Hello everyone, and welcome to my incredibly late reaction to Cosmic Girls' 'Butterfly'.
I'm not going to even try and make an excuse,
um, KPop groups have been releasing music left and right,
and I've just been on the couch, in my PJs,
um, icing my arms because I have tendonitis now :(
But late is better than never, right?
So, before you go to the comment sections requesting that we do a First Listen to the album,
yes, we will be doing a First Listen to the album.
Sean, the "Classical Composer Breaks Down The K" host and arranger for this channel,
will be doing the First Listen with me soon.
So, thank you for continuing to be patient for our reaction to 'Pantomime',
I am already running that song by -
we have this voting panel for songs to appear (or not appear)
on the Classical Musicians React series on this channel,
and so I'm already running it by the voters, seeing what they'll say.
I got all your tweets,
my expectations are very high,
but before we get to the First Listen, time for 'Butterfly'.
I can always trust Cosmic Girls to release incredibly solid tracks,
so I always look forward to whenever they come back.
Let's go! 'Butterfly'. Three, two, (hits play) one.
(referring to the dance) Oh, it's so beautiful!
There's so many little sound -
(vocalizing) wuwuwuwu! -
effects, buried, like, behind in the texture.
Behind: I mean as in like, kind of like in the back of the mix?
Now we've got the 'four on the floor' percussion.
Music Theory Note: "Four on the floor" beats are in 4/4 time
(4/4 = four beats per measure)
and the bass drum hits on every beat of the music.
It's really common to hear in dance music because the beat makes you want to bop along!
I like how the bass - okay, we'll talk about it later.
(satisfied) Nice texture change!
(SUPER satisfied) Oooh!
I love that a lot!
I talked over something cool, too - I'll have to go in for a second listen.
(laughing at how GREAT this is)
And now the bass line - before, it was...
There was, like, breaks between notes, right? And now it's drawn out.
(reacting to unexpected change in the chord progression) Oh, nice!
Post-chorus!
I like that leading tone.
Their music video aesthetics are always so perfect.
I'm getting distracted by the visuals, haha!
Ooh!
There's some echoing (in the background, there's an added beat that's new for the rap section).
Oh, it's gone (the added beat).
(squealing) Ah, this prechorus is so good!
So many different percussion sounds.
And then we add the bass back in.
The percussion, um, hits on two and four in the chorus (when counting the beats),
and it feels as if the groove has changed,
even though it hasn't.
It's, like, brought out even more, so it hits harder.
And then this phrase is longer in the prechorus.
Nice harmonies on the vocal part.
Ooooh!!!
Oh. that's cool!
A clock sounds when they show clocks in the music video, waaah!
And everything's back in (all the instrumental layers).
I'm gonna talk a little about this progression,
after the song ends.
Groups can always be so creative.
When - I mean, my main comparing [of] it to LOONA's 'Butterfly'
and the choreography in this one,
they (WJSN) made, like, butterfly shapes like this,
while LOONA just, like, used full body...
(unintelligible amazement noises)
Oh, it's so beautiful!
(snapping out of it) Okay, progression.
So, a very common pop progression is ii-V-I,
which, in classical music terms,
we call a predominant (ii), a dominant (V),
and then resolving to the tonic (I).
So, what we mean by 'predominant' is kind of - it leads somewhere,
and then the dominant is like a little bit of a question mark?
And then the tonic is home,
it just - it feels most comfortable to land on.
And so in this song, there's a lot of
(vocalizing) Twoooooo... (ii)
Five (V), and then instead of going to one (I),
it goes, ii - V -
(vocalizes the note for chord six/vi in this song)
And so that's a little unexpected move,
that I think adds a...
adds more color to the overall progression and song.
Now, the next thing that I really liked about this song was
the texture change from verse to prechorus to chorus.
So let's go back.
(counting off) Three, two, one.
(vocalizing)
(continuing to vocalize the chord progression)
(STILL continuing to vocalize)
(this is brain-intensive!)
Okay, so in the verse, we actually have the same progression as we do in the chorus,
except a completely different rhythm.
Which, therefore, changes the feel-
it, like, connects the whole song together like glue,
but it's a slightly different feel because of the different rhythms.
So not only do we have a different rhythm with the bass,
but also starting at 0:40 again, (counting off)
Got the guitar.
(vocalizing) It's the progression...
Then here...
And then we have a different progression in the prechorus...
And we have - so - much percussion.
And then the bass sound changes, this, just, like, complete texture change.
And then, the hits on (beat) two are - so - extreme in the chorus.
It's just, like, the feel keeps changing-
the changes aren't too drastic,
but it's just enough to make this song, like, super solid,
keep your attention, and be super catchy and not too unexpected.
(vocalizing again)
(major props to Umu for being able to catch all this!)
(aural skills can be SUPER hard to train)
And then, second verse, the progression changes again.
That's a ni-
(cuts self off to enjoy the music)
The songs are always so atmospheric, I feel like, because
you have certain textures brought to the front in the mix,
and then, like I was saying at the beginning of this reaction,
there were some things that seemed, like, in the back of the mix,
like in the - you hear it in the back of your head, like little
(vocalizing) Brrrrrrr!
Like, just, little textural...
(laughing) wings!
Wings, like - like a little butterfly flitting around!
Um, just little textural additions to what you hear immediately,
that makes this soundscape so much more interesting.
So I'm definitely going to enjoy listening to this song this summer,
and I'm very much looking forward to my First Listen for this album.
See you guys later, thanks so much for watching. Bye-bye!