Kevin: Oh, it's so round.
Isaac: Oh! Kevin: Oh!
What?!!
Umu: So now you're reacting to a girl group called Red Velvet.
This is their song 'Power Up', and 'Power Up' is a song about finding energy in sweltering heat, about powering through summer doldrums.
Elizabeth: It's so cold in this room! Mielissa: I'm wearing gloves!
Hi fans, I'm wearing gloves!
There's a hat on my lap.
Umu: During the 2018 summer, South Korea, as well as the rest of the world,
experienced record high temperatures. 'Power Up' offers the chance for a reprieve.
It was composed by Moonshine,
Ellen Berg, and Cazzi Opeia.
Kevin: Okay, three, two, one. Let's....
Fiona: I love the beep, beep, boop, beep...
Lindsey: Yeah! Fiona: I'm sold! Give me the little bubble sounds. Lindsey: Yes!
Melissa: Oh, they're saying banana? Elizabeth: Sounds like they're saying banana.
Melissa: Mean aural skills, sight singing on a neutral syllable.
Kevin: Synth pop land.
You get to hear the timbre of their voices, which is really precious.
Jarod: See, the phrase like falls at the end, like how everything's melting.
Good?
Collin: Good.
Fiona: Oh!
Those upper harmonies on those vocals,
like that's just like, soaring.
Peyton: I like this, and the classic dance beat like, (singing) Charlotte: We're building.
Kevin: Ooh!
Hugo: Why is the main refrain banana?
Umu: Why not?
Jeremy: I like that chord progression in the banana section.
Isaac: What is that chord? Aaugh! Kevin: The phrase structure is so irregular.
The phrase structure is like, my head's trying to wrap around how the phrase is structured. The chorus is like, lopsided in a way
I've never heard.
Lindsey: This is such a summer song. I think that's what I like the most about it.
Fiona: Yeah Lindsey: It's just like, it's giving me good vibes all around.
Fiona: And the video game-like (mimicking game sounds)
like ascending scales.
Lindsey: Yeah Fiona: And you have claps. I'm such a clap ho!
Kevin: Oh, it starts on the seventh! Seventh (singing), so it's that extra note that perfects the scale.
Peyton: Man. I love their music, man. They're so good.
Woo!
If Wreck-it Ralph ever had like, a video game and they needed a theme song, I would recommend this.
Melissa: Yeah, I like the chorus--like the bass in the chorus.
Oh, my God, that was so cute.
The chord gets fatter and fatter every time.
Isaac: (singing)
Kevin: And now we've got the Eurobeat. We've got the Eurobeat.
Peyton: Whoa, that was a cool dance move.
Oh, sh*t!!
God, I love a good breakdown!
Kevin: Oh, it's so round!
Isaac: Oh! Kevin: Oh!
Kevin: What?!!
Fiona: (singing) Lindsey: That was such a weird like...I've heard this before, and I didn't that's where it was gonna go.
Fiona: (singing)
Fiona: I love how high that is! That's really beautiful.
Peyton: This is the grand drive to the finish Charlotte: the descant!
Peyton: (singing)
Peyton: Yeah, I love that!
Elizabeth: But that's interesting because
it's like you go straight from this minor chord to a major chord that's not within the key, so
it makes it feel extra- happy. Meilssa: Yeah
Isaac: Oh!
Wow.
Isaac: (singing)
Umu and Isaac: (singing)
This is the one song at K-con LA where like I heard it so many times being requested for like, the dance booth, and I
had to know what it was. So I got to hear it many times before reacting to it. Isaac: Nice.
But Isaac... Isaac: Do you what's know so cool?
Cuz like the very beginning, and then the pre-chorus kind of like melted together
and became the chorus, so you have like the two different parts of the chorus, which is really neat.
But I thought it was cool, like the pre-chorus, there's no bass, so there's that weird
uneasy feeling. Kevin: There is! I agree. Isaac: It's just floating on top, Kevin: Uh, huh.
Isaac: and then you hear a snare, and you're like, okay,
that's like low, it's like there's a steady beat, but there's still no bass, and then that's why the chorus is just so
hard-hitting. And the way they play around with the bass in the bridge, oh, my goodness. Ugh! Kevin: You know, there's almost like
a slightly more experimental Orange Caramel feel to this song. Isaac: Orange Caramel!
Kevin: Yeah. Doesn't it remind you of that? Eurobeat especially, that kicks in eventually. Isaac: Yeah
It's just this one gets a little bit more varied in styles. Isaac: Yeah
Kevin: I like how it has the cutesy facade at the beginning, like oh, okay, it's major minor
Both: (singing)
Kevin: And then as it goes on, it becomes like Isaac: (singing)
Isaac: Flat, flat. Kevin: Yeah, it just goes all over the place, I think. But not in a messy way. The song is still very well organized.
I just love it when it you expect a more generic
just wall of sound type K-pop where it's so busy, and that busy sound is almost generic at this day and age,
but then you get a song where it's just so,
it's so sparse, and there's not that much bass, and you're just listening to it and
you're like, I'm bopping to this, but my brain is still processing what I'm listening to as I'm bopping to this.
So, good, good, good on the composers and the producers.
Lindsey: That's so funny. This started and I was like,
I think we've reacted this before, but then I was like, I've never seen the video before, and it's totally just because we heard it a million times at K-con. Fiona: That's so cute.
Fiona: And overall it was so bouncy and light, and so that was the message, wasn't it? Lindsey: Yeah Fiona: Very refreshing.
Lindsey: That was just such a summer anthem. Like I could just tell. I don't even know what to say,
I just liked that a lot. It just made me feel good
on the inside. Fiona: On the inside.
Brought me back to K-con.
Hugo: Okay
Umu: Hugo, you look extremely offended.
Hugo: I'm not offended, I'm just so confused. Jeremy: That was like, a lot.
Hugo: Yeah!
Jeremy: Like, the music was so like, whoa! And the video was so like WHOA!. Hugo: I know! I'm like Red Velvet,
they're the ones that did the one with the giant cat, right? Umu: Yeah. Hugo. Yeah. Jeremy,
what do you think? Cuz I'm still trying to collect my thoughts on that one. Well, okay,
I really enjoyed the music, it was so hyped. But I was like, why are they saying banana?
Hugo: They went into half time, and it was almost like, yeah, we're doing this like really happy, almost manic pixie song,
but here's this like half time section to show that we can jam.
But it almost felt non-committal. It was almost kind of like don't forget to take us seriously,
here's a section as to where- I don't know. I just didn't really fit.
I guess the best way to put it is it felt like they worked on different phrases separately, like they worked on phrase assembly,
they're like, okay now we're gonna work on the bridge. Okay, we have chorus down.
Okay, now we're gonna work on the how the verse is gonna sound. But then without actually thinking about the whole line of the song,
they put all of those together, which is why it was kind of so like, oh, oh, oh! Okay, that can be good,
but I just don't feel like there was enough unity throughout the whole thing besides the like, very staccato
synthesizer that made it sound video game-esque.
Jarod: No, it was cool. I liked how there was in like the shout chorus
it was like literally what could be interpreted as like a shout,
but they were like literally shouting, like how they kind of stripped the texture and they're like,
yeah! In the beginning, it was super obvious, kind of like the
blending of the melting of everything around them and then the the way the ends of their phrases would kind of droop to kind of
tie into that little effect. Collin: Yeah
Do you think there were one or two choruses? Cuz there was the like, "Let's power up" thing, Jarod: Yeah, yeah. Collin: and there was like,
(both singing)
Collin: That thing? Jarod: Yes. Collin: Which was super good by the way,
Jarod: Right. Collin: Like I, actually I really enjoyed that. Jarod: Honestly, yeah, it kind of does feel that way, doesn't it?
Collin: No, but seriously. Jarod: Yeah Collin: Like, it's really interesting.
I think that's one of the reasons this song is so convincing, is because they like, you didn't get tired of the chorus.
Jarod: Yeah, you get two catchy hooks in one three minute and 27 second song. Collin: Yeah, but they're both really good.
But they also Jarod: Work together. Collin: Yeah, they also work together.
Charlotte: It's like one of those songs where you're just like, it's jam time, let's go.
Peyton: Let's f*kin' go.
Charlotte: Yeah Peyton: I think it's the rhythm. There's like... because, where I'm from, there's this dance called the shag,
and it originated like in Myrtle Beach, and like, Charlotte: That's means something completely different to me, but okay, continue.
Peyton: (singing)
Like, there are a lot of beach.... like fast beach music has that kind of vibe.
Elizabeth: They had a lot of like running ascending lines and like, synthesizer, like you were mentioning, it sounded like
Melissa: Yeah Elizabeth: like 8-bit video game music. Melissa: Exactly.
Elizabeth: So I think those like like major ascending lines, really,
you know, it just makes you feel
peppy. I mean, anything that is ascending in nature, it just makes you feel lighter and
more energized, and,
you know, obviously all these K-pop artists are just, they bring such energy to all of their
songs, and especially in a girl group like this. I mean, just having all of them giving 110% and
singing at a very fast clip, and having like a nice bass beat going under,
I mean that just automatically makes you feel more awake.
Melissa: Also, I think the fact that it
reminded us, like we kept trying to be like, what Disney Channel music
does this remind me of? Like, it kind of flashed us back to like our childhoods, when we had a lot of energy.
Elizabeth: Oh, my God. Melissa: So, for our generation, that's like a thing.
Hello everyone, I'm Umu, React to the K channel creator, and I'd like to thank you for watching this video.
I really hope you enjoyed or learned something from it.
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