Isaac: What the?!...
Umu: So now you're reacting to the five member girl group Red Velvet. First you'll react to their b-side song 'Bad Dracula', released on their third mini-album
'Russian Roulette', which was released in September 2016. Henry: This album cover is awesome.
Umu: 'Bad Dracula' is an upbeat, synth-heavy song about a girl who isn't sure what she's supposed to be. As a vampire,
she's not scary enough or cold enough. She's a bad Dracula who just wants to party and dance.
Jarod: I mean, who could blame her? Umu: Yeah, it is composed by...
Umu: Courtney Woolsey and Choi Suk Jin.
Peyton: So we had stupid Cupid, now we have 'Bad Dracula'. Umu: Yeah.
Peyton: Naughty Santa Claus?
Charlotte: Okay!
Stephen: Ooh!
Seiji: Wow.
Collin: Whoa! Holy sh*t!
Kevin: Okay, I like the percussion section. It's a whole smorgasbord of poppy sounds.
Collin: It's slapping me in the face, dude, every beat!
Holy sh*t!
Jarod: Oh, that's cool.
Stephen: That's nice. It's building tension.
Seiji: Whoa! Stephen:That's cool! Seiji: Whoa!
Stephen: That's very nice.
Elizabeth: It sounds like video game music. Henry: Oh, why'd you go major? You should have leaned into the...
Elizabeth: Because she just wants to dance and have fun, okay?
Henry: Yeah, but I really was into the...you can still have that and still have the seven sharp nine vibe,
which is what was going on before. Elizabeth: No, you can't. That's what the song is trying to prove, Henry.
Peyton: Yeah, and then they get really like Charlotte: Oh, my God. Peyton: dirty with the bari-sax
Charlotte: This is too many colors. My brain is frying. Peyton: It's almost like 50s mowtown
Fiona: Okay, K-pop is so like, caffeinated compared to other American pop music, I think.
So this one's like four Redbulls.
Henry: That's so cool. The mid cymbal hit editing, that's so cool. Whoever mixed this is...he deserves an award.
Charlotte: Oh, my God!
Collin: Man, they're used to switching everything all the time.
Elizabeth: It really does sound like video game music in the back though, cuz like... Henry: It sounds like a racing game. Elizabeth: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's really fast paced,
Henry: It's like Rainbow Road, or something. Elizabeth: and then you have the 8-bit going in 16th notes behind, but big leaps.
James: Bridge. I'm ready. Using the material from the beginning.
Melissa: (singing)
James: Ooh.
Ooh.
Seiji: This is really well done. Stephen: What's that? Seiji: It's really well done. Stephen: Yeah, I like it.
Melissa: Nice! Stephen: Nice vocal slide. Good place for that.
Isaac: At the end, they start riffing. Kevin: Uh-huh. Isaac: It's hilarious. Kevin: And sliding their notes.
Isaac: (singing) Kevin: Oh, my God!
Kevin: These b-sides. Where are they coming from?
Isaac: Where are they coming from? Kevin: They're so good!
Isaac: Goodness gracious!
Isaac: (singing)
Isaac: Ah...oh!
Kevin: Oh! Well, you know, that 's how you do it. Isaac: It's like when you lose a video game and then they're just like, game over, please insert 25 cents to continue. Kevin: Uh-huh, yeah, there you go.
Kevin: I really like it when they start a section by speaking and then you hear these intervals,
but they're clearly not pitched, because they're "da da da da da da da", and as the verse...as the line goes on,
they suddenly just end up in pitch. Isaac: Like very, very, perky. Perky sounds, just pew, pew!
Shooting all over, so it's just like, I don't know, it's like your brain is flaring up with dopamine: "Oh, this is fun!"
So it's like we're talking about how everything's flaring up, like, wow! This is why casinos are so amazingly good at it.
They close you up in a building with flashing lights everywhere,
so it's like, there's that idea of like,
bubbly, and the flashing lights, the loud noise, the tinkering sounds that they go for. It's very exhilarating,
cuz you're just on this ride. It's almost like an addiction.
I feel like K-pop ministries are very smart with playing the addictive side, Kevin: Uh-huh. Isaac: because the way that casinos, um,
they get your attention is when you play, it flashes.
It's like you could keep going, and then it just kind of grabs your attention, so at the very end when it just simmers down, now you want more.
Peyton: I did know you had synesthesia. Charlotte: We've talked about this literally, before, on this camera. Umu: Yeah.
Charlotte: Do you know me?
Umu: What colors did you see? Peyton: Too f*ckin' many! It's different for everybody,
but for me,
it's just like,
depending on what I'm hearing will be different shades that'll just pop up in my vision, and they're just everywhere. And on that song,
it was like,
kaleidoscope, and that just hurt. That hurt, and was changing too fast, it was too much. It was a lot of movement.
It was like, not enjoyable, at all, whatsoever. That fried my brain.
Stephen: So, one thing that was really cool was the fact that in the beginning, you thought the quarter note was here, and how you're feeling
the beat, so if this was playing in a club,
everybody would like, you know, be bobbing their heads like this. And then for the verses, it just like goes into halftime, where it's like, mmm,
that was a nice like little drop!
Also, I loved the triplet figures like ba, boo boo boo boo, bah. That was really, really cool because it was unexpected
and I didn't think they were gonna do that,
but they did it, and then, bam, goes back into cut time, with that fast two and four kind of feel
to build intensity. So that was really cool. Seiji: Yeah, I really liked all the textures going on.
Obviously, the keyboards and the synths. Stephen: Dude, the synths were sick.
Seiji: Yeah I kind of liked that. Stephen: I really liked the... Seiji: The oscillating type of Stephen: Yeah! Seiji: sound onto it.
Seiji: That was really cool. The intro I thought was really, a really cool way to set it up, with the tenor.
Stephen: I didn't know what to expect with the tenor. Seiji: Yeah, what's goin' on? What's this gonna be? Stephen: Yeah.
Stehen: It's a good example of subverting the listener's
expectations, Seiji: Right. Stephen: where you think it's gonna go one direction and then they surprise and go a different direction,
but you like the direction they go better than what you were expecting. Seiji: And that's also part of the triplets thing.
Stephen: Yep. Seiji: It breaks it up, and it also, it kind of keeps you on the edge of your seat, and it kind of
disorients you in a way. Stephen: Definitely, definitely.
James: Always with Red Velvet,
there's there's this like gospel R&B, the way they run some of their things, and some of the
specific scale patterns they use, it's like literally right out of the book,
which I actually kind of enjoy, because they like use it in a newer way or a different way..
Melissa: But you know what it reminds me of though? James: What? Melissa: Those tempo changes where it went into the triplets and then the tempo suddenly got slower, it reminded me
Bohemian Rhapsody, where there's sudden drop of tempo and complete change of rhythm.
James: So it occurred to me that like a lot of these songs are using, I mean, it's like, it's modal mixture,
but it's the specific use of
dominant material, meaning material that sounds like it's leading up to something, and that material
is leading you to believe that the thing that we're going to is in minor, but then, bam! As soon as we get there,
it's major. I just hear it everywhere in these songs, but I actually kind of appreciate it because it's not something that
American pop would kind of like venture into. I'm making a broader K-pop
statement, like I appreciate how...I feel like these are the statements that we all started out saying when we came on the channel,
like a lot of us hearing this music that we necessarily wouldn't have heard before.
I just appreciate how willing these artists are to take
conventions from America and roll with them, but incorporate them and use
theoretical choices that American music would not use, like at all.
I just, I really appreciate a lot of the weird... like we're always able to comment on like weird harmonic things
that isn't necessarily so blatant in most American pop music, or even there, period, so I just, I appreciate that
Umu: So, 'Lucky Girl' was released on the same exact album, it was the 'Russian Roulette' album,
and this is a retro style dance pop, talking about a woman who is confident in herself and tells a boy she likes, who acts
like he doesn't know anything, that she's his lucky girl.
Composed by Hayley Aitken and Ollipop
Charlotte: Yeah, let me go tell my boyfriend, "Hey, I'm your lucky girl". Peyton: Yeah, right? Charloitte: That'll go over real well.
He'll be like, "K".
Stephen: All right, here we go
Stephen: Yes! Seiji: Oh.
Seiji: Whoa!
Seiji: It's like that, uh, that tape recorder... Stephen: Nice shuffle feel. Seiji: Yeah.
Stephen: And that brass band, almost like New Orleans kind of second line groove. Seiji: Right, right.
James: Ooh. That was nice.
Isaac: What the?!! Kevin: What?!!
Isaac: Augh!!! Kevin: What?!!
Elizabeth: This is not where we started.
Henry: Whoa!! Elizabeth: That's new.
It's a different key altogether.
Seiji: I mean, the beat's the same.
Stephen: (singing) Seiji: The groove.
Stephen: The way you feel it, though, is different.
Kevin: Oh, minor. Wow, opposite of Picardy. Yeah, now it's major again. What are you, Beethoven? Minor major, minor major?
Isaac: What the heck was that? Sad trombone? Kevin: Wow, you go in between b-flat minor major to B minor major. It's half step apart.
That's kind of crazy. You're alternating back and forth, it's not just like Isaac: (singing) Kevin: in the final effort.
Jarod: I like this. I just like these...it feels good. Feels good. Collin: Feels good. Got a thumbs up.
James: What? And then this part. Melissa: Dissonance.
James: I think that's in a completely different key.
Stephen: Shooby doo! Shooby doo.
Doo-wop. We got doo-wop now. Seiji: Yeah. Stephen: Dude, that was funny. Seiji: That's a jazz reference.
James: See that's deceptive. That doesn't go where it's supposed to go.
Melissa: Really? James: Yeah. Melissa: I didn't even notice.
Stephen: Oh, yeah!
Techno, baby! Seiji: Oh, man.
Isaac: Let go! Kevin: It shows the angst. All this creepy key change it shows the angst.
Isaac: (singing)
And in the next second, it's terrifying... Kevin: Is this my favorite mini album ever? Possibly.
Collin: You hear it? Shooby doo-wop, Both: Shooby doo-wop. Jarod: Shooby doo...oh.
Isaac: Minor. Oh, oh, oh! We kept going
Kevin: Oh, there's flat 6. Isaac: Going through each member.
Dot!
Isaac: Wow! Kevin: (singing) Isaac: (singing)
Kevin: Boom boom boom boom
Kevin:(singing)
Kevin and Isaac: (singing)
Kevin: Anyway, it's not 'til the second time that we got to the weird creepy music box section that I realized the melody is actually
(singing)
Kevin: As a Mary, a Momoland fan, I have to reference 'Freeze' because it's a song that literally goes (singing)
Isaac: (singing) Kevin: That's the main hook.
I've always thought like man,
they just shouldn't incorporate circus music
into pop and make it like, actually work, cuz it doesn't. But then I hear this,
and it proves me wrong
Melissa: Can you add that to my playlist?
I love this song! I love how just like, you would get into like the groove, and then they'd be like, just kidding,
we're in a different key now, but only for like one second, and now we're back.
James: Mm-hmm. Melissa: But you thought....
I like that.
Henry: Modulations two half-steps away cool, and I appreciate the fact that they're willing to have a chorus be a half step higher than their verses.
That's tough to pull off and make something convincing of it. I just would never do it in that way
Like, I would never think to do it in that way.
Elizabeth: I mean, it's like very jarring in the way they do it here, like it the transition isn't necessarily
smooth. Henry: Or a transition. Elizabeth: Well, yeah. So I'm not sure the concept was like
crazy, I just, I think you're right, that I'd say of they'd had like a really solid pivot chord or even just
like a sequence kind of, that got you there...
Henry: I would have even appreciated them going from like...cuz the
verses were in b-flat,
if they'd had like a big ol'
F7 chord as like a thing, and then they went up to like a G-flat seven doubling as an F sharp, and then having the
B5 to B, Elizabeth: Yeah. Henry: like, sort of in that augmented way that you're talking about, having flat 6 become this augmented 6, it's like,
that would be cool,
and you could even keep the
carnival instruments up top.
If you had that down below, your ear would hear that it was going there,
but when they did it the first time, I was like... Elizabeth: Yeah, I saw that. Henry: It just it was just like,
ahh! God, now we're here. And there's times when that's cool, and there's times when it's just like, what happened? Like it feels like
your plane is falling apart midair.
Collin; Shooby doo-wop, shooby doo-wop. Jarod: Red Velvet hits a very special place, and you know what,
I think they might be like my favorite group, I think. Because they're just consistently entertaining. Consistently good.
Collin: I didn't think that was as good as their others.
Umu: So you like 'Bad Dracula' better? Collin: Yeah, I think it's way better.
Jarod: I mean I would agree there but it's like this still is fun to listen to.
Collin; Oh, well, yeah. Jarod: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Both: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah!
Jarod: I enjoyed it. There was that weird, circus-esque like (singing) kind of like, vibe that was...
Collin: It was shooby doo-wop, too. Jarod: There was the shooby doo-wop, there was that weird Umu: (singing sad trombone)
Jarod: Yeah, yeah, there was sad trombone. It did start to get a little repetitive, and I think that just goes to show
how powerful an extra 30 seconds can be, and how it can like make or break. Like how we were talking about with 'Bad Dracula',
how it ended at the perfect moment, and that hit at exactly three minutes.
But it's like, this three minutes and 30 seconds were just a little but, even though it's 30 seconds, it's still felt long.
It was entertaining. Was it as good as the rest of their stuff? Nah,
but I think, consistently, Red Velvet stuff that was not as good is still better than Collin: Yeah.
Jarod: what some other...yeah. Collin: Yeah, I would agree.
Jarod: So it's like, that's what I like about them, is like,
even in their not...it's because they set such a high bar for themselves, it's like you kind of hold them to it.
And it's good to have that bar.
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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