[subtitles by twt @angelade17]
[Rossini's Semiramide overture plays]
UMU: Hello everyone! Before we jump into sobbing our faces off listening to DAY6's "Cover",
I wanted to make an announcement that this video is brought to you by Primephonic.
I'm absolutely elated that Primephonic reached out to us, because this is something that I cannot recommend enough
whether you are trying to get into classical music, or you're already a classical musician and are just looking for more recordings to listen to of a certain piece.
I think my favorite features about this app is the amount of podcasts and playlists that they have set up for you that are SO useful,
especially if you are just getting into classical music.
So if you want to learn about the different periods of music, the different styles of music, they have podcasts explaining what each era sounds like.
They even have playlists for John Williams, one of my favorite composers.
Ludwig van Beethoven, Holst's "The Planets"-
I mean, we all got to love ourselves a little bit of "Jupiter", right?
Oh, this is "If you like The Planets"! Oh!
OH!
Every day that I decide to go on this streaming app, I just discover more and more about it that I absolutely love.
YOO! It has Joe Hisashi!
And I do not want to take up all of your time right now,
so please download it and go explore, learn about classical music, listen to your favorite movie soundtracks.
If you click on the link in the description and you type in the voucher code REACTTOTHEK (in all capital letters),
you will get two months for free for this amazing app that pays its artists per second,
gives you access to THOUSANDS of recordings of different pieces of music, gives you high-res quality of all those pieces, it's- agghhh!!
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy this video.
SAM: We're doing DAY6 next?
UMU: You know DAY6? SAM: I love DAY6.
UMU: You know DAY6? SAM: I love DAY6. [t/n: TASTE]
UMU: YOU KNOW DAY6???!?! SAM: Yes I do.
UMU: *excited squealing*
SAM: Oh, "Entropy"! This "Entropy" album, "Sweet Chaos" is crazy, um "Ouch" is crazy.
UMU: So this was released on the album right before "Entropy". So this like- "Entropy" was like a follow-up to this album. SAM: Gotcha.
UMU: You are now reacting to the 5-member K-band DAY6 and their B-side song "Cover" off of their 2019 "The Book of Us: Gravity" album.
So the theme of the album is basically about human relationships, how people are drawn to one another.
UMU: In an interview with Billboard, the bassist YoungK said that the song is about how we all wear masks to cover up our insecurities. CHARLOTTE: Literally.
UMU: But as someone gets to know us better, they are able to see beyond that mask, and to see what we're trying to cover up.
The lyrics express the fear that the other person won't be able to love us after seeing us who we truly are.
JASON: We also wear masks to protect each other from spreading COVID.
JASON: WEAR YOUR MASK. (JU YOUNG: Don't ruin the moment, I was having a moment!)
JASON: Wear your masks!
JASON: ...okay? JU YOUNG: I'm sorry, my angry voice is coming out. *laughs*
UMU: No I was about to go at him too, boy!
JASON: Come on! I had to tell the people to wear their masks!
UMU: The song is composed by mr.cho, Yi Min Gyeong, and the DAY6 members Sungjin, YoungK, and Wonpil.
JU YOUNG: Ready? 3 2 1.
JASON: Oh.
(KEVIN: That's the interesting part.) OWEN: Well it's already sad because of the minor plagal cadence. Here to get that, those feels.
HENRY: My boy!
HENRY: Such a gentle voice. Gen- my gentle boy.
RAFFI: Wow.
KEVIN: Ooh I like the *gestures*, that's really excellent. *sings*
Wow.
SAM: Oh yes.
[t/n: omg I remember hearing this high note performed live, good times]
SAM: The vocals for DAY6 are just... ridiculous.
Raffi's having a moment right now.
BRIANNA: Oh.
SAM: Also that was a strongly belted high C. RAFFI: Yeah, *stammers*
KEVIN: Ooh and then they, the ostinato gets higher and higher. OWEN: That's true. Well, they have two now.
BRIANNA: [singing scale degrees] Five one.
What?
RAFFI: Oh and then there's falsetto! Doing it different ways. SAM: Literally, oh my goodness.
OWEN: Okay. KEVIN: Oh ho ho ho! That's different.
BRIANNA: What?? Are we changing keys?
KEVIN: Okay and then we come back down. So we didn't quite modulate, it was just applied chords.
JU YOUNG: Oh my god.
JASON: Mmm.
JU YOUNG: Mm, I like that. *sings*
JASON: He's a really good singer.
OWEN: Jumps help, jumps help a lot.
JASON: Mm, nice percussion playing to enunciate the words.
RAFFI: That's great.
SAM: Woww.
UMU: You okay? RAFFI: *sighs* Yeah I'm great. *laughter*
HENRY: I've definitely listened to this before and I've definitely cried to this before. :(
I don't think I've looked at the lyrics like this before and now I'm really feeling it. Because I LOVE this song.
I love the, I love those octave jumps, they're just so outpour-y, they really let out a lot of emotion.
And those lyrics, oh my god they're really heavy because I try to put on such a big farce all the time of being okay and being chipper and being okay for others,
when really I feel really insecure about myself, about a lot of things.
So um, I'm always afraid of people seeing that. And when they do I feel really vulnerable.
And that makes me teary.
Those boys have a way with my heart. *laughs*
I love DAY6 so much!
JASON: Yeah that was crazy. That made me feel all type of thing.
JU YOUNG: DAY6 makes you feel a lot of ways.
RAFFI: I'm feeling a lot of things right now.
Start with the voice. It's just absolutely stunning.
The choices between all of them of when they would belt, when they would flip to like a head voice or falsetto.
Being able to watch with the text helps too 'cause then you see like why they're doing that too.
Like eventually you looked at me, that's when- that's when they backed off to falsetto. Those vulnerable moments were so clear.
*stammers* Sometimes I'm just speechless, it was written- that's a lot of discipline right there, that's really good. Really good.
SAM: [whispering] You should listen to more DAY6. It's really good. (RAFFI: I KNOW *upset jibberish*)
UMU: [whispering] I'll send a lot of things your way. RAFFI: [whispering] Thanks!
JU YOUNG: Oh my god, I just realized this.
In the bridge when Sungjin's singing, there's a lyric that says "I want it to look beautiful until we bid farewell."
So like when he sings "I want it to look beautiful", it's- it's like in a major key, it's- it's more happy,
but then all of a sudden it- it like changes, it fits SO well with the lyrics and like, the timbre of all their voices.
JU YOUNG: You can hear the kind of like sighing and like, that they're like kinda tired, kinda. (JASON: That part was harmonic mixture, right?) JU YOUNG: What?
JU YOUNG: But yeah, I think that's why I really like the bridge.
(JASON: Hm yeah.) JU YOUNG: 'Cause the stuff that's happening like melodically really aligns with the lyrics.
CLOUD: I really want to look up the chords for "Lean on Me", because that's what it makes me think of every single time it goes *sings*
CLOUD: I'm like *sings "Lean on Me"* BRIANNA: No but then it would, it would go *sings*
BRIANNA: Like it would go to like this weird... (CLOUD: Yeah it was- it was just a little, it was a bit different, and then it would like-)
CLOUD: It wasn't- UMU: It's the same rhythm but it's different chords. (CLOUD: Yeah.)
BRIANNA: Yeah no and it, it would like, it would do a chromaticism,
but instead of like going to the chord you'd think it was supposed to go to, it would do like a "F you" kind of like a sike,
(CLOUD: *laughs* Sike!) BRIANNA: And like, I was... I was just like, girl!
OWEN: I think the 80's vibe mostly comes with the reverb.
I think the, especially in the percussion like that *makes percussion beat*
OWEN: Like that's, that's where the 80's vibe comes from. KEVIN: The "Lean on Me"-ness works too, when it goes *sings*
KEVIN: Yeah. Feels very classic.
KEVIN: Unfortunately this song didn't quite hit it. (UMU: Really?)
KEVIN: Yeah didn't quite hit it as hard as like, like the B-side off of "Warning".
It doesn't feel as expansive, which is what I like in a DAY6 B-side.
It's like, it's like it opens up my heart space you know, by feeling very grand and very- very spacious.
This one didn't feel as spacious.
But I did like the guitars and the double ostinato that was going on sometimes.
And I also think that when they hit their *sings*
I dunno if they put autotune or some sort of effect, but it felt like, it felt like sort of hitting a wall.
There's, you know sometimes when you hear the voice it doesn't feel like singing, it feels like "singing". This is what the notes kind of felt like.
UMU: Interesting. Then I want to show you a live version and see if you feel the same way. KEVIN: Okay.
OWEN: A live version I think would definitely change that.
KEVIN: Alright, 3 2 1.
KEVIN: See the octave works better, but maybe it's just the recording, it doesn't feel like it swells as much when it gets there.
OWEN: I think the dynamic shaping of it could have been more towards like- I dunno why I keep doing this.
OWEN: How to, how to... KEVIN: But yeah, the vocals sound much more natural.
KEVIN: Ooh.
UMU: The reason why that, the chorus hits me when there's no swells is because it feels so empty and heartbreaking.
KEVIN: Mm, yeah. Right, the studio version has a bit though. That little bit does pay off in the studio version.
UMU: While the song was playing, you started saying "Oh that was a sad thing. Oh that was a sad thing."
Can you talk about the different you know, "sad techniques" that they use in this song?
OWEN: I think they were going for more of a happy-sad sort of thing. UMU: Mm, mm-hmm.
OWEN: Um especially with just the lyrics like saying that I want- (KEVIN: Lyrics were a little crippling.)
(KEVIN: I thought they were pretty- pretty sad yeah.) OWEN: Yeah, they're, they're pretty sad you know, like I want to open myself up to you but I'm afraid to because I think you won't like me.
OWEN: Like that's something that we've all felt. And also it's just a genuinely sad state with relationships especially.
KEVIN: Mm-hmm. OWEN: Um and the tropes I think that they used were...
HENRY: Modal mixture. CHARLOTTE: Yeah.
HENRY: *sings* Major, *sings* minor 4. Modal mixture.
Oh, bittersweet-ness.
Okay, *plays piano and sings*
*sighs* Yeah, it's the modal mixture. Going from, in a major setting, throwing in a minor subdominant.
It's- it's typical, but they do it really well.
KEVIN: Sometimes the first note starts in A minor in the chorus, instead of C major. (OWEN: Really.) Yeah.
Sometimes they go, *plays piano* remember?
I don't know if they go onto the 3 after this, but I hear this, which is like *groans*
OWEN: Hollywood cadence sort of thing, with the back and forth like [singing] "side hug".
But um, and then like nostalgic-sounding tonic 1 chords when we finally got onto it.
That- I think that was at the end, when they- when they reinforced the, the major tonic at the end.
OWEN: It kinda felt like the end of Dvorak's cello concerto, just like that- that feeling of closure. KEVIN: Uh huh.
OWEN: That's a very happy thing. But you still have s- you still have sad, there's a lot of sad things in this song.
UMU: How do you feel like they used melodic movement to create emotion?
CLOUD: I was like kinda checking out your face, 'cause whenever Jae would sing, like you could feel that line going, going.
And there was one really good part with YoungK. Had a bit more of like a filter on his voice compared to Jae, where like they add a little editing there,
but like you would still feel that line going and I love that. I'm like please give me phrasing, please every time.
BRIANNA: Modal-ly they were shifting a lot.
They used a lot of chromaticism to get to different places, and I feel like their voices float on top of it in like a really nice way.
And I get what you're saying by the, they're doing more long phrasing,
BRIANNA: because I felt like harmonic rhythm was more quick while the melodic rhythm was a little bit (CLOUD: Mm, slower.) slower.
JASON: I thought that like the layering of sound was pretty good, with the piano in the back playing all those like constant chords.
It just created a nice like ambience that was um good for the song. Um and the chords were just really tasteful.
There was so much that happened that I- I can't figure it out, so Kevin!
JASON: Hi, welcome to... "I have no idea what the fuck I'm doing".
So looks like we start in C major.
That's a D um... fuck!
Dominant seventh? Right? Ju that's a D dom- that's a dominant seventh chord right?
So the bass is going um, 6 5 4.
And it goes to dominant. Okay so that's the first progression, so it's *plays piano*
Right? And then back, *plays piano*
And then back to D dominant.
And then we go to... A minor.
Bass is going *plays piano*
And then we go to *plays chord* yay!
UMU: *sings in the background* JASON: *sings* Ooh, he hits that!
SAM: They just have a way of not just having spectacular voices, but showcasing it perfectly.
That song just had so many incredible elements that I feel like only their voices-
er not only their voices, but their voices could best give.
And I s- and I think that allowed for those emotional, emotionally charged moments.
Um the choices between going all out vs falsetto were so potent, in my opinion.
Because they showcased that they could do the C- the high C so powerfully and so PRISTINELY my goodness!
So when they went to the C as a falsetto, you weren't thinking,
"Oh they're going into falsetto because that note is a struggle and you can hear like struggle in their voice when they did it the first time",
you're thinking "They're doing it because they want to, they want to say something in that moment."
And I think that's true artistry.
[subs by @angelade17 it's been fun y'all and DAY6 is incredible]
JASON: *sings "Lean on Me"*