Umu: Hi everyone! My name is Umu and I'm ReacttotheK's channel creator.
Sean: Hello everyone, I am Sean, ReacttotheK's channel arranger and host of Classical Composer Breaks Down the K,
and this is our reaction to SuperM's '100'!
U: SuperM is back~!!
I believe this is a pre-release single for their upcoming album.
I did check out the teaser earlier and it seems like this is a Target/car ad but with
~highly~ produced music. So, I am so ready.
I'm so--
S: Joppin' in 3, 2, 1.
Okay, right off the bat with fancy sounds.
Ohh, that sound from the preview -- it's a really nice, just, like, very granulated sound.
U: Oh--!
I liked how we built into harmony and then we went back into a shouted, less harmonious-- okay, there's the harmony.
S: Starting out with a Mark rap!
U: Wrecking ball~? [LOL Miley where u at]
We're still moving forward really quickly, I almost--
we're gonna have a break coming up, something tells me.
Yep. *psychic*
Gotta give Baekhyun his riffing section.
AHH!! Helloo major modal mixture~
We have some background vocals, choir-esque.
S: So I guess the chorus is just the "We go 100" part.
Oh okay, I guess this is a new part of it.
I wasn't sure, I kind of assumed that that was a post-chorus.
U: *vibin* yeahh~
And then Taemin gets second pre-chorus
S: Yeah, I feel like-- is this Taemin's 1st line in this so far?
Um...
Cuz I think Baekhyun started the first pre-chorus.
I feel like-- yeah, I'm assuming more Taemin in the bridge
cuz I feel like there's not been a lot of, like, Taemin dance time™.
Yup. *psychic part 2*
U: Yeahh *laughs*
*referencing Taemin's "all the way" + synths mirroring it* ~da da da~
This is such an SM Entertainment [signature]--
the rhythm and the way the chords resolve.
*attempts to hit Baekhyun's high note*
*electronic distortion noises*
S: Wow!
Okay, yes of course Baekhyun has to do a higher note than last time.
U: The melody that they do choose to have in the chorus, I'm gonna talk about later.
Bruh.
Bruh. Okay~
So that whole time,
there's, like, y'know, this checklist that is forming in my mind
of what certain musical elements will create an SM Entertainment song.
And so, while I was listening to that for the first time I was like,
Oh~! This-- the dubstep is SHINee's 'Everybody' and Irene & Seulgi's 'Monster.'
And then the [harmonized high note]
is in, y'know, Jopping and a bunch of other SM songs.
HuhhhHH...
Then, like, the brought-down-to-a-really-minimalistic part,
that reminded-- gave me, y'know, 'Punch' NCT 127, 'Punch' vibes.
I just got so many different vibes from so many different SM Entertainment songs.
So it's just kind of fun to have this, like,
little salad... of...
SM classic musical moments.
S: Yeah, that was good. I wanna go back into the bridge
cuz I feel like I spent-- I spent most of that just going,
Oh~
Huh.
Wow~
Oh!
And not actually saying anything interesting, so. Into the bridge!
As fairly standard for SM bridges, more vocal harmonies, smoother--
The Everyone-Sings-"Ahh"-In-A-Chord.
Yeah, I like having this tie into the intro. So it's just, like--
it's not-- it's a really striking texture, this sort of quasi-whispered--
And then this is-- Exo's done this trick a coupla times,
where it sounds like it's about-- the bridge is about to loop back into-- well, not loop, but head into the chorus,
and then it diverts over into a rap section.
Yeah, this is a really good comeback of being a solid song,
but, like, still leaving room that they can-- they can make something even bigger
for the... for the full comeback--
the, like, actual album release title track.
*singing vocal line*
Two, three, four...
*figuring out song key*
It's just, like, holding onto... okay, *sings note* ~daaa~
~I'm guessing this [note] is tonic... This is the home note of the key we're in~
*holding onto home note* ~dadadadada~
d!
So-- so this song is in overall d minor, which is a certain pattern of notes that sounds like:
That's the main note that tells us--
Those are the notes that tell us it's in a minor key. So at this part we go from d,
then we jump up to a b flat note,
which is in the minor scale, and--
and then we go back to scale degree five, which could be either major or minor-- taken from either a major or minor scale.
Instead of *option 1* -- that's in key, *option 2* we go major here,
and that's just SUCH a classic SM move, where you-- you jump--
you're like playing around with the minor scale, and then you land on the major 3 in the vocals.
Ehm..
To show, like, really obvious modal mixture.
Okay, we're going to continue.
Even the rhythms...
*singing "we go, we go, we go, we go" part*
For the melody that is in (other than "We go 100!") in the chorus, it goes, ~"we go"~
Scale degree 1, (~"we go"~) 7, (~"we go"~) 2, (~"we go"~) back to 7 and then 1. ___????sry wasnt sure whether to put maj/minor notation????____
And the reason why I feel like that isn't a typical melody is because...
Not too often in melodies do we highlight the leading tones,
which is scale degree 7 and then also scale degree 4
and then 2 is kind of in between.
Um, but... I liked those leaps and those choices of notes to highlight, because y'know,
it isn't, like, the most mainstream melody and it makes it makes it a little bit more of a unique sound.
I'm gonna go back to the beginning... 16 seconds in. Three, two, one.
*bass noises*
Yeah, 1st verse has...
2 parts... cuz we start with the chorus, right?
And then we go like-- kinda have 2 parts to the 1st verse in which we just repeat the loops of the instrumental.
And then we take the same instrumental that we had in the verse...
except with new percussion samples, I believe.
Okay -- "can't-- can't slow down" -- cuz the part-- the thing is, is that
at that part, Kai is kind of: "can't slow down"
Since it's spoken, it isn't quite hitting a pitch, but then ~"can't slow down"~ is very much a pitch.
So, that interval kind of tickled my ears at that moment because it didn't quite match up.
I thought that part was really interesting.
It's the syncopated rhythm.
*singing the syncopation of Taemin's "all the way" phrase*
That shows up in a lot of SM songs.
Nice background vocals at that part.
*figuring out the interval b/w the layered high notes*
Wow, there's only a third [interval]. But yeah, it still sounds a little bit crunchy. There might be some other hidden overtones in that.
Is that the same note as [Baekhyun's high note in] 'Jopping'? I feel like that might be the same note...
OH, HE WENT A HALF STEP UP Y'ALLL!!!
Cuz...
*'Jopping' high note*
*'100' high note*
YOOOO~!!!
BAEKHYUN GOT RAAAANGE!!!
We're gonna move on and zoom Sean now.
Yo, that was-- that was like a perfect--
wait, is the word 'summation'?
Combination... of just... SM.
S: Yeah, I mean, it's...
I-- I feel like this is very much a song within, sort of, SuperM's...
To the extent that SuperM have established a style -- which is, y'know,
not all that much with just one mini album --
this seems very much like them. (U: Yeah.) Like, it has
some very NCT production elements,
it has (U: *nct noises*) sort of big either orchestra or quasi-orchestral sounds in there.
I don't think-- it doesn't sound as directly orchestral, but has some of those sort of big,
chorus sounds that resemble orchestra a bit.
U: Grand.
S: Grand. Yeah, I talked a bit about the sort of-- the many parts of a bridge being a fairly SM boy group thing.
U: Oh, like the melodic section vs. the dance break?
S: Yeah, there's the melodic section and then it has a dance break,
and then it diverts again to do-- for Mark and Taeyong to rap some more.
I mean, probably the most extreme example that comes to mind is [NCT 127's] 'Cherry Bomb.'
Where it's like, there's the sung bit, and then it
switches to Mark's-- uh, Mark's rap, and then it switches to a dance break.
Um... and granted, like, that 'Cherry Bomb' is also pushing pretty hard on it even being pop song form
so much as just a form where a thing keeps coming back as a refrain, so maybe--
it may be unfair to even call that a bridge. But also, like, Exo's 'Monster,' like,
has the sung bit, really sounds like it's about to hit the 3rd chorus,
and then breaks into another rap. (U: Right.) So, like, this... this seems like a very, sort of, SM thing to do.
To just keep developing the bridge into a really large section with multiple sub-sections and...
Yeah, I mean, it's also--
it's nice to see just, sort of, showing off the power of, like, bringing together a super group of their best
from multiple groups, like, Baekhyun is the high notes boy.
Um...
I liked-- (U: Agreed.) I'm pretty sure-- unless my sense of pitch glitched out,
um, I think-- I think he went up to a G this time? U: Yes. Half step up.
S: Yeah, so I am-- I have--
now I'm hoping that that can just become a thing, where, like, every SuperM MV he goes a little bit higher.
U: Until he defies the human law of range.
Something new that happened in this song was the amount of times that
we relied on the rhythmic flow and the vocals to line up with the beats in the instrumental -- like, complete unison.
Right, so like right before we go into the chorus, the ~DAT DAT DAT~
or something like that. Like, we go into, like, a triplet, and
everything disappears except for that percussion sample and except for that voice doing the exact same things.
S: Oh, okay! (U: Right?) I didn't notice that. U: I feel like that's a new motif that I haven't heard much in SM songs.
S: Okay. U: And that also happened when we transitioned to the 2nd verse, um, with Kai's rap.
And it's-- I think, also, there's a part where Mark did it too, but that's-- that's--
it's so satisfying whenever we-- y'know, we go from this very grand production
to something just so... spot on and specific and emphasized (S: Yeah.) and... euhh!!
It creates such nice contrast. (S: Yeah.) And then the 2nd thing that came to mind was,
I'm so used to SM group songs having completely different 2nd verse from the 1st
so it was really interesting to hear this, um, the main...
Would you say it's an affected guitar or a synth that sounds like a guitar?
S: Um... (U: *clarifying* the bass line.) Yeah, some sort of distorted synth.
U: Right, so 1) Yeah, that sound-- the sound of the bass was great.
But also, we had it looped throughout the track a lot more than I'm used to,
because it was in the 1st verse, and then repeated into the chorus, and then repeated into the 2nd verse.
S: Okay. U: So, we didn't have too much change from that repeating throughout,
which, I almost wish that there was more of a change. I think sometimes they did use a different effect on it
so it sounded more muffled, so it's a little bit more smooth and less textured at times,
but I kind of wish we had more variation with that, that's like-- (S: That's fair.) that's my only critique.
S: That's fair. I felt like they'd done
a good job sort of mixing up in the verses the singing and the rapping.
U: Mm, mhmm~
S: Like, this was something-- like my one-- I like 'Joppping' a lot.
But like my one big complaint with 'Jopping' is that the 1st verse is twice as long as it should be.
Like, I get kind of bored halfway through the 1st verse of 'Jopping,'
um, whereas I feel like this kept it tighter and also, like, switching between rapping and singing
so that each one stayed fresh, and neither one started to feel like
it was too much of the same sort of sound.
U: Yeah, that makes sense. S: So I really-- I liked how they-- how they paced that out
while still keeping-- like, without losing--
giving-- giving them really good moments for rapping and singing. Like, it wasn't like they
took out, um, showing off the members.
U: Right. I'm-- this is SUCH a solid song, and we're looking forward to all of SuperM's releases (S: Yep!) in the future.
This-- the end of 2020 is going to be insaaaaaaaane~
S; Yeah. Yeah, another one in, what, a few weeks? And then proper comeback, full album.
U: Along with so many other artists too.
They're doing-- several people are doing like single, single, and then full album.
AAaahh!!
It's going to be crazy for us multi-stans.
Ahh!!
S: Yeah. U: But yeah, okay! Well, we'll see you guys then! Thanks so much for watching.
Um, we actually-- if you're a hardcore fan of our channel, we are going to have some merch coming out in a few months.
But if you haven't filled out our survey already, I'll put that in the description so we can determine final prices.
The more people interested, the cheaper they're gonna be... I just want to make things as cheap as possible.
Um, so yeah! If you haven't filled out the survey already, please do.
And... yeah!
We'll have a lot of cool things coming your way. Bye guyssss!! S: Bye~