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In part one I'd charted "a frequent version of verse-chorus form" as follows, saying that this was the form of "Volume Up":
( chart )
It actually starts with an introduction, where we get the muted sax sample, and what I was calling the "break" was just the second half of the middle eight. Teasing out the parts:
0:00 Intro: muted, moody sax, sets the serious tone that the song will subsequently embellish, lampoon, demolish, reassert, etc., meanwhile, underneath, a keyboard suggests a dance and a counterrhythm → 0:16 1st part of verse: HyunA lays out the predicament but also ends each line with a flourish of staccato syllables, "naw-aw aw-aw-aw, naw-aw aw-aw-aw," "heh-eh eh-eh-eh, wah-ah ah-ah-ah" that, while not being out-and-out parody, are amusing enough to detach HyunA from the anguish that the music is pretending to establish (I'm at a loss to convey how good this is/she is: I imagine her singing each syllable with a vertically oval open mouth while making her eyes as round as her mouth, in faux innocence [EDIT: though perhaps JiYoon or GaYoon is the syllable singer; see Update 2 below]); reading this socially, I'd say that the operatic syllables signal the song's ambitiousness but that the actual sound comes from comic opera, so creates a sense of incipient hilarity → 0:29 2nd part of verse: GaYoon does a couple of vocal descents, not too heavily but with the pang and heat that reminds us there is some angsty young-and-in-unhappy-love business here; back in the mix, piano continues hopping along, readying us for the dance → 0:45 prechorus: GaYoon carries over from the previous part with a long note, something between a wail and a canopy, with HyunA returning, down at ground level, now as a rapper, pushy and tough and teasing and beneficently benign all at once, the music pounding and rising in a slate-cleaning crescendo, "everybody, TIME TO ROCK" → 0:59 chorus: JiYoon grabs the banner as the pounding boshbeat rides us across the battlefield; this doesn't feel like a cathartic chorus so much as the song launching itself forward, JiYoon amplifying the emotion and jabbing us with some savage "eh-eh eh-ehs" of her own → 1:15 second part of chorus: and like GaYoon before her, JiYoon launches herself atop the proceedings and splashes down on the moody sax that mellows us out a little, while a singer — I'm not sure who — pulls some syllabic "oh oh oh-oh ohs" off the grill and starts juggling them to remind us of opera and joy and open-mouthed emotion.
( Second verse more or less same as the first )
Which brings us to → 2:43 middle eight: for four bars we've got JiHyun delicately wandering parks and fields, the melody doing the venture-to-distant-chords-and-return thing that I tried to understand back in college but never did; rest of 4minute do something that's probably formal or choral or ???? enough to be called "polyphony"; next four bars are the same except with the sax taking JiHyun's place and being more diffuse and less appealing → ( stuff about lyrics )
( Update: All hail JiYoon )
( Song form and Hot Issue )
( chart )
It actually starts with an introduction, where we get the muted sax sample, and what I was calling the "break" was just the second half of the middle eight. Teasing out the parts:
0:00 Intro: muted, moody sax, sets the serious tone that the song will subsequently embellish, lampoon, demolish, reassert, etc., meanwhile, underneath, a keyboard suggests a dance and a counterrhythm → 0:16 1st part of verse: HyunA lays out the predicament but also ends each line with a flourish of staccato syllables, "naw-aw aw-aw-aw, naw-aw aw-aw-aw," "heh-eh eh-eh-eh, wah-ah ah-ah-ah" that, while not being out-and-out parody, are amusing enough to detach HyunA from the anguish that the music is pretending to establish (I'm at a loss to convey how good this is/she is: I imagine her singing each syllable with a vertically oval open mouth while making her eyes as round as her mouth, in faux innocence [EDIT: though perhaps JiYoon or GaYoon is the syllable singer; see Update 2 below]); reading this socially, I'd say that the operatic syllables signal the song's ambitiousness but that the actual sound comes from comic opera, so creates a sense of incipient hilarity → 0:29 2nd part of verse: GaYoon does a couple of vocal descents, not too heavily but with the pang and heat that reminds us there is some angsty young-and-in-unhappy-love business here; back in the mix, piano continues hopping along, readying us for the dance → 0:45 prechorus: GaYoon carries over from the previous part with a long note, something between a wail and a canopy, with HyunA returning, down at ground level, now as a rapper, pushy and tough and teasing and beneficently benign all at once, the music pounding and rising in a slate-cleaning crescendo, "everybody, TIME TO ROCK" → 0:59 chorus: JiYoon grabs the banner as the pounding boshbeat rides us across the battlefield; this doesn't feel like a cathartic chorus so much as the song launching itself forward, JiYoon amplifying the emotion and jabbing us with some savage "eh-eh eh-ehs" of her own → 1:15 second part of chorus: and like GaYoon before her, JiYoon launches herself atop the proceedings and splashes down on the moody sax that mellows us out a little, while a singer — I'm not sure who — pulls some syllabic "oh oh oh-oh ohs" off the grill and starts juggling them to remind us of opera and joy and open-mouthed emotion.
( Second verse more or less same as the first )
Which brings us to → 2:43 middle eight: for four bars we've got JiHyun delicately wandering parks and fields, the melody doing the venture-to-distant-chords-and-return thing that I tried to understand back in college but never did; rest of 4minute do something that's probably formal or choral or ???? enough to be called "polyphony"; next four bars are the same except with the sax taking JiHyun's place and being more diffuse and less appealing → ( stuff about lyrics )
( Update: All hail JiYoon )
( Song form and Hot Issue )
