Kevin: Oh!
Oh snap!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture playing]
Owen: Before we react to The Boyz
we wanted to let you know that we were able to make today's video
thanks to today's sponsor:
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I love learning about basically anything,
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Kevin: And we got a lot of messages from you guys,
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Kevin & Owen: Time to let The Boyz steal our hearts.
Jason: There's a new show called "The Boys" out that's pretty good.
Sorry, that makes no difference to anybody.
Umu: Okay. You ... Jason: I didn't do anything -
Jason: -for the world -
Umu: ... are ...
Jason: -with that comment.
Umu: ... now ...
... reacting to ...
Ju Young: Yes. *giggles*
Umu: ... the 11 member boy group called The Boyz
and their 2020 comeback, called 'The Stealer'.
Sadie from Seoulbeats writes:
"Lyrically, 'The Stealer' [...] makes proclamations about The Boyz’ heart-stealing identity."
"They boast about the ways in which they will carry out their mission, only to be fooled by a love interest."
The song is composed by Coach & Sendo, Theo Lawrence, and Yuki,
and then the The Boyz member 선우 (Sunwoo) participated in writing the lyrics.
Henry: Are you gonna have your heart stolen? Umu: Are you guys ready for your...yeah- heart to be stolen?
Charlotte: I mean no one else has it, so yeah...
Umu: Damn!
Stephanie: Okay, go!
Uuuuh.
Leon: Cool vibe. - Yeah! Stephanie: That piano, though.
Henry: Heart, lock it, lock it down.
Charlotte: Where are we going?
Henry: Okay.
Henry: Immediate half-time?
[t/n: half-time - same essential tempo, but felt only half as fast]
*Combined fanning to stop a complete Charlotte-meltdown*
Kevin: *vocalizing*, introducing the 7th was -
I don't know, that was really noteworthy.
Oh! Oh snap!
Henry: Oh my god, the bass!
*Ju Young following bass*
Jason: Like a naturalistic sound, *imitates percussion*
That's really cool sh*t.
Good production.
Kevin: I love how the funk kicks in,
(*Owen mimicking funk*) that was very effective, I want the piano to come back, though,
it has to. (Owen: Mhm.)
Henry: Oh, I like the ad-lib piano back in.
Henry: Oh, the little riff? Sexy.
Kevin: Woo!
WOW!!! The water-drop-thingy!
Owen: Are you talking about that *demonstrates*, (Kevin: Aha.)
that sort of sine wave-y sound?
Kevin: Yeah.
Raffi: That pulls you in.
Sam: Yeah, for real!
Ju Young: That motif is so catch, *sings bass line* Jason: The beat is insane!
Henry: It's a different...
This feel?!
Stephanie: Ooh, that triplet feel.
[t/n: triplet - three notes of equal duration in the space of two]
*Jason & Ju Young figuring out harmony*
*Excited Charlotte noises* Henry: Oh, booty! - Sorry.
Henry: MUSIC.
Stephanie: Yah!
*Sounds of approval*
Kevin: Oh wow, the way they did the upper cut when they said "Yah"?
Yah!
Henry: Triplet!
Sam: Oh, give me that piano!
Raffi: Aw, and he's like caged.
Sam: Yeah.
Raffi: Just ... slipped away [referring to the lyrics]
Sam: That's what you get for stealing!
[t/n: That face...]
Henry: Building up the lyric intensity by going up in pitch.
The wub.
Oh, I like that intonation, *imitates*.
Charlotte: That's not what I expected!
Stephanie: Wow.
Sam: Well since you mentioned that siren, I can't stop listening - (Raffi: That's all I'm hearing.) - yeah, for real.
*Henry singing bass line*, this is an infectious bass!
Charlotte: OH! OH! OhH!
HWOA!
(Charlotte: HWOA!) Henry: Ride it. Feel it. Take it in.
Henry: Ride it. Feel it. Take it in.
(Charlotte: OOH!) Henry: Express yourself.
Henry: What was that shout, one more time?
Charlotte: HWOA! Henry: Yeah, that's what I thought, I agree.
Kevin: I like it.
Owen: I think it's great, but as far as... Kevin: Uh, do we have split opinions?
Owen: ...this stuff being repeated over and over again, I feel like it- (Kevin: It is-)
Owen: there could be more in between. Kevin: It's like my brain thinks this is repetitive,
Kevin: but my heart just feels this whole thing.
You can say the song is a Stealer of my heart.
*Badum tss*
*Ju Young & Jason singing bass line*
Ju Young: That's a good line!
Honey. Honey, that's what stole my heart!
Jason: And they have this like snare come in *mimicks snare drum*,
that accentuates the (Ju Young: Can we...) *flexing mouth percussion*
Stephanie: Oooooh (Umu: Ooh.) wow!
Umu: You seemed to enjoy that, Stephanie? Stephanie: I really enjoyed that.
Umu: What parts? Stephanie: Oh... Oh, that feel?
Stephanie: And I loved that 1 - 2 - '3 - 4, that! (Leon: Yeah, that was so satisfying.)
That was so satisfying, every time, like, I could hear that all day.
That third beat, it always happened with like
a really strong bass and everything, too,
but the very last time they were lacking that bottom part,
and it was just like the vocal and it felt lighter,
and then they repeated that maybe like 2 times or something,
and then the third time of the last part
they added that bass back again, and I was like:
YEAH!
So that was cool.
Leon: And I can imagine when they are having a life performance,
like *sings melody*, and the crowd will say: YES! (Umu: Yeah!) (Stephanie: Yeah, haha.)
Cloud: Something that always makes me nervous
is when I hear a song start with the chorus,
that makes me nervous, because a lot of times
if a song starts with a chorus and it's really high energy
and super hype, really good,
when they drop down to the verse -
you're just automatically like: "Oh no"
cuz it's not as pushing, it's not as grooving, but
this is like maybe the only song that I can think of right now
that actually started with the chorus,
and then when they dropped into the verse it didn't loose energy
because the bass came in and that was awesome.
Brianna: Harmonically it's still staying in this minor key,
but the thing that really makes the different sections,
like the verse from the pre-chorus to the chorus,
sound exciting is the instrumentation
and how they use different motifs and like the bass is -
I think the bass is really funking throughout
but it's really prominent in the verse
because that's like the only timbre you're really hearing
and then they just build upon that.
Another thing I liked was like,
whenever we hear K-pop songs and there's a rap verse,
they always try to change the harmonic flow,
or just like the rhythmic play within the rhythm section, and like,
this one, the rhythmic, like the harmonic rhythm just stayed constant,
and it didn't do any big change, and like,
the rap just kind of blended in with the verses themselves,
and whenever the rap was done they would
change the harmonic rhythm to something else, and like,
I enjoyed that because I always felt it was just like-
I don't know, I thought it was like corny, like we get it, you're rapping,
it doesn't need to be this huge thing,
I like how the rapping kinda coincided with how the verses were going,
so there was like this continuality, I guess, I don't know,
it wasn't just like a big change.
Cloud: Continuity.
Brianna: Continuity.
Cloud: English is hard, guys. Brianna: Yeah.
Raffi: I think it's effective working the extremities
between that siren that we were talking about and the bass,
cuz I like, how you said, when the siren disappears,
then I feel like the attention goes to the bass line,
but when they're together
it's just a nice little sandwich of...
Umu: ...high and low? Raffi: ...The Boyz. (Sam: Completely agree-)
Kevin: A lot of quirky little sounds
and the little sine wave thing,
(Owen: Yeah, the sine wave thing was fun, yeah.) those were the things that, I think, elevated it for me,
that they were doing interesting sonic experiments that -
while maybe keeping the same jazzy chord progression,
yeah, I think those were the things that made me gravitate to it more.
Owen: And the opening, the opening was great.
I just like how they went straight into
*C-E♭-A♭-G* (*vocalizes*)
(Kevin: Yeah) yeah, that was cool, that was great.
Stephanie: Yeah, that was cool how the put the piano at the very beginning,
and then all of the sudden it completely changed to something else,
and then, when I heard the piano again towards the end,
I could go like: Oh, maybe because they used the piano
just at the very beginning, maybe we're going to the end,
so that was like kind of like a cool cue, like ending cue.
Umu: So you talked about cleanness. Was that rhythmically clean,
(Umu: or the style or the production...) Ju Young & Jason: Productively clean.
Ju Young: For me, when there is like way too much treble,
it messes my ears up and there is a lot of things that I can't listen to,
but this is very - like Jason and I were able to hear the percussion,
and how things were moving along in the song, so...
yeah, I think production-wise it was very clean.
Jason: There is a lot of like different -
almost like different temperaments of sound that are going on,
cuz they almost are in different pitches,
but the way that they layered them and put them together,
for the rhythm of the beat, it was really good.
Ju Young: I think the way that they play with space, too,
was just very attractive, I guess?
Charlotte: Henry, can you dictate a forb as I say it?
Henry: The what? The 'forb'?
Charlotte: FORM!
Henry: Yeah, I can.
Charlotte: 'Forb...?'
Umu: I also heard F o r b.
Henry: Sorry, go ahead.
Charlotte: The fck is a 'forb'?
Charlotte: Okay, beautiful introduction of jazz piano.
So we have an 8-bar intro.
Henry: 8-bar intro? Okay...
Charlotte: And then we go straight into a flippin' chorus.
Henry: With an anacrusis, yeah, "I'm the stealer..."
Charlotte: Yeah yeah yeah, anacrusis...
Henry: ~plus anacrusis~ I teach that to my fourth graders
*Charlotte singing along*
Henry: Ah, let me write down.
Charlotte: Also, can we mention that their voices are the ones
that are holding down the chorus?
*Henry checking rhythm*
Charlotte: They're backed up by percussion.
Henry: I mean there's eleven of them, hell yeah... Alright,
Henry: Wait, do we just go straight into the verse? Charlotte: Then we have this fcking bridge into the verse.
Henry: Is this a bridge or an interlude? Charlotte: It's that bass line.
Umu: Yeah, transition section. (Charlotte: Transition...) Henry: Let's say transition...
Umu: It could also be seen as like a middle eight, which is just -
Henry: ... with ... BASS! Umu: It could also be seen as like a middle eight, which is just -
Henry: 8 bars, right? Charlotte: Yeah.
Henry: I like the call out... Charlotte: Also can we just appreciate
Charlotte: that they've got a lot of feminine energy for an all boy group?
Henry: Yeah, their movements are not just sharp, they're like,
Charlotte: Their movements are very... Henry: they got some sexy curves to them, right?
Henry: Like, this fluidity is what I mean.
Charlotte: Now we have a bridge - pre-chorus, yeah. (Henry: Pre-chorus, chorus...)
But I like how the chorus is so much more like masculine energy,
and then everything else is feminine.
Not feminine in a bad way, that boys can't be feminine, but just...
Now we have that bass again.
Henry: I'm just gonna put "B A S S".
Charlotte: Yeah, that works.
Verse 2.
Henry: Pre-chorus. Charlotte: Yeah, but it's different than the first one.
Henry: What's... more sing-y?
Charlotte: More sing-y, it is more sing-y.
Henry: "sing-y..."
Both: Chorus.
*singing melody*
Henry: Bridge. Charlotte: Mhm. More mellow.
Henry: Mellow, half-time.
Henry: They're only keeping beat with their voice, really,
Charlotte: Yeah, because the piano just gives chords. Henry: Not much with the piano, it's just kinda diamonds, yeah.
Charlotte: I don't know what we call this, this is the freaking fake-out moment!
(Henry: That's their...) Do you call this another verse?
Umu: Bridge part 2! Henry: That's like a deceptive...
(Henry: ...thing, right? It's deceptive.) Charlotte: It's deceptive, absolutely, because what you want it to do is
to go into the chorus, but it doesn't. (Henry: Yeah)
Charlotte: It is bridge part II, deceptively.
Henry: I'm running out of space here.
Charlotte: We got a rap again in there.
Chorus.
Umu: It's the chorus 3, since the instrumental changed.
Charlotte: Yeah, it is.
Umu: Or I guess chorus 2?
Henry: I'm just gonna put chorus prime.
Charlotte: Bass.
Ugh.
What's cool about this is this set's up a totally independent vibe,
like tonally, yes, we are in the same area,
but like the vibe that it's setting up is not what the song goes into.
To start out, flat-out, with a chorus is freakin' bomb.
Let's just talk about how sexy this bass line is,
because ow, alright?
And then we finally have a verse,
after we have had three other separate things
we get our freaking verse, frreaking finally,
and then we go back in, and then you think:
"We've got some sort of form that's happening that's somewhat normal", (Henry: Yeah, repeatable)
okay, but to throw in the bass then again is not typical - yeah. (Henry: Expectations broken, yeah.)
Charlotte: that breaks form. Henry: Well it does follow the chorus again.
Charlotte: It follows what we've had before.
Then you're on verse 2, pre-chorus, chorus - fine,
what really trips you up is this bridge,
okay, that comes in after the original bridge,
you have this bridge come back, but that's deceptive,
what they do after that silence, yeah, you're like:
What WTF, where's the food!
alright, like ... WHAT?
And then to just end with the bass line again, that just
so perfectly ties everything together... OH! *Henry sings bass line again*
Henry: Yeah.
Charlotte: OH!
Sam: Have you ever stolen anything, Raffi?
...
Raffi: This song is really good.
Sam & Umu: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!