Elizabeth: Yeah, this cycle of clapping, Melissa: Yeah Elizabeth: I don't think it's
entirely repetitive. Melissa: Yeah Elizabeth: I think they mix it up a little, which keeps you on your toes.
Melissa: It doesn't sound the same every time.
Elizabeth: Which I suppose means breaking out of the cycle. Melissa: Oh, snap!
Umu: This 2018 release features a member from the boy group EXO and a rapper named LOCO. The lyrics are by
JQ, Tomboy, and it is composed by Moonshine, Jinbo, and G.Soul. The music video depicts Baekhyun and LOCO in assembly line and classroom
environments, which are places designed to make people repeat the same cycles. Throughout their video, the pair breaks out of those circles to follow
their own paths. So the lyrics are about ignoring societal expectations, thinking for yourself, and following your own path.
The song can be summed up with the lyrics, "Rid yourself of decisions based on what you think others want. There are
other results you want, aren't there?" Fiona: Three, two, rid yourself of decisions that based are on to what other people
want
Melissa: That's an interesting tambour at the beginning. Wow, it just like, really crescendoed.
Lidsey: What is
Fiona: Repetition. Lack of Individuality. Lindsey: But just like, it all of a sudden start like swinging a little bit,
and like tripletizing, Fiona: Yeah Lindsey: but it didn't start that way.
Fiona: Oh, now it's like, subtle. Lindsey: Oh, yeah, is this is definitely EXO. This is defintely EXO.
Melissa: It's like, hard for me to find the beat.
LIndsey: Where are they? What are they doing?
Kevin: Ooh!
That harmony wasn't anywhere. It was just in between.
Rachel: Foam, question mark?
Play-Doh, question mark?
Rice, question mark?
Elizabeth: Yeah, this like cycle of clapping, I don't think it's Melissa: Yeah
entirely repetitive. Melissa: Yeah
Elizabeth: I think they mix it up a little, which keeps you on your toes. Melissa: It doesn't sound the same every time.
Elizabeth: Which I suppose means breaking out of the cycle. Melissa: Oh, snap!
Collin: That's interesting. The texture opened up, the texture opens up when the box is opened up. That's really...
Kevin: It feels like a dirge. It feels like, very heavy and march-like.
And I think that fits the theme of the song.
Fiona: Ooh!
Lindsey: I Like I like the tambour of this voice a lot. The vocal quality is all there for me. Fiona: Cool voice.
Fiona: He sounds really cool, and like nonchalant. Lindsey: Yeah. He sounds like he's just chillin' and rapping.
Fiona: sound- passion now
Lindsey: I like his shoes Fiona: harsh!
Melissa: Wow. I love this accompaniment. Like, it feels like it's following him, instead of him following it.
Seifi: Yeah, I like it. It's really intense. Stephen: Yeah
Stephen: I like that even though it's got like a half time groove, you can still feel the cut time pulse. Seiji: Yeah
Seiji: Totally, totally.
Kevin: Daa, dee, dee, da, da. Flat 2 1. Little bit of instability.
A lot of tritones and sevens mixed in there, just disorienting.
Lindsey: I like how this video has like two completely
separate aesthetics, and I think kind of each of them is for one of the members.
I don't know, like the the rapper seems to have just like the white background with just people.
It's like a simple, visual thing, and then the singer,
there's a lot more going on.
Fiona: He's really singing out. Lindsey: Yeah.
Elizabeth: The more like, abstract breaking out of the cycle, Melissa: Wow.
Elizabeth: the more they seem to have sparse accompaniment. Melissa: (singing)
Melissa: Yeah
Kevin: I don't think this song has any 5/1s, like your traditional dominant tonic relationship.
It's all about four. 1/4, 1/6.
Stephen: Aww, man. I like the high octave synth, kind of, that's going. That's really, really nice. Seiji: Yeah
Stephen: I feel like there's a lot of these songs. The ones that stand out are the ones that like, where the devil's in the details, where they add something that just,
might be small, what makes a huge difference.
Elizabeth: Well, pop songs are cyclical, because they always come back to the chorus. Melissa: Yeah. Like this.
Like the circle that they're drawing.
Kevin: Ahh, that last chorus. Isaac: Hmm!
Last chorus was very suspenseful, Isaac: No good?
Kevin: because it's a minor 7.
You get to hear a little bit of an outro.
Flat 2/1. Gotta love it.
It's a minor seventh chord.
It's a pretty unstable resolution, but in a pop context that's pretty good, you know, for a lot of songs that don't even have
resolutions, that's a pretty good
resolution. But they sneak a four in there, which is part of a suspended chord, and so there's that a little bit of uncertainty
that I really like.
Jarod: I really liked the music, Collin: I did, too. Jarod: and I liked how the music and the visuals went together
Like, you pointed out like how the boxes opened up, like that was really cool, and when the rap came out, it
also alternatively, the texture thinned out because it
was him, white background, and then the people like walking, and then they added the paint. And I thought that was a really cool thing, how they started
adding the paint. Not only just like, everything
was kind of neat in the beginning, like the circle Collin: Of the mold Jarod: Of the mold, and like they were literally
just like splattering the paint the way they wanted to. I didn't really want to say too much during it, cuz I just wanted to like--
it was an experience. It's was like an art piece.
Collin: I think what they did exceptionally
well was in terms of like rhythmic energy, and like forward motion. The chorus like is, you know, choruses are always like...
But this was like, it
was the same energy as the rest of it, and it works super
well. And I'm not really sure why.
Jarod: Yeah, if I could piggyback off of that, because I definitely noticed that.... Collin: No. No.
Jarod: Because I definitely noticed that when there
was like that scene where they're drawing the circles on the pieces of paper, something with the melody, it just weirdly made
sense. Like it works really well together. Yeah, I really liked that thought.
Collin: Well, yeah, and that's just like unique in pop music
in general. What's really cool is this music keeps creating like unique things that are actually expressive, and it's like,
what?!
Elizabeth: You know, pop songs are cyclical, in that they have, you know, verse /chorus form,
so the chorus is the same every time.
They have the melodic singing, and they have like the backup singers providing the harmony, but it's really in the verses where they branch
out and they do the more
interesting things like the rap with the imiola, and they play with the texture, and then the background clapping isn't
repeated exactly
every time, so they're definitely playing with meter a lot. So, this idea of like the
4/4 seems just very cyclical, keeps going, and going, and going. You count to four, you count to four again. Melissa: That's my life. Elizabeth: So, they're using meter as a way
to disrupt that cycle,
so they're getting their ideas across that way.
Isaac: I like the way they tie in the story
with the sounds that they're creating. Specifically, the strobing bass line that you hear
(mimicking bass)
I personally think it's a direct correlation to how a fan oscillates. You just hear it
go back to that center, that initial start point.
Buh, buh
But then it hits twice:
Buh-buh, buh-buh, so it's in a syncopation.
It's really weird. It's like I started to notice that more, and also like there's a ceiling fan so it's like,
maybe there's a connection there. And also the
transition to rap. I feel like it's so fitting, especially because it's like a rebellious medium, so it's like to be able to jump from
the strobing,
but then you
deviate from it with the different texture and also the different singing style.
Kevin: One thing I noticed during this listen is the difference between the two rap verses.
The first time--and this reminds me of what Masumi said during our lesson,
listening to the silence--and it's very rare for me in general to hear a
rap verse where you can tell the artist is really caring about the moments of silence,
and that's the first rap verse. And I think that's very precious, and I think the instrumentals support that by turning very sparse.
And overall, it's really awesome. And the second time of course, the rapping is very, very fluent. The moment he stops rapping, the giant
chords that are done by Baekhyun's voice come in, and so there's always
some sort of vocal going on. And I think the juxtaposition between those two just show how
creative you can get with
just something as simple as just a rap verse. Even
in a non-lyrical standpoint. So it's just using your voice like an instrument.
Fiona: I think the
persistent wa, wa-wa, wa-wa
throughout, like everything about the song sounded mechanical. Like from the bottom up. Like how they built the beat and everything. Lindsey: Um, hmm.
Militaristic, in a way.
Elizabeth: Yeah, actually I thought the ending, which I know you
weren't a fan of Melissa: Yeah, that like really supported breaking the cycle,
because like, if they hadn't broken the cycle, it wouldn't be able to end, because it would just loop around, but they broke the cycle,
so now the song can end.
Oooooh!
Umu; Amazing.
Hello everyone, I'm Umu, and I'm the channel runner of React to the K. I really hope you enjoyed watching this video. If you're curious about
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