Melissa: This is stressful. I'm stressed. James: That's cool.
Umu: This is called 'Side Effects' and the lyrics explore the side effects of growing up: confusion, anxiety, fear, etc.,
and during the chorus you can hear an audio clip listing those side effects.
Each verse talks about the different challenges Stray Kids face
as they mature. Things they thought would always stay the same are changing and they're being influenced by the people and situations.
This song is a realization of what it means to become an adult. It also expresses grief for the loss of youth.
It is composed by TAK, 1 Take and once again, 3racha.
Fiona: Sriracha?
Cloud: This is already kind of reminding me of one of the 20th century pieces we've listened to in music history. Henry: Stop!
You know, like the 9/11, where they're missing, and they're just listing the names of the people in the background? Henry: Oh.
Cloud: Well, if they're listing anxieties, I'm wondering if it'll be kinda similar to that Henry: We'll see. We'll see if this is more like
kitschy 21st century classical music style or K-pop.
Cloud: Or K-pop. Henry: Three, two, one.
Aaron: Oh, that's cool. The the audio starts in this ear and then it's like ba-ba-ba-ba-ba.
Nick: It kind of follows the bus.
Stephen: Oh, you gotta love how they drop them off in the middle of
nowhere. And they're all excited but they're in the middle of nowhere? Not anymore.
Seji: Can we just talk about this Hans Zimmer opening right now? Stephen: Yeah.
James: Ooh. Melissa: Whoa, this is like Bach chorale vibes.
Don't tell any organists I said that.
That affect on his voice is really cool.
Isaac: They like sitting a lot lower.
Kevin: Man, Stray Kids is going pretty intense.
Isaac: Woo. Kevin: They're goin' really hard.
Isaac: (singing)
James: This is so much darker.
Melissa: Augh!!
Melissa: This is stressful. I'm stressed. James: That's cool.
Henry: Buh-buh-buh-buh-buh...Yeah, it switched from a duple to triple feel. Micro beats.
As in, the small beats.
James: Ooh.
Crunchy chords, crunchy chords. Melissa: Yeah.
Kevin: And also, obviously, there's the triplet, switching with the straight beats.
Stray beats, ha ha ha.
Nick: This is so odd.
Aaron: It's like techno music. Nick: Yeah.
Nick: It's so different than most pop music that I hear.
This is still pop music, right?
Umu: Yeah. Aaron: I think so. Nick: All right.
Fiona: Whoa! Daniel: His voice is so low.
Melissa: The buh-buh, buh-buh, buh-buh--That sounds like a heartbeat.
James: It's very jarring; the baseline is in triplets, but they're singing, er, rapping in duple.
Henry: Ooh!
Ooh, ooh, ooh, that was really interesting! They completely took threw away
that four four flow for like, let's lead into a hard drop. That was awesome.
That was very interesting.
Kevin: Tasteful trap.
Fiona: The rhythmic
intensity is growing and it kind of sounds like treble's happening.
Daniel: I mean, you hear an augmentation of the bass line, right?
It's like now the values are doubled if not tripled. Fiona: Wow. Daniel: And then the drop.
Stephen: Oh, dude I remember what I was gonna say. That guy's voice is so deep.
Sorry, I just...Wow!
It's not even in the morning when they shot this, either.
Henry: The rising--they've got a good sense of
climactic contour.
Kevin: Oh, you just heard that? It's the third time. Isaac: No, I've been listening to everything else, so... Kevin: Oh, it's the third time it's happened.
Fiona: Hella teen angst.
Daniel: Yeah. Fiona: That's all I have to say. Daniel: They're angsty about losing their teen angst, you know? Fiona: Oh, true!
Seiji: Is this going for a Quentin- Stephen: It's still going, dude.
Seiji: Terantino vibe? Stephen: Come, what's the prob... Seiji: It looked pretty over, man.
Stephen: Maybe you should just leave. Seiji: All right, all right, I'll go.
Stephen: No, I'm just kidding. Stay!
Aaron: there's more Nick: nice!
Aaron: she's underneath a bridge
wait, is that a girl?
Daniel: That's a woman?
That's a woman? (Umu in background: *dying* no!) No?
Kevin: there's always a universe
Kevin: Every K-pop group is its own cinematic universe. Isaac: Yeah.
Isaac: Maybe they're gonna join forces
one day, all of 'em?
Henry: What? Why? Did you see some kind of symbolism to a lock or a key earlier?
Umu: The album is called...I should have included this in my script! The album this is from is called 'Clé', which means key in French.
Daniel: Oh. Cloud: La clé.
Daniel: So, there was this one thing I wanted to point out in this song
I liked in the pre-chorus, where I said it goes from duple to triple and then they did,
I'll say, like a
a pair of two's within the triple rhythm. I'll explain: So they went from (singing)...
That's just a basic, simple duple rhythm. And then, a while after...sometimes they switched it up to some syncopation. They switched into a (singing),
kind of like it's the same tempo, Cloud: Yeah, it's still in four, but then there was triplet, triplet, triplet. Henry: But then I made it into, yeah, triplets.
So what is that? Clou:? It's a three? Henry: Compound duple?
And then they did the, uh, they accented every other beat. The lyrics they did were like, I don't know the words, but (singing)
and the bass flow was just going triplet, triplet, triplet, so you hear that
two over three kind of thing. Umu: yeah Henry: Brahms does this like crazy. Go listen to some Brahms Piano. I wish I could quote something like a
Umu: Do you want to play something? Henry: No, I can not.
Umu: Um, no thanks. Henry: But it creates a lot of interest.
Fiona: That was futuristic in sound
and in video, and it stressed me out, and it was like
apocalyptic slash scary movie. Daniel: Yeah, I think a lot of the like, if you can call it violence - you know, like the violent movement -
Fiona: The "Ha!" Daniel: Yeah, I think a lot of that, it's very external, right? Fiona: Um-hmm. Daniel: You see them hitting each other, throwing each other,
They're like, ugh! And you're like, oh, my God, I don't want to be here! But I think it also...cuz if you're going off of the bildungsroman, like, them
growing up and then also mourning the loss of their youth, it feels like this external
demonstration of their frustration is actually one of kind of an interior one. But I think that was
notable in their use
between both
the major and the minor lament bass.
So, they first introduced it in minor, which is, that's what it's originally for, and then they switched it to major.
The visuals also accommodate in a way where you see more light and bright
kinds of
displays.
Umu: It's like it's a... Aaron: I liked the contrast.
I liked the contrast between
the heavy bass and then there are moments of relief in that, and I think that went along well with the story. Nick: I mean,
yeah, there's so much stuff going on in the song, too. I almost forgot,
my favorite part was at the very beginning, where the guy starts singing and it's really low,
Aaron: Yeah. Nick: but then they've changed his voice somehow.
I don't know,
maybe they added a square wave or a sawtooth wave or something to it
at just the exact same pitch as in the same octave.
It's so nice.
James: This one, you know it's...they're talking about
coming to terms with being an adult and what that means, and realizing that the world isn't perfect,
and the side effects of it all. We're sort of going through that phase now, where
you know, you come to a point in your life where you decide what kind of person you want to be.
You know, like what you think you should stand for in life, and you know, what your goals are, what your aspirations are.
It's a very like anxious and stressful time because you're having to figure that out on your own, and you know,
you have people close to you that are influencing you but you don't really know what to do.
I think they reflect that a lot
in the music. It is really deep. I really appreciate the the messaging and the imagery they're sending to their fans.
Melissa: I think they do do a good job of showing what it's like when your identity crisis is truly a crisis.
Umu: *lyrics* MY HEAD HURTS! Melissa: Yeah. James: Yeah, literally.
Melissa: I mean, big mood sometimes, that was like, I felt stressed listening to this song but James: Um-hmm.
Melissa: especially the way they had like the movie music-type tropes, like if you watch
Avengers or something
it'll be always like,
with the low strings and minor chords and then they add a beat when it's like, I don't know,
they're chasing someone. I don't know. James: And I think it's really smart,
the way they market their music to their fan base, because the imagery they use, it's like,
Stray Kids, kind of like the everyday people in society, and they're wearing masks,
they're going to protests, it's like this underground sort of feel. And I think that they're trying, you know, a lot of people
will put on those masks and go to those protests and whatnot, and be a part of that underground culture because,they feel
disenfranchised, and I feel like they're speaking to those people, and those people are the fans and they're like,
we're speaking to you, we're giving you a voice. Like, you're not alone sort of thing.
That's sort of what I feel like they're getting at. I don't know their fan base, obviously.
I don't, I've only listened to these two songs, but it feels like they're giving a voice to the young, confused, and disenfranchied.
Which is amazing. Like, go them. That's awesome.
Aaron: Wait, did you say Straight People?
Umu: Stray Kids.
Nick: That's the band name, right? Stray Kids. Straight people. Hottest new K-pop group!