[subtitles by @angelade17]
OWEN: YES!!
[Rossini's Semiramide overture plays]
UMU: You are now reacting to the 9-member girl group TWICE
and their B-side song, "Hell in Heaven" from their 2020 "Eyes Wide Open" album.
"Eyes Wide Open" is the group's second full-length album,
one that showcases a more sophisticated womanly mature side of the group that is a development from the youthful brighter concepts they debuted with.
"Hell in Heaven" compares falling in love to someone- oh wait shit.
"Hell in Heaven" compares falling in love with someone to both heaven and hell.
They sing about wanting to find a person who will be their hope in hell, and who will lead them to their paradise.
The song is composed by Shim Eunji, Yi Haesol, and Linnea Södahl- Linnea Södahl.
And yes, the very first text that you hear in this song is a quote from a movie and so I'm curious if you'll recognize it.
KEVIN: Is it in English? UMU: Yes.
KEVIN: Woah, let's go!
Spongebob Narrator Voice: Meanwhile...
UMU: The very beginning of this song, you will hear a English quote and it is from the beginning of the move "Eyes in the Night."
JU YOUNG: Do you know it? JASON: No. Who wroted that? Who directed that?
JASON: It's a 1942 film? JU YOUNG: Damn.
UMU: Fred Zinnemann. JU YOUNG: Does he have any recent ones out?
JASON: He- if this was made in 1942, he's dead. JU YOUNG: Oh.
JASON: [laughs] I'm sorry, that's so- (JU YOUNG: You know what, some people stay alive!)
JU YOUNG: No, you're just being realistic (JASON: I'm sorry! Okay, let's see.)
JU YOUNG: Yeah he's dead. JASON: He was born in 1907...
JU YOUNG: He got a Goldon Gol- JASON: Golden Golbe.
UMU: Golden Golbe! JASON: Golden Golbe Award
HENRY: Let's do it. 3 2 1!
HENRY: Oh interesting.
CLOUD: I like it. HENRY: I like those little sounds.
RAFFI: Ooh! SAM: Oh my gosh.
JASON: That's a cool harmony.
CLOUD: I really like the soundscape.
JU YOUNG: Pentatonic?
JU YOUNG: Wh- Whaaat? JASON: I like that nice like, staccato bass.
The staccato bass is fire
RAFAEL: That was a cool effect, like having the,
the like drop happen and then they just completely take away all, all texture except the vocal and the bass.
And somehow it like kinda goes harder at that point.
RAFFI: Mmmm.
I like this, the slow note.
RAFFI: That's so cool. SAM: Yeah!
SAM: Oh.
KEVIN: "My hope in hell, take me to your paradise." I like that, that's- that's a good line.
Woah, I like how ev- it feels like it's braking. Like, stepping on brakes. *sings*
OWEN: YES!! Yeah!
That was great.
RAFFI: I feel like we're not ever getting the full everything together. It's so enticing. (SAM: Yeah.)
SAM: Yeah.
RAFFI: It's filling in, yep.
OWEN: They have so much personality, I think that's what it-
All the instrumentals have so much character in this song. That's what I really like.
KEVIN: Woah, woah.
JU YOUNG: It's very guitar-heavy.
Harmonic...guitar-heavy.
CLOUD: Oh! What? (HENRY: Lot going on in this song.)
SAM: Wow. RAFFI: She really said [whispers] paradise.
SAM: I really- that's really interesting.
OWEN: Yeah ends unresolved- got that A# KEVIN: What is the movie quote?
UMU: "Eyes in the Night." KEVIN: I don't know this one.
UMU: It's "surely you can see that you can never make her happy."
KEVIN: Wow. I see. (OWEN: That's a sentence.)
KEVIN: So is the relationship hell in heaven? Oof. Oof this gets dark.
It's hell in heaven in reality. Wow.
But the song is great!
SAM: What makes it really enticing for me is how it sort of flirts with syncopation.
In- when the instrumental has the *sings*
And just because it's sort of a rhythmic pattern that isn't necessarily something that,
at least for my young ears, I'm not necessarily used to hearing that sort of "unique" pattern, just sort of drew me in.
And especially when they started doing sort of vocal, not adlibs but sort of vocal samples with filling in other syncopated off-beats leading up to the pre-chorus
was very very- ah man, that was really cool. I really thought that was cool.
HENRY: That- yeah that was a lot going on there. CLOUD: I really liked that.
HENRY: What did you like about it? CLOUD: I loved-
UMU: *laughs* You're taking all my questions. CLOUD: *laughs* Henry's going to take your job.
UMU: I'll just mute myself, go ahead guys.
CLOUD: Uh it kinda reminded me of like Ed Sheeran "Shape of You" a little bit,
CLOUD: but I think that's mostly like the steel drum. (HENRY: I get you, it's kind of a timbre-)
HENRY: Yeah it's the timbre of the percussion. Sorry I should look at the camera. (CLOUD: It's- it's the percussion, the Latin rhythms,)
CLOUD: it's the really catchy like pop elements that are in there. I loved it. HENRY: Yeah the *sings rhythm*
CLOUD: Like I, I like "Shape of You" by Ed Sheeran and I loved this song, so I feel like those things are correlated, but.
JASON: It's just very Ed Sheeran. I'm sorry, that's the only thing I'm hearing is that it's just like Ed Sheeran.
JU YOUNG: And I think there were aspects to the song that were really nice, but I feel like it was just the same thing played over and over again.
UMU: INCORRECT! JU YOUNG: Really?! (JASON: That's, It was good.)
UMU: Listen closely to the textures and layers y'all, and harmonies. It changes very time.
JU YOUNG: I dunno, I feel like I was like- (UMU: It changes every time.) JASON: We can- I'll give it another- can we give it one more listen?)
JU YOUNG: Yeah can we listen to it one more time? (UMU: Yes.) I think we were focusing too much on the lyrics JASON: I'm not gonna even read the lyrics.
JASON: I just wanna hear it. (JU YOUNG: This one's for the music. Let's go.)
JASON: I do think that the production in the beginning is really good, with like the...
...with the panning and also with um, like the ambient sounds are pretty.
JASON: Did they just say Pokemon?
JASON: It's like a really, really solid and stable like foundation of like a song.
Because it's got like a lot of elements there that are great, like the rhythm-
the like the rhythmic plays are really cool, and like the bass.
And like there- there were a lot of cool interval jumps with the bass too that I like.
Um and then the textures and the harmonies, there are like a lot of differentiations between like, you know um-
There was like things in the production that was from the beginning that they brought back by mid to the chorus to make it look-
to accentuate like high point of like a peak of like the music. It was good, like everything checks off the list of being like good,
there's just a quality to it that didn't speak to me. I dunno.
JU YOUNG: What's, there's a painting with squares I will find the name of it soon,
JU YOUNG: Like the Mon, Mon something squares? (JASON: is it, is it- is it the um primary colors?)
JU YOUNG: Yeah it's just the primary colors and then there's a grid.
That was, that painting was supposed to explore the flatness of a canvas.
And I feel like this song for me, it was- it was a foundation for a lot of the music you know, that's out today.
There's always a grid for where artists can like explore around, and I think that they did that with like the layerings that you were talking about. There were like underlying riffs.
And you know that was interesting, but for some reason it didn't really like speak to me.
It's just cool. Like, yeah.
JU YOUNG: Wait can you tell us like what- what was so interesting about this, like I kinda wanna know. (JASON: Wait what is, what is the- well actually, I do wanna)
(JASON: hear your, yeah.) UMU: What I find interesting you guys may not find interesting.
JASON: Well I do want to hear what you found interesting (JU YOUNG: But like I wanna hear your opinion on it, yeah.)
UMU: The fact that every single- I'm gonna say this into the microphone.
The fact that every single instrument didn't line up with each other rhythmically.
(JASON: Yeah, that was really cool.) UMU: We have about maybe 20 different samples, 20 different sounds all coming in at different times.
UMU: Like there was a cowbell, there was whistling, there's something going like "Ahh."
JU YOUNG: Yeah that's what I heard. (JASON: That was pretty cool.) UMU: The fact that I'm just so surrounded by so many different sounds and then with really sweet singing on top of that.
UMU: Plus this is very different from what the girl group has done before, so it was like a nice change for me. (JASON: Yeah, no that's really cool.) JU YOUNG: Okay.
JASON: I think if we'd heard their music before and then saw that what they did with this, it would have been different.
But I think for me it was all those different sounds, I didn't find any relation between them just in my brain, the way I listened to it.
JASON: So they did kind of just cancel themselves out, and they were just like the backing. (UMU: That makes sense.) Yeah.
STEPHANIE: For me the instrumental texture, definitely number one.
And like, there's kind of like that "bassline" (LEON: Yeah!) um but it's kind of like you know,,
it's- it was interesting because it's not like that usual bassline where you know, you can hear the string texture or anything.
But it's kind of like all subdivided. I just thought of all these dots, kind of like bouncing.
And then all these dots, you know they're like subdivided equally, but the pitches are slightly different.
STEPHANIE: And then you kind of connect those, those lower pitched dots that formed the bassline. UMU: I like that!
LEON: Okay I'll take that back, because it's not really like "Shape of You." *laughs*
UMU: At first it was maybe kind of, a little bit. (LEON: At first yeah, because it's like kind of like a marimba sound chord.)
LEON: But eventually when the bassline kicks in, I feel like it's- it's more like a Latin music. Like a Spanish-ish music. (STEPHANIE: Ooh!)
STEPHANIE: You know Spanish tinge, the *sings rhythm* (LEON: Yeah yeah!)
STEPHANIE: Like I guess it- isn't like the triplet in subdivision? Oh wait yeah.
LEON: Yeah it's just dotted-quarter. STEPHANIE: We learned that in- yeah, yes.
STEPHANIE: Last year in Jazz History right? We played Spanish tinge.
LEON: And the sound is, I don't know how to describe that sound. STEPHANIE: Right?
STEPHANIE: Yeah but it's true, it kinda sounds like marimba. Like so percussive.
RAFAEL: I think they're, they're king of trying to go for like a,
like from the beat at least, it- it seems reminiscent of uh some like Latin American music, with like the cowbell like playing some different claves behind it,
and just like- just like a dance percussion section, and kinda just like dotted quarter note bass- like bassline,
it's kind of like uh reminiscent of some Latin American music so I think that's kinda what they're trying to get at with paradise,
like tropical paradise, even if it might not be totally what they're intending like, I think that's part of the inspiration for the beat.
Even like the, it almost sounds like an mbira instrument playing this- this like first sample. Like that's-
UMU: Wait, wait wait. I wanna revisit that. 'Cause you hear the *makes sound* RAFAEL: I dunno if it's specifically mbira, but-
RAFAEL: Like one of those like finger harps that, that like would be inside an mbira. Those are used all across South America too.
UMU: To me it sounds like guitar layered with a tambourine. 'Cause this doesn't sound metallic enough to me. (RAFAEL: I dunno, that- that's just like what it sounds like to me.)
RAFAEL: I might not be totally right. Just like that sound in general is very um island-y, for lack of a better term.
JAMAL: I um I really like the vocals on it like towards the end, um there was um more soloist riff like -esque kind of things.
I felt like it was just a strong vocal presence that was kinda driving it as opposed to being- relying on like everything else to like push forward.
The music I feel like I was constantly pulled to the singing of it, which is nice.
HENRY: Their singing was really light and easy. I heard like a lot of-
Most of the time for the choruses, they were flipped up into their head voice. Very like really light like, sound.
Um but they did have a good bit of like beltiness here and there. It just kind of floated throughout the whole thing.
There was one moment a little before like 1:50ish where they ended a phrase with like a little vocal fry. I thought that was a really interesting use.
It was *sings*. And it cuts out with silence so you just hear that little bit of crackle of vocal fry.
People always- vocalists always complain about vocal fry too, just how
"oh my gosh it might be unhealthy for your voice." (CLOUD: Ooh I did not notice that at all, that's so cool.)
HENRY: But I really like, I really like that isolation of the vocal fry. To like, I imagine the video like it would just focus on that person.
Um it really draws in your focus to like the silence, 'cause it's *sings* and then it jumps right back in to the next, a chorus.
OWEN: I just loved um like the bass sound, I loved the percussion,
I loved the tambourine-esque sort of offbeats, I loved all the pastel colors in the- in the timbres.
Um it was just all- so many sounds that were really refreshing and new that I just love.
And also the drop! Drop is so wonderful! It just played out of my expectations so nicely, and it was great.
KEVIN: Um I also think the vocal melody in its, in its own is-
I mean, I guess now that I think about it, the vocal melody by itself probably isn't the most remarkable,
but I think it was written with the intention of interacting with the instruments and the sound that- the soundscape, that the song creates.
And it's- yeah and it makes the whole song consistently interesting.
(HENRY: That's so creative.) CLOUD: I thought this song had a really good usage of like cutting out back instrumentals to pay attention to the voice
CLOUD: without having it lose any kind of driving forward force, like any inertia in that.
Like it still felt like we were moving forward.
Like sometimes I get bored in bridges of songs 'cause it feels like we're in like this prettier place now, and it's like a little bit more laidback.
And I'm like oh okay, but we kinda lost that momentum. And I didn't really get that feeling for this.
HENRY: Yeah no, there was- there's always some kind of new creative thing being put in there.
By that I mean like a different, different tactic for drawing your attention back, or like using a bit of silence.
CLOUD: I really liked it. HENRY: I love TWICE, I love their singing. It's so good!
RAFAEL: Like I would low-key wear the boots on the right.
JAMAL: Those like high-heel boots are like, it's so high. RAFAEL: Wow yeah, these are like serious heels.
JAMAL: You could like crush someone's head with those.