspiel floating really high up there (Elizabeth: Yeah)
And then there's also the WAHH and then the bass is doing its own thing.
Elizabeth: Yeah, it just like sounds so like dense,
(Owen: It's super dense) like I can't I don't even feel like I can pick out specific voices and
what's happening because it's just like, so much happening at all time.
There's so much sound! It's really loud. (Owen: Yeah)
Kevin: Whoa!
Both: Ooh!
Isaac: Shake it!
Kevin: WOW the percussion here is on fleek!
Isaac: [laughing] Oh my goodness
Fiona: This is more...[clapping to the tempo]
Straight motivated (Daniel: Yeah)
Nick: It's interesting because all of the harmonic things are just like in the middle of the texture
You've got a whole bunch of percussion below and above and then above that, you've got the singing.
But, in the middle you sometimes got this sweeping like uh...synthesized something.
Cloud: She's like so freaking proud of herself! Henry: Oh, I like that!
Henry: How it lines up and they switch. (Cloud: Mm-hmm.)
Henry: It shows a lot of like, uniformity within the group, unison.
Henry: Oooh, oooh!
Oooh!
I like that, (Cloud: Bop!) I like that ending!
Usually I really, you know, I don't like vocal fry, as a singer.
But, the way they used it at the end... 'Icy'
And it kind of creeped in and they cut out everything and just her voice was able to finish it. (Cloud: And the paper crinkle?)
Yeah that was, that was cool.
Elizabeth: Awe see that's one of those videos where it's like so hard to pay attention to the music
'Cause there's just so much color (Owen: So much going, visuals) and so much editing.
I think it's one of those things where like...
The visual of it is just as important to the song as the actual song itself.
I mean the song was wild and crazy. There was so much happening at all times.
Your ear did not get a break the whole time you were listening to it. There was always like 8,000 different
accompaniment parts happening with different syncopations and different timbres like...it was wild.
Owen: Personally, I kind of feel overwhelmed watching all that, listening to all that, like it's just so much going on.
Stimulus everywhere, and I feel like they make contrast not by like
Dynamic difference like it feels like it's pretty much constant the entire time (Elizabeth: Yeah)
it's just more like really full versus the thinner maybe like the
drum part
Elizabeth: I think texture is one of the most important things in K-Pop actually.
Owen: Because looking at the like the level as I was recording my thing over the pieces I was listening to
And like the dynamic the compression made it rendered it almost flat for the entire time
But doesn't feel like it just because the texture right?
Aaron: Yeah. No, I definitely did. That's one hell it will come back
Nick: I think I was just kind of hungering for some more like length in any of the melody type things
because they were all so short and catchy but
you need some kind of substance to grab onto if you're gonna if you're gonna get like really into a song.
This is something I would totally listen to in the background of like driving or something?
But like if I want to listen to a song (Aaron: Working out, yeah.) on repeat for hours and hours, I need something to like—
Umu: THEY KEEP TALKING! I KEEP WALKING!
HEY! HEY! HEY!
THAT'S WHAT YOU GRAB ONTO NICK! THAT'S WHAT YOU GRAB ONTO!
Aaron: That would pump me up to like...I could really like
strut to this, you know? This is runway music
This is exercise music. This is I'm going shopping and this is the music that I'm hearing because I
I just, I don't know you feel like a badass when you're going shopping
Nick: Oh yeah, this is shopping music, this is good shopping music.
Daniel: I think this was actually not very um, harmonic, if anything (Fiona: Yep.)
It was a lot more rhythmically-oriented
especially with the fact that there weren't actually that many
Cohesive melodic lines that were featured throughout this piece
there were only like a few parts like I think of the girl and she's like in red in a red dress and she's like
Walking through a diner. Near the very beginning. She's like singing, but that's it
and then everything becomes like, 'I keep walking!' You know and you're like, 'Okay'
Fiona: 'I'm dancing on a rooftop!' (Daniel: Yeah)
(Fiona: "I'm angry in a conference room") Daniel: But I kind of wanted to comment on like,
How this is like a very like an American sort of backdrop, right?
And their outfits might suggest in some ways that's like more American
Than like a Korean sort of outfit
But at the same time they don't like completely fit in they still stand out and I guess that's the look that they're going for
because like you we literally see people like from their windows like, you know, like
(Fiona: Whoaa) Yeah, like looking like ogling at them,
Fiona: But they keep walking! (Daniel: Yeah)
I'm different and it's cool. So that's a cool message.
Daniel: Yeah, I think it was more like thematic than
Musical in some sense was more narrative than musical. I think
yeah, they grabbed attention
well with like each little like sound and like visually like they have the little words and like
That mirrored how the music was they added so many little fun sparkly elements. So like the
Harmonization and that kind of stuff didn't matter but it was all about like the cute sprinkles and like icing on top.
Isaac: You know?
Kevin: Whooooo! (Isaac: You know?!)
Kevin: I'm a big fan, it was pretty great! Isaac: That was pretty good!
Umu: whAt mAdE iT pReTTy gOOoD / GReAT?
Isaac: You know what it sounds like, or what it feels like?
When you're playing Bop It!
And you're really grooving into it.
That's like, Bop it!
Pull it!
Twist it!
Umu: The poor mic is dying
Isaac: It sounds like an instructional dance video
Both: A little bit.
Isaac: And then there's the anthem kind of—
Kevin: It's like those DVD's where you know that Lure- middle-aged
Housewives like work out like Turbo Jam. (Isaac: Oh god)
Kevin: Well, you need a you need a funky beat (Isaac: Yeah)
And you know, they add some punny, sassy, slightly corny lyrics (Isaac: Yeah.) and it kind of works!
(Isaac: No, it works!) It kind of works.
Isaac: It's short and sweet
Kevin: Yeah, I do think the second verse with that half time thing
We've heard that quite a few times and in the industry in songs, but the rest of the song, especially the chorus and the bridge
The break breakdowns are all so good that I can't
Yeah, yeah, it's just
Just soaring and for an "icy" song, it feels oddly like warm it's like summer bop, you know
yeah, it's like that cooling summer bother like yeah, I'm gonna listen I see it's like
It's like listening to a...an audio...um, popsicle! Isaac: Yeah.
Owen: What if you could...like walk, and then have a bubble and you could like— *mouths 'how are you?*