Seiji: Alright, alright, let's go! Stephen: WOOOOOOOOOO
Umu: Now you're reacting the 7-member girl group CLC and their title track called 'Me' released in 2019.
The song refers to the theme of "beautiful me"
using the English word "me" and the same pronunciation of the Chinese character "美" (Kevin: 美)
Umu: Meaning "beauty", in a whimsical way.
This song with a strong sounding beat, as well as a strongly addictive refrain that reverses as the song proceeds,
shows CLC's confident fascination to captivate everyone with their individuality and beauty.
The song is composed by MosPick.
Henry: It's happening!
Daniel: I like how we're already, sorry there's that
The visual element of the "X" like the butterfly
Kinda looks like the character "me" Fiona: True!
Elizabeth: Oooh Henry: That's like really jarring, in like the best way! Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah!
Elizabeth: I love that!
Like fake us out
Henry: I like that,
sparing.
Cloud: Not gonna lie, the first two measures kinda gave me,
like Miami feels...
(Henry: Like reggae, ska?) Yeah this could go like...I don't know then the bass dropped
I was like, "Here we are."
Stephen: Ooooh...I like this right here Seiji: Alright...
Where it's driving like
Seiji: Alright...let's go let's go!! Stephen: Woooooooooooo
Aaron: It's like a nice use of like a sforzando right?
Like you think it's going to drop and then they're like "We're gonna come in on the end of the beat"
Nick: Yeah... Aaron: And you can wait a little bit
Nick: And they use that weird like...it almost sounds like a record scratch type thing. Aaron: Yeah
Cloud: How did they get the stopwatch to go the same tempo as them??
Henry: Practice
Aaron: I like...their rapper...
I think she's very good <3
Daniel: I like how they're...like, even with their outfits,
They're going through like different types of cultural like ideals of female beauty. (Fiona: True)
Like there's a girl like wearing a hanbok
But at the same time she's wearing like, (Fiona: a militaristic) military regalia.
It's like combining of different cultural expressions of what beauty is (Fiona: true!)
Kevin: Ah, I kinda wish...
They go—they always have—for every three measures
of gritty dissonance there's always one measure of normal.
I wish they would just go dissonant all the way.
Seiji: They really put to the test the idea that sound is just as effective...
or like, rest is just as effective as sound.
Seiji: You know? Stephen: Yeah
Daniel: Yeah, there's a lot of like flat minor motifs.
There's one like da dee da da
I think that's like, maybe a one minor two or like a five minor six
Aaron: W-wait...
Aaron: Yeahhhh
Nick: Everytime it happens I hate it more...(because his headbanging doesn't line up with the drop) Aaron: Why don't we play music like this?
Aaron: F*** you
Aaron: Yeahhh!
Fiona: It's just funny like, their outfit changes shock me.
Daniel: Yeah... (Fiona: Kind of like with the music too.)
It's very like visually thematic too.
Because Venus gets like...um, oh even that
even the red
The Chinese character of "beauty" written in red.
Fiona: It's kinda like lipstick on a mirror
Daniel: Sort of, but I was thinking more like in Korea
or like in Asia, you only use red ink when you talk about death.
Fiona: Oh... Daniel: Or like when you're signing a death certificate.
Or even when they talk about "아름다움" which is like a Korean word—I'm probably butchering that sorry—which is a Korean word for beauty, it's like
But like that's usually an elegant expression,
an expression for like an elegant kind of beauty
And this obviously not what you would typically consider as elegant, you know?
Like they're wearing literal British military regalia, Fiona: Yeah
or European or like military regalia.
But at the same time they're wearing their own cultural hanbok.
Fiona: It's not a passive kind of beautiful it's like a powerful, kind of scary beautiful. Daniel: Yeah...
Daniel: I think it's a definite like, maybe it's a nod to
maybe like, the weaponizing of femininity
as like a powerful weapon.
(Fiona: Yeah) Redefining what it means to be beautiful.
Obviously, they have like all these minor harmonic notions,
like the lament bass,
there's like the five-six minor bass that keeps coming back.
Yeah, I noticed a lot of like...
Sorry, I guess I'm a very visual-oriented person (Fiona: Yeah) like there's a lot
of these visual cues that line up perfectly with (Fiona: The music?) the music
Fiona: Yeah, I agree.
Umu: So, what were your favorite moments of that?
Cloud: Uh, when the bass pushed it forward, I did really like that
Henry: Like the prechorus?
Cloud: Yeah, because that had like one two
Like they were doing like, eighth note pickups
just like on the "and" of four and like "four and"
As soon as you got close to the refrain they went
into the refrain (Henry: Ohhh)
Cloud: So I loved that
I love like we're just gonna keep you sparse, and as soon as we want people (Henry: *sings the beat passionately*
to be like pushing for it we're just gonna like pull in the bass,
and it's just gonna push everything forward. (Henry: Yeah)
Cloud: And then you're ready for the drop you're like
ONE—what?
Seiji: I really like how it gives them the opportunity to really show off how badass they can be.
You know, like it's just so strong!
They're amazing dancers and the music is just so powerful, it's really great!
I like it (Stephen: Yeah)
Stephen: It's like, delayed gratification, you know?
Um, you expect something and then you don't get it...
and then you really don't get it...
and then you finally get it. You're like, like the whole fact
that they delayed it makes you want it more,
which is super manipulive!
Manipulalive...
you know what I'm saying.
Seiji: man-i-pu-la-tive (Stephen: But um)
Yeah it's hard to talk
But it was just a really cool effect (Seiji: Yeah)
I feel like also that's very common in dubstep.
At least more common now, you know because we all kind of expect what's gonna happen, you know?
So just different ways to do the drop is cool.
Also, if you notice the patches that they used in that specific part
whenever they get into the chorus after the build, it almost like it sounds
—it gives the effect of just like not just all of a sudden everybody dropping out but literally
sucking the sound out. Which is probably also why I wasn't super used to that when I heard it.
I was like, "Whoa, that's crazy!"
You know? So that's different too, it's like little things that like really add a lot.
Isaac: Yeah just having that industrial vibe just the DUN DUN DUN DA DA DUN
with a very nice and elegant verse, and the other verse, and then flexing their sounds.
And they're very organic in creating this vibe.
Kevin: I give this song props for being about beauty and having that really nasty industrial drop, I think that's so awesome!
You know it takes a little bit of ugly to make something truly beautiful,
that's the philosophy of jazz.
Because beauty often is...you know...
(Isaac: Virtue) Kevin: It involves pleasantness
(Isaac: Bliss...) Kevin: Yeah, yeah virtue and bliss,
but this isn't quite virtue and bliss,
this is more pummeling and punishing!
But as much as I like that, I just wish the chorus could continue the industrial sound for like
the entirety of it. But I think by the end maybe they could have done something different with the second or third chorus,
by like having that last a little more. Because the surprise is given to us, why not extend it, why not expand on it?
Yes, a song has to be catchy but I think CLC's pretty catchy in general. They could do a few more, they could use a few more notes on the scale.
to like...maybe a little minor seven here and there, that would be more to my liking, but...
Henry: One of the things that I dug was like in terms of
the construction of electronic music, from a layman's perspective,
as someone who just listens and not creates.
A lot of the actual building blocks were really formulaic
like pretty standard, by the book.
But the sounds that they used,
the choices that they made in terms of like,
"Okay, we want this to sound like this"
and "We want this to sound like this"
"We want this to be distoredly and gnarted"
...or uh uh ..."distorted and gnarly"
"We want this to be light and floating, we want this to be drowning in reverb"
Those choices were very, very calculated
and that attention to detail is the difference between
hearing something, and wanting to listen to something.
Like that is really important.
I thought the video was kickass.
Elizabeth: What I really liked is that they were referencing a lot of really different art styles.
Like there was the pop art
with like the bright colors and the circles.
And then there was like
a Renaissance art so like Botticelli's 'Birth of Venus'
and then there was like, you know, this sort of like French...what is it, like rococo-kind-of-like set.
And then there was like (Henry: Don't ask me, I'm an idiot) there was sort of like the minimalist modernist
big red swipe on the wall.
So they were referencing a lot of different kinds of like art,
what was considered like the beauty ideals of those art eras.
And then also they were like destroying it,
kind of just saying like "I decide what beauty is" you know?
So I really appreciated that they were like
referencing what historically in art history, at least in the Western sense,
and like trying to say like "We don't have to hold ourselves to that." I thought that was cool.
*Kevin singing Mandarin*