Stephanie: Oh!
[Rossini's Semiramide Overture playing]
Umu: You are now reacting to the 6 member girl group GFriend
and the b-side song 'Tarot Cards'
released on their 2020 Song of [the] Sirens album.
This song is about the enticing experience of playing with tarot cards,
the girls sing in this song about a situation
where the cards chosen during a tarot card reading
did not predict the future that they wanted,
so they asked for the cards to be reshuffled
in hopes of creating a future with new possibilities.
(Cloud: Just shake the magic 8-ball again.) in hopes of creating a future with new possibilities.
Henry: I've no idea how tarot cards work.
Umu: So this song talks about finding out what your destiny is
and then hoping to rewrite it to be something more in your favor.
This song is composed by e.one, Kim Yeon Seo, Sophia Pae, Val Del Prete,
'Son Kwang-' oh wait,
'Sang Ku Un' *struggling with Hangul*
Son Go Eun (손고은) (Ju Young: Nice.)
Umu: thank you,
Jo Yoon Kyung and the GFriend members Yuju, Eunha, and Umji.
Before we dive in, I have a challenge for both of you, are you guys ready?
Raffi: Okay?
Sam: Okay.
Umu: Do NOT use the word 'Anime'.
Stephanie: Oooh.
Leon: Why though?
Umu: Just for fun?
*Evil laughter*
Stephanie: Sure.
Umu: And if you do, you have to do aegyo.
Sam: æ-what?
Umu: Aegyo!
Sam: I don't know what that is.
Owen: What's aegyo? Kevin: Oh, that's easy.
Umu: Mhm?
Jason: What's aegi- aegyo? (*Umu demonstrating*) Ju Young: Oh fck that, I'm not doing that!
Umu: It's acting super-cute.
Jason: Oh, I have never seen anime, so I think I am fine.
[t/n: wait for it...]
Owen: *does aegyo* - that sort of...? (Kevin: Oh, hey!) (Umu: Act like you are three years old - WHOOOW!!!!)
Owen: Okay.
Sam: I do not want to do that, so I will not say... Umu: Okay then don't use the word 'anime'... Raffi: I would love to do that!
Raffi: That could be my big moment. Umu: You would? Okay, then you can use the word 'anime',
Umu: if you are willing to sacrifice yourself... Raffi: Okay, I don't think I'm gonna use that word, though.
Umu: Yes, so no 'anime'-usage, no 'animation',
I let that slide with one of the reactors, it's the same thing!
Cloud: NO it's NOT!
Umu: YES it is!
Cloud: "And they say animation is the same thing as anime?" Henry: Oh, are you challenging me to not say 'anime' again,
Henry: is that a thing? (Umu: Yes)
Stephanie: Ooohh. Leon: Then I'll just use 'manga' for...
Stephanie: Nooo! Umu: But you can't say "this sounds like a manga soundtrack"!
*General hilarity*
Rafael: Alright, 3 2 1 -
Anime!
*Umu laughing*
...
Jason: I like that reversed production. (Ju Young: Mm.)
Kevin: ~Japanese~
Owen: ~Japanese animation~
Kevin: Okay, I like it, it went to the E major, we were expecting E minor.
Leon: Oh my god, this is exactly ~THE THING~
Kevin: It's a sequence.
Owen: Descending fifth.
Kevin: Mhm
Owen: Cool! Kevin: Nice!
Kevin: A little video game-y
Owen: Yeah, offbeat triplets, too.
Kevin: Mhm.
Henry: *Singing along* Ooh, falling!
Leon: Ooooh!
Leon: ahhhhhh
Leon: AHHHHH!
Stephanie: I like that harmonic progression.
Leon: OOOOH! Stephanie: I like that harmonic progression.
Stephanie: I like that harmonic progression.
Stephanie: OH!
Jason: There's these weird like synth - not weird, Ju Young: Is this a different key?
Jason: There's these interesting synth strings in the back, Ju Young: Is this a different key than before?
Jason: But this does sound like a ~theme song~...
*cracking up*
Sam: That's such a motif of that ~A-word~ that I can't say, but...
a lot of ~openings~ do that.
Raffi: *demonstrating*
Sam: Yeah yeah yeah!
Henry: Wow, they are moving through harmony really quickly,
Cloud: They're also switching it up a little. Henry: This is ... exhilarating to listen to.
Raffi: Did you hear that vowel?
Sam: Mhm.
Stephanie & Leon: OOOooooAaargh!
Cloud: Kinda feels like you're on a bike going downhill
and the wind is just like *imitates punches*
Owen: So it seems that they're playing with fast 4/4,
halftime, and then groupings of '3s'.
Kevin: Yeah, but also playing with genres in the meantime.
Owen: Mhm.
Kevin: Some rock breakdowns, some video game-ish synths.
Sam: Oohhh, give me that beautiful bridge.
Raffi: Mm.
Sam: Oh, bass line, hello!
Oh my gosh!
That stutter - OH, and the guitar!
AAAAH!
Stephanie & Owen & Kevin: Good bass line!
Owen: That was a good bass fill.
Owen: Yeah, did we say the same thing? Kevin: Bass...yeah
Jamal: Yeah, this makes me like: Ah!
Ju Young: I love this part!
Something about 'la-s'...
Leon: AAAAWWWW! *Evil Umu laughter*
Stephanie: Ooo~
Leon: That is phenomenal!
*applause*
Stephanie: I enjoyed that so much.
Owen: The strings is definitely the sort of strings you get
at the end of a video game (Kevin: Yeah)
Owen: and then you have a sunset, at the end of the title sequence,
it's like "tada" *demonstrates*,
and there is like a twinkle coming down near the sunset,
Owen: and the title credits come up Kevin: Twinkle twinkle little sunset,
Kevin: How I wonder what you onset.
...
Umu: Oh, that just went NOWHERE, Kevin, that did not go over well.
Leon: The whole song is just amazing.
I can see like...
[can't say the word...]
oh...
nothing.
Umu: Where you about to say the word?
*Leon laughing*
Stephanie: Ohohaha!
Leon: Yeah, I can see that it really fit into the
~Japanese cartoon~
Umu: Okay. *everyone laughing*
Sam: I like music like that.
Umu: Like what, Sam?
Sam: Like that.
Umu: What do you mean, like that?
Raffi: Like ANIME?!
Umu: OH!
SIR!
Sam: He said it, he said it. (Umu: Sir, Sir!)
[t/n: No comment]
*suffocated noises*
Raffi: So I was expecting it to be like satanic or something,
and it was super bright and bubbly (Umu: Yeah!)
(Sam: Yeah!) Raffi: And I'm like: this is not like the devil, at all!
Umu: Tarot cards are a lot more pos- is it-
Sam: It's all about fortune telling. (Umu: There's only like one...)
Raffi: Oh, I have no clue.
Umu: Do you - okay, what do you know of tarot cards? (Sam: There's a death card...) // (Raffi: I've never done...)
Raffi: They tell your future... (Umu: Yes)
Raffi: But isn't it like communicating with like...
Umu: I don't think there's any communication. Raffi:...another world? (Sam: I don't know)
Sam: I think you're thinking of Ouija board [?????]
Raffi: Oh yeah, that is spooky.
Umu: Yeah no, tarot cards, I think, is much more
Umu: fantasy and unexpected (Sam: Yeah)
Raffi: Mm, cuz it came through. Umu: like, because you can get a bunch of positive things,
like "you're gonna have five babies and meet your husband soon
and with your- your job is gonna be successful...
Sam: I mean that's also pretty scary.
Umu: So you were at first surprised that it wasn't demonic?
Raffi: *snorting with laughter* That sounds so bad, um...
yeah no, I just thought it would be dark -
and it was a very bright, driven sound.
Ju Young: Yeah, it's very interesting because
the way that they're using the strings and electric guitar
and just the bass licks, I think...
it gives it that whimsical kind of feel,
it felt very magical, it reminded me of a unicorn,
like a rainbow unicorn. (Umu: Oh!)
Umu: Yeah, cuz of all the modal mixture it definitely very colorful.
(Ju Young: Exactly) Umu: Yeah, cuz of all the modal mixture it definitely very colorful.
Jason: Oh! You're just talking about modal mixture?
So there were two part-
there were three aspects of modal mixture,
there's one at 0:47 and then one at 1:16
Jason: Aw, sweet.
I don't know how to explain it.
It's like you finally found the end of the rainbow -
and there actually is gold!
Ju Young: Mm!
Jason: Like, listen!
Leon: The harmony is so sick!
Umu: Why is this harmony good?
Leon: Cuz it's really unexpected.
Umu: Can you play it for us on the piano?
Leon: Uhm, I will probably need to listen...
Umu: Let's do it, let's do it! Leon: ...more.
Stephanie: Yeah, from the beginning? (Leon: Yeah)
Leon: ii-V-I, ii-V-I-vi [chord progression]
Stephanie: Mhm.
Leon: Okay...
Wowowow, what?
Oh okay, okay, yeahyeahyeah.
Leon: Oh my god, WHAT?
Stephanie: Yeah, there! Leon: Ooh, there...
Leon: Oh my god, that's too much!
*Playing on piano*
and then:
No!
Is it?
Cuz I remember it goes to like:
*basically a ♭VI-♭VII-I in B♭-major*
Leon: Ah fck, *plays B♭major* yeah. (Umu: Yeah!)
Leon: I don't know... (Umu: Yey!)
*Sad Leon noises*
Henry: Well...there's definitely parallels there,
from wanting to reshuffle your destiny
by reshuffling the goddamn tonic so much! Hahah!
It fits with the theme,
and I wish I had chord labels to put on there,
or certain chord changes and deceptive movements
just felt very idiomatic to -
~that kind of music~
Particularly when you resolve and you don't do V-I,
but you do ♭VI-♭VII-I, alright, let me...
So instead of going: *plays I-V-I*
*I-IV-V-I* and that resolves,
you go to ♭VI in the cadence: *I-IV-V-...
*-♭VI-♭VII-I* (all in B♭-major)
I love that ♭VI-♭VII-I, I think you hear that in a lot of -
~openings~
um, because it suspends that sense of resolution.
Sam: The first thought that came into my head is
it definitely felt like a J-pop inspiration,
with where the, just the energy was coming from -
Sam: You really want me to say it (x2). Umu: Hihihihihihi!
Sam: I'm doing my best.
It's kind of like when you say: "Don't think about blank",
and all you can think about is blank (Umu: Yeah)
Sam: But the energy is just so vibrant, and it was so colorful,
and I just, I had a lot of fun listening to it.
Jason: If I were to have seen a show
that has thematic material in the beginning that has that flavor...
I would say that it reminds me of that.
*Umu cracking*
Because I have never seen it but...
that's the closest I've been to thinking I was seeing it, aurally.
But I think one of the biggest things about it,
me being an outsider from that genre,
is there are always these kinda retro strings in the back,
that are kind of like faded a little bit, that give this like:
*demonstrates*
it's always arpeggiated and rhythmically like - yeah,
(Umu: *imitates*) it's always arpeggiated and rhythmically like - yeah,
Jason: Yeah, like doing all these things,
and it's like getting you hyped up,
but like... there was some really cool things in that, though,
but that's all I'm gonna say, I'm not gonna say the word, but...
Umu: Good job, good job.
Stephanie: Again with the subdivision, like that,
Stephanie: they did the 123-123-123-12, I think, yeah. (Leon: Mm, yeah(x3)!)
Stephanie: And also, that happened,
they used that before the energy explosion,
*demonstrates*, like that I think,
and then I feel like they did that with a scale pattern, kind of,
like an ascending scale pattern,
so that really helped it build up the energy,
the like jumping, stepping up to a higher energy level,
and then burst into a different key.
Kevin: I always like it when GFriend actually like,
it feels like they're pushing their sounds
while still sticking to their main vibe,
and I think this is an example of that, because...
We've heard lots of harmonically diverse songs by GFriend,
that's kind of their thing,
but this is one where it struck me as -
some of their songs could sound overly soft,
some of their songs sound overly on the loud side, constantly.
This song feels like it's constantly exploring its limits
and it utilizes all the sounds, all the genres
and all of the different dynamic levels and instrumental density
in a way that is very satisfying, and I think is...
this is one of the better GFriend songs,
and I tend to like a lot of their songs.
Owen: I liked the drums and the bass combination, specifically,
I feel like that color, the color is how they mix,
it's just a very warm and solid sound,
everything else can do whatever they want on top of it
because you just have that *dumbumbumbum*,
except much more like growly but we sustain the bass,
and the drums have a certain sort of compression
to give it that bass and that umpf, I think...yeah.
Rafael: I would imagine, like whoever wrote this,
whoever wrote the framework of what is going on,
was like a film score major or something like that.
Jamal: It sounded like they actually used some real musicians,
like there were a couple of sick drum fills that were like
Ah! That's what I want!
Rafael: I agree, I could hear real musicians,
both physically playing the instrument,
but also event though it was really heavily arranged and everything,
and other K-pop songs also are very heavily arranged,
I feel like the writing itself sounded a little more human.
Even though, again, it didn't sound totally like
they were sticking to any one idea for any given length of time,
the overall thing of it, like I,
I feel like I could totally imagine someone like jamming [?????]
like: "Oh, this is so epic"
"Yeah, like this is so..." (Jamal: Yeah!)
Rafael: You know? Like: "And now we're gonna do the same thing-
BUT IN A DIFFERENT KEY!"
Like, I've been there, you know,
and it sounded like a song that I would see in like Astro Boy or something.
Umu: Good...good word choice...
Jamal: Yeah!
Henry: What is aegyo?
Cloud: No, it's like the cute, you know... *Umu probably doing some crazy aegyo behind the camera*
Henry: *disgusted* Umu in aegyo: My name in Henryyy! I'm cutecutecute babybaby!
Cloud: STOOOPPP!!!! *Crazy Umu laugh*