Kevin: Hohoho! Is it diminished?! Owen: Aaaaaahhhh!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture playing]
Umu: So you are now reacting to Korea's very first idol group H.O.T.
and their song 'I yah!' released in 1999.
Kevin: I yah! Owen: No way!
Umu: You may be wondering
"Wow, why are we reacting to a song that was released in the 90s?"
Jason: Yeah, I am wondering "why are we reacting to a song-"
Is that how I talk?! That's not how I talk!
Umu: Quick answer is, you'll see the second the song starts playing (#Mozart).
A much longer answer is:
SM Entertainment has this awesome 'Remastering Project' going on
where they release old music videos in 4k.
Sam: Wow. Ju Young: OK BET. Let's go!
Sam: That's crazy. Ju Young: Let's go!
Umu: So fun fact, there is a 4k version of Girls' Generation's 'Into The New World'.
Ju Young: AaAAaAh!
Rachel & Umu: "사랑해 널 이 느낌 이대로~"
Okay, yeah.
. . .
I'll watch that.
Kevin: No more 360p...
That latte never looked so good.
Umu: YEAHHHHHH!
Kevin: The thing about remastering the video in 4K
means the audio quality would be more on par with the…yeah (Owen: exactly, yeah)
So with this project SM says they are taking a look at the K-pop history once again
in the wake of the global K-pop revival.
In addition they are trying to promote the old K-pop not only to fans who liked the music at that time
but also to the younger generation and global music fans.
Owen: Makes sense.
Umu: H.O.T. were pioneers in the K-pop world
as a boy group that was created specifically to appeal to the Korean teen market.
Up until this point they did not hesitate to release controversial songs
and 'I yah!' was a track which emphasized social awareness.
Although it is not officially mentioned,
most people guess that the song is about the specific accident
of 23 kindergartners dying in a school fire.
The news of the kindergartners hit Korea hard
and it rose up serious discussions about society in general
and their treatment of children.
This was largely in part because of the fact
that the children were locked in the room that caught fire
while supervisors were away.
'I yah!' reflected on the disillusionment of the youth of Korea
who could not comprehend the tragic events.
Henry: Dang. The first idol group...
Umu: The song is composed by 유영진 (Yoo Young Jin).
Umu: Yeah, so first was Seo Taiji and the Boys, (Henry: Seo Taiji and the Boys~)
Umu: that was the first K-pop group, (Henry: Seo Taiji and the Boys, yeah.)
Umu: they kind of like invented K-pop,
and then H.O.T. were the first idol group,
they created the idol training system.
(Cloud: Interesting...) Henry: Oh that's so cool, okay, let's watch some history! You ready?
3 2 1 !
Ju Young: Yeahp, yup, yeah this- Yeah.
oH mY GOD!
yah
Mmmmmmm
Rachel: Ah man, throwback.
Liam: Is this Mozart?
Yeah.
Owen: Mozart's best pieces are all in minor.
I think Mozart just powers up whenever he writes in minor.
Liam: Yeah this is like Mozart with distorted Green Day guitar,
this is like frickin'...
Kevin: Why are we in E now?
Raffi: Okay.
This is different.
Rachel: Yeah, oh my god!
Liam: Swung ride?
Jason: That do go hard though.
Raffi: Yeah. Jason: That do go hard.
Liam: Yeah, this is very angry.
Owen: I'm surprised the drums are as light as they are though,
Owen: I would expect something heavier. (Kevin: That is true, a little bit)
Kevin: Yeah.
You're right.
Huh.
Ju Young: Oh my god, it's-
I don't know his name, but I know him.
Sam: Really?
Ju Young: Yeah.
Sam: That's fire.
Ju Young: He's like on variety shows a lot.
Sam: Oh, gotcha.
Liam: Oh, this is very Rage Against The Machine.
Kevin: Wohohohoho, cool.
Non-distinct.
Ju Young: YYYEEAAAHHH!
Jason: That was a really great vocal arrangement.
It was pretty sick.
Liam: Yeah...
I love that harmony that they added in there.
Raffi: I've heard this chorus before.
Kevin: Hohoho, is it diminished?! Owen: Waaaaaah!
Kevin: Also Edward Scissorhands. Yes. Owen: Edward Scissorhands, Wolverine, all these very strange claws.
Kevin: Oh wait, Mozart comes back.
Sam: Dang this sample is crazy! Ju Young: What the f#%k is going on?
Kevin: Wow, this is very different, 1999.
Henry: That's pretty...
"Won't be burnin' my kids", that's a pretty big frickin' call out.
Rachel: I love the panning with that! Liam: Oh my god, the synths are going nuts!
Henry: Child
Cloud: Child looking sad. Henry: Tear!
Liam: Oh my god yeah.
Jason: This is sad though.
Raffi: Yeah, the lyrics are interesting...
Jason: It's just a lot of kids- WOW!
Ju Young: WHAHAHAHAHA?!
Rachel: Moonlight Sonata, what?!
Owen: I like this.
Liam: Banger.
Kevin: I can't use words to describe this.
Kevin: WHAT IS THAT BLUE THING? - It's just water. Owen: It's totally fake, all of it is fake.
Sam: Mm~
Kevin: Oh I love this street view stuff, it's so 90s movie.
Even 2000s...
It just hard cut to E minor again?
I do like the different keys in...
the classical excerpts, they chose to retain the original keys.
Liam: Yeah, these really nice harmonies here, like,
it's like appealing to the masses and like pleading.
Kevin: Why?
Kevin: It's the Bohemian Rhapsody of- Owen: This is totally new.
Rachel: Oh my god...
Liam: Wooah! The head voice?!
Ju Young: Was that in 6/8?
I c- What are they doing?
Kevin: I love the 4k brings back the 90-ness like way more.
Owen: Wow.
Kevin: Wow.
Rachel: I thought we were done and then that happened. I-
Raffi: Well that was a lot to digest.
Raffi: SM Entertainment though... they're a staple. Jason: Wwwwwwhere are we?
Henry: That's powerful.
Cloud: Wowee.
Henry: Wowee.
Umu: Why that powerful?
Henry: They're screaming a lot
and they're rapping with a lot of high intensity vocal timbre,
is the best way you can say, they're sort of like shouting almost,
and there's really high-pitched strings all the time.
And this guitar is very distorted.
That's where the power comes from.
What I was most intrigued by,
the melody and the instrumentation didn't feel as like canned and almost samey
as kind of the second gen K-pop that I'm used to, that I really like as well,
like this is really explorative,
and I'm like: "Where did it go, where did this go?" (Umu: First gen, babyyyy)
What happened to this? I like this sound a lot, it's,
it reminds me more of something I might hear, like,
like musical choices they would make these days.
Owen: Wow. There is nothing like that we'd ever hear,
like listening to any other K-pop thing.
Owen: I mean that was totally diff- Umu: But you can kinda see the seeds of influence?
Owen: There are definitely some tangles that connect it but like,
it's a whole different game.
Kevin: It feels like- yeah, the way they take from, I guess western styles,
is a bit more pure back then.
Now there is a lot of like, oh, they're fusing things together, you know?
And like, they've fused things enough where the fusion itself becomes the music
like oh yeah, there's gonna be a funk guitar, there's gonna be this poppy style and then the drop, sort of,
here it feels kind of creatively wild
and yet it does also embrace- it's like a sign of the times thing,
I don't know if back then this was considered really really cool,
but it definitely shows its datedness a little bit today.
But I think I enjoy it more because of that.
Umu: Sam. Thoughts on your very first time hearing this 90s song?
Sam: That was really f#%king loud!
Sam: But it was really... it was... *Umu and Ju Young loosing it*
I mean it was entertaining.
Umu: I think that's the first time that I have heard you curse.
Sam: Edgy rock like that is not where my ear tends to draw its fancy.
Umu: That's such an interesting way of saying
"This is not my cup of tea."
Ju Young: Yeah.
Sam: For somebody this is their thing, it's just not mine-
Yeah, see? For someone it's somebody's thing.
No but in all honesty I think it's good,
you can definitely tell that there are things that have drawn inspiration from this, in my opinion,
and that they've drawn inspiration from other things,
and especially in how they use those classical influences,
Sam: Ju Young talked about the 6/8 time when they were really speeding things up in the end.
My favorite part song is the Beethoven part
cuz I felt as though it was the first time in which it had this kind of like subtlety to it.
Kevin: Honestly, as cheesy as the Moonlight Sonata was,
I was actually very impressed by the placement of it,
it felt like at that part of the bridge it was the right time to do a hard cut, a mood change like that.
If the Moonlight Sonata did not have that reputation I actually would think it was a rather tasteful use of it.
And the melody they wrote above it was kinda cool too.
Umu: Right, yeah, what are your thoughts on the mixing in Mozart and Beethoven into this track about
commentary on society and the treatment of children.
-
- -
- - -
Or maybe an easier question to answer would be:
How do you think hard rock and classical music mash up together?
Rachel: It was kind of interesting,
I did notice that they doubled up electric guitar and string sounds
like towards the beginning of the thing?
Liam: It made sense though.
Rachel: Yeah, it kind of worked. Liam: Just like with the clash of the genres,
Liam: but also like, there is a commonality with the darkness
of the pieces and the song that they're about to get into.
Rachel: I was just not expecting the Moonlight sonata,
and so when that happened I was like: "Oh my god, what?"
Umu: Right yeah, and can we talk more about the atmosphere they created?
We talked a lot about the texture of the hard sounding, distorted guitars,
but can we talk about the notes they chose for the lick
Umu: and rhythms they chose for the rap and why. Rachel: Oh yeah.
Rachel: Yeah I sure wanted to go back and figure out-
cuz there was like, it was like guitar and then:
Like these really loud notes that were pretty dissonant?
Liam: I kinda wanna listen to the whole thing again.
3 2 1
Liam: I think it's a G minor. Rachel: Got it.
*plays G*
Rachel: Ah man!
Liam: Yeah that last note leading into it is very much diminished.
Yeah so that's E.
Rachel: Hm?
Liam: That's E, right? E minor?
Rachel: *plays E* Yeah.
OOH!
Oh that's so cool!
Rachel: Go back, go back, I wanna hear that again.
Liam: Yeah, then they go right down,
oh that's cool, that's really cool.
It's so simple but it is so effective.
Liam: That, the E minor...
*Rachel playing melody*
Liam: Yeah, that 9, yeah, where they went on that 9. Rachel: Yeah, that 9.
*Umu singing melody*
Umu: What is that from???
Rachel: What?
*Umu vocalizing*
*Gerudo Valley from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time plays*
Liam: Yeah, that's just a lot of interesting, crunchy harmonies going on.
Rachel: It's just like such a different type of music,
especially like in comparison to what we just listened to,
where it just like, what we were talking about earlier,
like very overproduced, but like in a different-
it's just a completely different style, right?
And that's just like how music has transformed
but right here, in the 1990s and early 2000s,
it was still very like rocker-esque mainstream.
And it's like, there's not as much going on with the actual production, but it...
Liam: There doesn't have to be to get that message across. Rachel: There doesn't have to be for it to be good, yeah.
Liam: When they got into like the main verse,
like immediately that brought me to freakin' Rage Against The Machine vibes,
just like with the social commentary and the angst in the vocals,
like that whole vibe that they brought.
Ju Young: A lot of stuff that I listen to is
a lot about going against society's norms
and to really make a statement
and because of what inspired this song I-
the messiness and like the distorted clash of instruments
really shows how upset they are about this certain situation
and like for the time itself, like in K-pop. like...
I talked to my parents about this, I used to fight about this so much with my parents,
about me blasting punk rock in my room or just a genre like this,
and in Korea this isn't, this isn't normal.
This is basically like something you're not supposed to be listening to
because it's like, "You know it's gonna mess up these kids, bla bla..."
but look at me!
Ju Young: I'm, I'm in music so I'm fine, you know? Umu: [fiiine~ she's thriving~]
Ju Young: I have my curls and this, you know... Sam: Yes. Yes!
Ju Young: But yeah, them breaking these standards was
is also another thing you can put into context and like
why this was such a huge thing in Korea and to their fans
and just like in pop culture in general.
Raffi: Then just the lyric thing for me that was a little bizarre was like,
putting out the kids' spark...
I don't know, I don't know how I feel about the word play there.
Like I didn't wanna imagine this horrible tragedy.
Jason: With like spark and fire?
Raffi: Yeah.
Raffi: Like I didn't appreciate the metaphor. Jason: That's a little, that's a little intense Umu: "Who allowed to put out children's sparks that have yet to be lighted."
Jason: Yeah, that's a little, that's a little f#%ked up,
to be talking about straight up like...
that's kind of like, "Oh, let's just not walk into high school and shoot these kids again."
Jason: Like using the words like that...really? Raffi: It's very blunt, but that is the point though. Umu: I think they're trying to be harsh, right?
Jason: Damn. Yeah. Raffi: Yeah, I think it's that kind of art, cuz it made me think.
Raffi: And I'll wake up like- not wake up,
but tomorrow I'll still be thinking about it,
I think that's what good art does, you know?
Jason: You know, 'Pumped Up Kicks' did do that though.
Raffi: Mhm, mhm.
But I think that would be the same thing with this.
Umu: Yeah, have you seen the influence of this song on the more recent songs we listened to?
Jason: No...
Not really.
Umu: *cough* Genre switches?
Raffi: I feel- yeah... Jason: Oh well, genre switches, yes.
Ju Young: Well, 'I Got A Boy' with the different section changes,
I think that's the biggest example,
in this you hear like, "Oh, they're putting a lot of things together,"
like samples and then classical stuff and like *mimics*,
and I think that kind of got refined as the years went by
and as they started creating these new boy groups and girl groups,
and I think like, I feel like NCT is a great example of it,
lots of different sounds going on, different sections,
but it's less noticeable cuz they know how to connect everything,
you know, if that makes sense?
Umu: Do you have a favorite section or part of the song?
Ju Young: Just any time he screamed.
Like you can tell his - NO, LISTEN!
But you can tell that they were experimenting a lot during this time
and I mean look at SM now, they're...
they're thriving with this experimentation thing,
so I think they've really done it.
Umu: They really done it.
Sam: They really done it. Ju Young: They REALLY done it.
Sam: So what year did this come out in?
Umu: 1999
Sam: 1999, that's really interesting because-
Ju Young: I was being conceived.
Ju Young: Sorry.
Ju Young: Hahahaha, sorry, AAAH! Umu: Hahahaha, AAAAaahaahHH!