Kevin: But yet, it's still catchy. That's the thing--some songs can jump through all of these hoops,
change all these keys, but they end up not being catchy. But AKMU...
you know, they're not sacrificing other things for all the awesome key changes.
Umu: Okay... Kevin: (singing) Cuz every little thing, is gonna be AKMU. Isaac: Is gonna be all ri....
Umu: So we'll be reacting to AKMU's b-side song released on their 2016 spring album.
'Every Little Thing' was actually originally written for a Daon mobile commercial.
And it was just a quick little verse,
chorus, and outro. However, we'll be reacting to the full-blown version.
And yeah, so this is a fan-made lyric video, and
Charlotte: Cute.
Umu: yeah, go ahead.
Peyton: Oop, oop, oop...oop.
Isaac: Ahh! Kevin: Solid start. Isaac: I wanna download this app.
Jane: Oh, hi!
Charlotte: Gotta love a good harp.
Jarod: I feel like we're about to watch a movie, like a Disney movie.
Katie: Like the curtains are about to open. Jarod: Yep, and there's the big castle. Katie: And we're just like...
Charlotte: Gotta hold up that chord. Build the tension, build the tension--and then just go into it.
Fiona: I like the instruments. Lindsey: I feel like they need snaps--little snaps.
Fiona: The piano is so nice, the little drum kit is nice.
Lindsey: Ooh!
Naoki: I really like the text painting in this song. Stephen: Yeah.
Stephen: Man, they have such beautiful voices. Naoki: Oh, yeah. Stephen: Like, they mesh so well together.
Henry: I just love the way they sound together.
Emiel: Yeah, the voices. Henry: To me, it's like the Korean version of Carole King and James Taylor.
Which is a huge compliment,
because they're arguably some the most important songwriters of 20th century.
Kevin: Nice.
Hey! Wow, they actually did that. Flat two. Wow-wow.
I don't even know how that just happened. I'm not even gonna analyze that. I give up.
How did they just do that?
But yet it's still catchy. That's the thing--some songs can jump through all these hoops,
change all these keys, but they end up not being being catchy. But AKMU...
You know, they're not sacrificing other things for all the awesome key changes.
Jane: I really like the screens.
It gives off like, a Disney vibe. Ashley: Uh-huh.
Ashley: I think it's really interesting how in some parts it's
like super, super classical kind of, but then there's also the jazz, and it works really well together.
Henry: Okay, I'm not confident the strings are real, but I'm very....actually, I think the strings are real. But
I'm very confident this brass is real. And the bass is real, and the drums are real.
These guys never disappoint me.
Kevin: All right, let's see if I can figure out what happened.
Ohhh.
Okay, I know how they did it.
Oh, that's so smooth.
This doesn't sound like a key change. Did you know it was gonna change keys? They're a whole step lower now.
Isaac: I didn't even notice that. Kevin: It doesn't... Isaac: It's different now, but...
Naoki: It's just so catchy. It's like, so vibrant, especially with the shorter notes, like at the end of phrases. It just feels so upbeat and peppy.
Stephen: Yeah, it is nice. I feel like the fact that the drum beat and the rhythm swing Naoki: Yeah.
Stephen: like, definitely add to that kind of like, you know, oh, happy-go-lucky.
Jarod: Yeah. Katie: I can't tell if the strings are real.
It's weird. Like, it's too in tune. Those runs were were too in tune to be real violins.
Peyton: Shake it, shake it.
Charlotte: Ooooh!
We had a scene change.
Peyton: Yeah. Charlotte: That's what just happened on the stage, was a scene change. Peyton: Yes.
Naoki: Like a waltz.
Oh, except it's in four.
Stephen: Man!
Naoki: I just heard *sings triplets*
Like when you have *sings triplets* Stephen: Yeah. Naoki: That's like a waltz. But then it was in four.
So, what do you call it? A dance, but in four. A waltzy four. Stephen: Man, that was funny.
Thanks. Stephen: Can I quote you on that? Naoki: A waltzy four? Stephen: That was really funny!
Lindsey: I totally feel like I'm watching a musical.
Especially cuz even the
instruments sound like they're like telling a story with them, cuz the way that they come in and come out, you're like, this is a
totally different style from before, cuz the other thing was more jazzy, and this is more like, orchestral.
Charlotte: Gotta love some scales and thirds!
Oh,
classic!
Classic musical ending.
Umu: So yeah, what did you think of that song overall, musically? Kevin: It's a very good song.
Because the song is a very relaxed springtime feeling, the idea of
changing the chorus to A major, which is like a whole step lower--
usually when you go lower, you're like
oh, this is gonna be a little depressing--but no, A major in this case is more relaxed.
But the craziest thing is, yeah, the way they change the key, the first time and the second time,
they're completely different. The first time, they make it known to you.
You're like, wow, what's happening? And then the entire orchestra swells. The second time
they're like, we're gonna remove everything except the piano, and now we're gonna be in the new key.
You're not even gonna notice it. Yeah, man... Umu: The strings sound fake, but the brass is real, so I'm really confused.
Kevin: Yeah, the string does, but I got used to it by the end. Like, by the second time they did the little chromatic (imitating strings)
I'm like, you know?
Umu: Were the strings fake? Isaac: It sounded very even, so it's like, unless they're really, really coordinated,
but it's just like, the beginning and the taper of the sound itself is very evened out for each one of them.
It sounds synthetic, though, but...
Kevin: That doesn't matter, it's still a good song. Isaac: Audio engineering is a thing.
Isaac: I really liked how they used the rhythm, cuz it's like once it gets to the really high part
it just pulls back. What is that? It just descended with really fast passes---booom!---and they move on forward.
But it's just like, it's very nice, because it kind of just plays with your expectations.
It's like, oh, we're gonna hit on a really high note,
but then it just stops, and you're just like, oh, what's next? And then it drags you with this descending motif, or even
ascending motif, and then you go into perhaps another key. And then the way they did it,
like Kevin said, it was just like so...
so unnoticeable. But like, you noticed it halfway through the modulation Kevin: The invisible key change. Isaac: Yeah.
Umu: How was the harp playing? Ashley: It was so good!
Umu: Was it like the typical stuff that you usually play on the harp, like dream sequences,
or did they actually have a good part in the song? Ashley: Yeah, sometimes they just had the--well, we call it the sondos--so it's just, da-dun.
Umu: Do you want to explain how you change the keys on harp? Ashley: Yeah. So,
how the setup is is that we have a bunch of strings and they're all tuned to
flat, and then we have seven pedals,
one for each note. And the setting is that we can shift them down. So there's like, three
placements for
each pedal: flat,
natural, and sharp--kind of like in piano.
Since we have one pedal for each note, the way that we can create those glissandos is that we arrange the pedals a certain way.
And then we just go like, da-dun-dun!
Umu: They call it the dream sequence, right? Ashley: Yeah. Umu: But you didn't you didn't hear any of that in this song?
Ashley: Not really. I heard one at the very end, and then at the very beginning, right after the piano played.
Jane: The song's about appreciating every little thing in life, and I think all the instruments also had like pretty important roles,
which also kind of like... Ashley: Uh-huh. Jane: it's like text painting.
Stephen: I'm being totally honest and sincere--I liked 'Dinosaur'. better. I think this song is really great,
and I think like, man, their voices are just like so beautiful, and just like, the timbre and everything meshes, so well.
But this is just coming from my own opinion, and just because of my experiences musically:
So like, the feel they're going for is swing, and I'm just so used to hearing that,
and it's done well here, but it's borderline cheesy.
So it's hard for me to listen to this... Naoki: What's the difference between cheesy and not, though?
Stephen: I feel like, if you listen to more jazz and swing, when you hear the quarter note and you hear swing you hear
it's not just someone like playing quarter notes or just like a ride cymbal pattern,
there's actually like a weight and depth to it.
Naoki: Uh-huh. Stephen: And so, it's just weird listening to it, and it just sounds kind of hollow.
Naoki: The sound of the drums?
Stephen: Well, not just the drums, but just like the feel, like not weighty, not firm. Naoki: Oh. But like, because it's a light
song, would you still want weight? Stephen: Right, no, I was gonna say, like--no, I mean, I'm just saying,
that's why it matches with the song, where it's like what you were talking about,
you know, just kind of happy-go-lucky, like what I said before. Which is fine, and it works for the song.
I just, once again, drawing from what I like to hear. Naoki: Um-hmm. Stephen: But I mean, it's still a really great song.
Emiel: Cool. Henry: I thought it was rad. Emiel: Very versatile, the voices are great, the track tune was nice. Everything... Henry: It moved around a lot.
There was never a moment where I was like, oh, this again.
Emiel: Good trade between instrumentalists and voices, too.
Henry: Yes! Let the texture flow like a lot of moving parts that were traversed very well. Emiel: I've gotta sneeze so bad.
Henry: Recorded very well, except the drums.
I just - it's a personal taste thing -
I did not like the way the drums sounded. But I'm kind of a snob about the way the drums are recorded because my dad
Is a drummer and I'm a drummer, so.
Lindsey: Four minutes and 17 seconds,
and they fit like three different styles of music into that, which is so awesome. And especially in the parts
where it was more jazzy--the way that the trumpet was
ornamenting what it was doing, you could tell it was an actual instrument, because you can't do that with a MIDI file,
you just can't. Fiona: Yeah, and what you said about like the three different styles,
the way they're able to fit that into a performance of music is because they had these like, pauses or little interludes,
Lindsey: Yeah. Fiona: that allowed for that change. Lindsey: The little transition? Fiona: Yeah, it wasn't just some weird like,
(mimicking electronic sounds) Lindsey: Yeah!
Fiona: Electronic like, farting sound. And then it's like, okay, now we're rapping. You know, it's like, this is music, and it was nice. Lindsey: Yeah.
Umu: Yeah, so what did you think about that song overall, musically? Jarod: That became one of my favorite K-pop songs. Holy heck!
Katie: Very, very complex. Like, I don't even know where to begin. There were so many tonicizations and modulations, and they really like,
manipulated what they wanted the listener to feel by changing the texture of the song, and like,
instrumentation to represent like different things in the text. It was a great
pairing between words and music.
Jarod: I felt like I was listening to a Disney movie,
you know what I'm saying? They had like...it was very cinematic, and very regal, Katie: Um-hmm. Jarod: and very elegant,
Jarod: because of the use of like, you know, sounds like basically, like a full orchestra.
You got the strings, winds, brass, and all that, Katie: Same timpani. Jarod: you know, at the same time. At the same time,
Katie: Harp. Jarod: it has like a jazzy feel, you know, very like a... Katie: Studio Orchestra.
Jarod: Yeah, exactly. And it just felt fresh, it felt fun.
It was whimsical, as you could say. Katie: Fun to listen to. Jarod: You know, like you want to get up, you just wanna,
like, I don't know, walk down a street and you know, buy some ice cream and
like, you know, if you have a significant other,
you know, have ice cream with them and sit on a swing, and just have a great time.
Umu: Hello, everyone, welcome to our channel. If you're new, I'm the channel runner and producer of this series,
Thanks for watching this video. If you enjoyed it, don't forget to subscribe.
Also,
if you're curious to see what else we're going to react to in the future, go ahead and check the description
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So thank you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful day.