Henry: What's up ReacttotheK, this is Henry from classical musicians react.
Umu: Hello, everyone My name is Umu and I'm ReacttotheK's creator, and we're getting this so late, and I'm so sorry.
I, when this first was released, I did a little preview and I was like, oh I want to react to this!
And then I was searching for someone to react with on this channel, and I was- I struggled for a few months.
But finally Henry's and my availabilities lined up and so we'll be reacting to 'Break All the Rules' Cravity's debut song.
And yeah, I'm super excited. When I previewed it, it sounded really solid.
H: Okay ready? Okay, I'm ready? Are you ready? Y'all ready? I'm, y'all ain't ready? I'm ready. Ready, Center of gravity.
U: It really grabs your attention the second it starts.
Ooh.
H: I like that dissonance.
Ooh, we're modal? question mark?
Damn, the harmonies are so detailed.
So many different synth sounds are being added in and then taken away.
H: Ooh woah woah woah woah wOah woah where'd it go?
*laughing*
U: The synth production is insane too.
H: They are criminals they are breaking all the rules
U: Nice *sings the vocal leaps* leaps in the vocal line
ba dap ba dap
Woo!
FIREE
da da da da da (descending), like the instrumental, and then du da da da (ascending)
pew! pew! Is then added in.
H: Pre-chorus. *singing the rhythm*
U: And then also subdividing of rhythms, getting faster.
Da da da da
Woo! Nice harmonic shift there.
H: Ah
What is that sound U: Ey, ey!
Nice *sings the descending synth line*
I want the the new descant moved a little bit forward. I hear you, I want it louder.
*singing* yeah~
That was insane! Oh my god.
I need to go in for a second listen. Let's go, second time through.
Melody was good, textures were good, variation was good. aAAaaa, three two one
I feel like this rhythm *sings said rhythm*
repeated several times throughout, whether it be sung on a different note, or in the instrumental.
I felt like this fast *sings the rhythm again* appeared multiple times.
Three seconds in, three, two, one.
That's why- because the bass goes *sings bass part* underneath those vocal parts and that bass appears, I believe again in the second verse when it changes to rap.
Now as for our harmony, so harmony... I'll put a definition over here,
harmony is just basically, picture when you're listening to music and like there's a melody here and then like
How do I explain, there's a lot of more notes stacked upon that first note, right?
And so we create this wall of vocal sound, that's harmony, multiple notes layered top of each other.
So we have *sings that line again* Like all these moving along *sings line again*
And they don't they don't change right? They just keep while they're singing *sings line again* they stay the same note.
And then seven seconds in, we shift we start shifting that harmony. three, two, six seconds in.
So we had *sings the line again* and then we had, above, we had *sings higher pitched slightly different line*
*starts singing that line again*
And then that part *sings the higher line* stayed the same,
and now we had *sings the original line, but slightly different* we had the lower harmony shift
H: So they're really good, their singing is really good.
They- this really interesting song. I- I wanna- I wanna go back and figure out what that harmony is.
It sounds pretty rule breaking as in it doesn't stay within the diatonic tonal center the whole time,
I think, I'm pret- it might just be like a parallel major minor shift.
I know I always get thrown off by that, so it's probably that. Let's run this back real quick.
This is definitely major
*singing the line* 'cause they get *sings the line again*
They have a major seven, a major- scale degrees I mean- they have a raised seventh, a raised six, and a raised third.
So those are all key indicators that it's probably in major and th- they didn't sing a lydian flat like raised fourth, so.
Yeah, I think I hear what's going on *sings line from the pre-chorus* and that's they're kind of resting- I'm so sweaty- they're kind of resting on like a minor there.
*sings the line again, going into the chorus*
That same "breathe" where it was minor
*sings the beginning of the chorus*
Now it's a major key *sings the notes of the key*
So I was right! They are jumping back to the- they are jumping to the parallel major of this key
and that sounds out of place because it's not in this diatonic scale.
U: Very successful debut- I'm- solid, hella solid. H: Yeah
Like singing was good, rapping was good, the dancing was good, the music was pretty interesting.
um
A lot of potential here, I'd like to see what they do that's really out of the park,
because so far. No- no- none of it was like mind-blowing but I'm like they're good. Th- they're
They're hitting all the, they're pinging all the good goods, yeah.
U: This is really, really good because the production we
at times (H: Okay) we do use synth sounds that are used in a lot of pop songs, especially like
you know the "hey, hey" and like there are some of the percussion
sounds, like the hits, that I'm like okay I've heard the sample used in other songs.
But the groove, the bass drum hits. That was nice (H: Mm), nice and syncopated.
Not necessarily something you can catch on, like in one second.
Um the vocal line in the first, they messed with modes, modal mixture (H: Yeah), phrygian, to minor, to...
minor but with the major model mixture, and then they had nice, um...
The dance break of course was a really nice surprise.
And like yeah, yeah, when you have this hardcore song you are going to go more gentle in the bridge and the pre-chorus,
and you are going to use the subdividing technique to get back that energy up, right?
*sings an example of the subdividing build-up technique*
But while they had that pre-chorus start off really gentle with background like ooo background vocals we had some synth sounds because like
Necessarily when you're hyping up, you just layer on stuff that just keeps getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger, right?
But they had some synth sounds kind of just like dance around everything so they had like
*sings example of the synth sounds*
And that would disappear and then it had like peeeEEEWWWW
Like this new thing come in, and so I thought it was- I thought the the production was really, really smart and
the harmony and the verses weren't always the same. So like really, really small variation throughout.
Which made this song a lot better than just any other kpop release, edm release.
Maybe it's because I'm in a good mood today. I know like sometimes when I'm in bad mood I'm like
*squeaky umu voice* Ah I hear this every day like ah, this isn't very good, you know, but like,
based on my listen today. I was really impressed.
H: I just- you are getting really good at this.
U: I just listened to a lot of music with like-
H: You're getting really good at this
U: No, I'm not because I still can't figure out cHORDS
Well, you picked up on so much, the whole of it, the overall like why this would be successful. (U: Mm) That's so awesome.
Yeah, I can't, I can't argue with that. I mean
It definitely sounded very original their sound at least (U: Mhm) you know, like
sure song structure, that hasn't changed for decades. But yeah, you're right
There's nothing there's no samples in here that I was like definitely heard that "hey hey hey" before, like it was
U: So it's a good mixture of familiarity and- H: And their dancing was pretty good.
Yeah, it's good- it's, I mean, you, that's what- that's what really like pushes commercial music towards the the top of the charts, right,
where it's it's familiar, but just unfamiliar enough to be interes- to be interesting
You always have to hit that- that little yellow margin above the norm, you know
if you go way past, no one's gonna- it's not gonna hit, and if you stick here or it's even more familiar like...
It's gonna be "boring"
So (U: Mhm) they got yeah, they have the I mean, I- I don't want to say they have potential
because they've pro- it's been so long they've probably already like created a pretty decent fan base and like
have more songs, maybe, but I like what I hear.
U: Yeah, yeah. And um, I think what still has stuck with me is the post-chorus where they go
*sings melody of post-chorus*
Where they do the octive jump H: Oh the
*sings the same part*
Yeah, that was cool. Those are just fifths.
*singing the post-chorus part again*
U: Oh they're fifths, okay H: And then the second time they ended
*sings second post-chorus*
And land back on that like (U: The major three) to emphasize it four or three this is still like major so that's pretty s-
I- I guess that- I mean, I want to say thats smart music writing if it was intentional to give it let that kind of confused
Where are we? Are we major, minor? Which can emphasize that rule-breaking kind of aesthetic like, yeah, we won't do what you say.
U: Yeahhhh, so yeah, that was just an overall really fun listen, and yeah,
it's going on my top songs of 2020 playlist because I need energetic, fun, modal songs to be energized by in my life.
Yeah, basically. H: I really dig.
U: Yeah, so thanks so much for tuning in everyone and I hope you guys leave a comment of what you guys think of this song too.
H: Yeah, (U: And-) who's your bias? Let us know.
U: Yeah, teach us about the members, and we'll be really thankful.
Yaayyy all right! We'll see you guys later. H: Peace out guys
U: Bye~ H: Bye bye