Elizabeth and James: Ooh!
Umu: Before we jump into the reaction, I'm super hyped to announce that this reaction video is sponsored by Dalcomsoft and their app,
Superstar PLEDIS. Stephen: if you haven't heard of this app before, it's a rhythm app featuring over 40 songs from nine
K-pop artists from Pledis entertainment. This app is for people of all rhythmic skill levels, and we'd like to demonstrate our two skill levels...
Sorry, I didn't know that was gonna be a thing!
Stephen: There are three levels of difficulty you can play at. Umu will be demonstrating a bit of the easy level, and I'll play the hard level.
Umu: Okay, which one? Okay, I haven't done home yet. Let's do home.
Anyway, so what I like about this app is that it kind of
encourages
you to be on top of the beat, which is really good for classical musicians, Stephen: Yeah. Umu: especially French horn players. Hi, I'm a French horn player.
Because our bells are facing the wrong way and
we always have to be a little bit early or on top of the beat in order for our sound to bounce off
the walls, and then make it to the audience.
Stephen: There you go. Umu: Boom!
Umu: Wait for it....
Stephen: Dab. Umu: Woo! Stephen: Woo!
Umu: And then yeah, you can win cards and like,
your levels go up, you get boosts. Yeah, yeah, once you collect star cards, they can enhance your bonus points. Stephen: Yeah.
Umu: Okay, you ready? Stephen: Yeah, let's do this. All right. Here we go. I'm gonna do the best...I might fail, but...
Umu: It's okay.
Umu: His fingers are moving so fast!
Holy sh*t! Stephen: Yep!
Umu: And I barely passed this version doing this technique. Stephen: Yeah, see..ahh, I got almost there. So close! Almost.
Stephen: Superstar PLEDIS is free to download for both iOS and Android.
So if you want to try the app out we put the link to the app in the description.
Umu: With that being said, it is time to move on to the reaction portion of this video.
Now you're reacting to the boy group Seventeen, and their song called 'Getting Closer'. 'Getting Closer" is the digital single prologue for Seventeen's
2019 comeback album called 'You Made My Dawn'.
The member Joshua said in an interview with Billboard that the song describes how a person feels with the absence of love.
The members said that the song reflects the darkness of winter and the darkness before the dawn (as in the title of the new album).
The music is composed by Bumzu and the Seventeen members Woozi and Hoshi.
Charlotte: Dong?
Umu: Dawn, like d-a-w-n. Before our dawn.
Kevin: All right, 3,2,1. Getting close.
Isaac: Oh, gosh, what was that vacuum? Whooosh! Kevin: Oh, my gosh!
Elizabeth: Oh, now there's fire. Okay.
James: Love that echo effect.
Peyton: Aaughh!!
Charlotte: This is not what I expected from them!
Charlotte: What?!
Seiji: It's kind of quick to start the build up. Stephen: I like it. I could dig it.
Both: Ooh!
James: That was cool! That was like acapella-y-ish.
Fiona: Oh, they're extra like, pew, pew, pew!
Lindsey: They're harmonizing, but it's like in the....
Fiona: Yeah. And it's not too much going on, it's very,
like the people who produced this really selected the sounds they wanted.
Elizabeth: That's like the chorus...see, in the verse they were focusing a lot on the auxiliary
instruments, and the more rhythmic aspects of the voice, and now in the chorus, it's a lot of like layered chords.
Kevin: Man, when you expect it to go crazy, it stays on one note,
but when you expected to stay on one note, it goes crazy.
Collin: We're covering a lot of ground.
Jarod: What was that? Collin: A lot of ground is being covered.
Jarod: This is tight. Everything's like, really, really good.
Stephen: Wow, that was nice.
Sieji: Triplets.
Elizabeth: Gotta get that triplet rap in. James: Yep, have to. Elizabeth: It's not K-pop if there isn't a triplet rap.
Fiona: That's cool--call and response. I see you.
Peyton: I like how hard this bass hits, though.
Ahh, that's like such a cool dance move!
Fiona: It just... everything's so subtle.
Lindsey: Um-hmm.
The intricacies. Oh, okay. Fiona: There's that clock ticking.
I've been waiting for you. Lindsey: Oh, yeah. Fiona: Yeah, finally.
Isaac: Suspension. Kevin: Whoa.
Kevin: Yeah, you got that consonant-ish harmony. Isaac: All right.
Kevin: And then goes straight into... Isaac: Oh, that's gotta be so much louder.
Elizabeth: Yeah, I think it's always really striking when they just use strong bass and like,
rhythmic instruments, and then have the main harmonic function come from layering voices. James: Yeah, the voice motifs.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Well, and there's just there's so many members of this group that you have the ability to really create lush harmonies.
Kevin: Oh my God, that's a G. He just hit a G.
Fiona: The vocal range is very broad in this group. Lindsey: Up there.
Kevin: Ends on a fourth scale degree. (singing) Isaac: Why is it ending on four? Kevin: That is
one of the most suspenseful endings, and yet because it's a four it doesn't sound too...it's not like ending on a five chord,
where you're like, oh, man, I wish it resolved. You're like, yeah,
somehow that works.
Charlotte: What? Peyton: He looks all impressed. He's like, hmm, they like that one.
Charlotte: Like, where is Seventeen going?
This raises so many questions.
Peyton: Yeah. I thought it was really good, just because they kind of kept it moving,
you know? I never felt like it was like, alright, I've heard this like eight times already,
you know what I mean? Charlotte: I liked the break with just the electronics. Peyton: Yeah, there was kind of like a
hip-hop/pop/techno thing, which I think those genres blend very well, if you do it right.
They had like a little splash of everything I like, so naturally I liked it.
Stephen: I'm a really big fan of a half time hip-hop trap beat.
It's really nice just cuz it makes the beat really, really wide. Like everything else going over it sounds twice as fast, so it's really nice to have
a really open drum set beat that anchors everything, which is really, really cool,
cuz then, like especially when that guy rapping came in, and he did that like,
digga-digga-digga, and then just like triplets, which is super, uh...
Seiji: Idiomatic. Stephen: Idiomatic for that kind of style. And it's really nice, cuz they have that going on juxtaposed over a really
phat groove.
Kevin: What did you... Isaac: I thought it was very nice.
Every time they have a motif, it just disappears to silence, so it's really nice.
And then it's very interesting how they coordinate the dance with that. It's like everything's very energetic and then all of a sudden they abruptly stop,
So there's a lot of tension whenever they play the motifs, or when they when they dance it out, or
when it's in complete silence. So having that dichotomy was very nice.
Kevin : Well, there's an interaction here between the choreography and the music; the music would you know, the drop usually signals the start of a new
section, so when the new section starts, very
often one of the members would do like a kick, and that's when everyone stands still for bit, even though the music had
just started, and I think that interaction, it's almost like a fugue between
dance and music. Wow
Umu: Can you explain what a fugue is, to those who don't know? Kevin: A fugue literally translates as chase.
So, you know usually in music, there's the accompaniments, like the chords, and there's one melody.
Well in a fugue, there's no such thing as another voice accompanying one voice.
All the voices are intertwining together kind of like knitting or sewing. Isaac: (singing) Kevin: And here, it kind of feels like that,
where like, everything's in motion, but then the way they interact is different. Hence, a fugue.
Lindsey: I don't know, when I think Seventeen, I think like, happy, and summer, Fiona: Yeah. Lindsey: and stuff like that, but this was just so badass.
I liked this. I liked it. I liked it a lot. Fiona: It was so pristine.
Everything was so clean--all the background sounds and the vocals.
It didn't have a lot of excess, but what it did have, like the vocal line,
it had so much thickness to it, with all the other voices coming in at the same time. It was very uncluttered,
and that would made it so
professional sounding.
Jarod: Yeah, I thought they...I think Seventeen has a really cool composite group sound,
because it's like when they're all singing it kind of sounds like one voice, or achieves the affect how with some singers will like,
use Autotune to kind of add some extra chordal or whatever to their singing. It's like that, except
it's actual people. Collin: Yeah, I thought...I actually, I really hated it at first, and then now it's super interesting.
I do not hate it. Well, cuz I thought it was just gonna be like, a wannabe like American rap song.
Which, American rap is like just kind of bad in general--the mainstream stuff.
But point being like - I can't believe I'm about to use this comparison -
but it was like different shades of the same color, and it all made sense.
But this sounds were different and distinct in themselves, right?
There was like a gun cocking, that was used well for like 15 seconds. Jarod: (making gunshot sound) Collin: It was like (mimicking gun cocking sound).
It's like what? Yeah, that was well-composed. Like, who knows how to do that sh*t? Jarod: These guys.
Collin: Apparently. Umu: Woozi and Hoshi.
Elizabeth: Ooh, that's so interesting. They just did the chorus like once, and then pffft. James: Yeah. Elizabeth: They didn't like repeat it a million times. James: And it was like a bridge.
It was like a bridge, a clear bridge, and then it led to like...would you consider that its own section? That dubsteppy like...
ELizabeth: I think it's still part of the bridge James: You think it's still part of the bridge? ELizabeth: because I think the bridge is the most
flexible portion of a song, so I think you can make it as short or as long as you want. Like it can be one
or two measures, or it can be a couple minutes,
depending on what you want, and you can do more than one sections in the bridge, I think, so... James: It's a broken bridge though.
Elizabeth: Yeah, well, I think they had the sort of like melodic harmonic portion of the bridge, which was where
they were still singing, and then
James: Yeah, when everything dropped out. Elizabeth: for the sake of the music video and because they have so many members and can do like really interesting dance moves,
I think they chose for the video's sake to have like an extended
rhythmic section James: Yeah. Elizabeth: in the bridge where they could showcase the dancing, which was awesome.
Elizabeth: It's a good song to put on at a club. James: Yeah. I don't like to dance, but I would dance to that.
Not well
But I would dance to that. Elizabeth: If you're interested in challenging your rhythm skills and your fast reflexes
James: Don't forget to check out the link in the description to the Superstar PLEDIS app.
Umu: AHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!
Hello everyone, I'm Umu, React to the K channel creator, and I'd like to thank you for watching this video.
I really hope you enjoyed or learned something from it
If you'd like to support us or help React to the K grow, you can do so by visiting our Patreon, and help us out by
pledging any amount you can. Big tip of the hat to our Superstar Idol patrons. Thanks for the love. 'Til next time.