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koganbot
I think of Shinsadong Tiger tracks as catchy and spare, with some interesting musical countermotions but not overstuffed with them. 4minute's "Hot Issue" is a brilliant example (to be talked about in some later post), and is one of five or so tracks in the running for Frank's Favorite K-pop Track Ever. 4minute's new one, "Volume Up," feels like a radical departure: it's ambitious, it's full of stuff — stuff tumbling over other stuff — and it fucks radically with song form. Or at least it feels as if it's fucking with its form. I said to myself, "Shinsadong Tiger is fucking with us severely." And I sat down to diagram the thing, to figure out the game he was playing, and I went, "Hmmm, well some parts repeat, and if you call this the prechorus, and what comes after it the chorus, well…" And what I came up with was:
Verse → Chorus → Verse → Chorus → Middle Eight → Break → Chorus
Which is to say it's standard as fuck, doesn't screw with song structure at all. Except, I still think he's screwing with us. For one thing, the part I ended up calling the "prechorus" is a crescendo, and its effect when it first comes along is to make you think, or feel (since you don't put it into words),"OK, this cancels everything before it, makes that all prelude or preface or intro, and what comes after is the song proper; so here we go, we're starting with the verse." And what comes next sounds like a verse, rumbling along jaunty and energetic but not trying for a payoff — except it's the first section of what I've labeled "Chorus," above, in order to ram the song into verse-chorus format. Another peculiarity, which helped send my perception of form into confusion, is that several parts of the song end with a high-pitched wailing vocal that keeps going, soaring above and then spilling into the next part of the song. And what end up actually functioning as payoffs are recurring motifs (I'm calling them "motifs" rather than "riffs" or "hooks" because, as I said, the song feels ambitious — which doesn't mean it's not totally the opposite of grim; it doesn't carry a sign on it that says "funny," since it's not a joke song; but there's a deadpan playfulness, sending itself, without officially winking at us, over the top), for instance, a number of "oh oh oh oh ohs" and "eh eh eh eh ehs" declaimed by the group as if they were comic operetta singers out on parole, fanning out across the countryside (in the video, the women of 4minute are stationed in a medieval castle or cathedral, dressed in motley colors, as visual antigoths, I suppose; but when hearing the music I envision them traveling fields and hills and hamlets, serenading an uneasy populace and perplexing the local constabulary) and fanning out across the song as well, the variously cascading "ahs" and "ehs" and "ohs" recurring in different melodies in different sections. In addition, we've got a muted sax playing a moody, pensive line at song's start and then reappearing in the chorus but this time as the exuberant splash at the end of one of the spillover vocal wails I mentioned earlier.
(Sax at the start is the same as in "Mysterious Girl" by Romanian dance act Sunrise Inc.; I assume there's some third source for the sample, but, if so, I don't know what it is. Cube Entertainment says "Pump up the volume for 'SAX-Y' new sound!!" but I don't think the sax is really that big a deal, compared to the arc of syllables.)
To revert to my diagram, verse-chorus form is often actually something like this:
1st part of verse → 2nd part of verse → prechorus → chorus → [second part of chorus] → 1st part of verse → 2nd part of verse → prechorus → chorus → [second part of chorus] → middle eight → break → chorus [often repeated, sometimes with singer vamping while the chorus is taken care of by background singers or by her own vocals, multi-tracked].
There are verse-chorus formats that differ from this, and variants on this one where you start with the chorus or start with an intro or insert bridges and whatnot. I'm not much of a taxonomist here, since back when I wrote songs I rarely used verse-chorus. It was hard enough coming up with one good melody, much less five. But "Volume Up" sticks to what I just diagrammed, minus the vamping.
[Been trying to find time to finish this post for the last five days, finally decided, "Oh, hell, I'll just call this 'part one' and post it." More diagrams to come. In the meantime, I think I'm safer voting "Genius" than "Giraffe" since this is already up to a 9, and I always underrate Shinsadong Tiger tracks on early hearing, gave "Lovey-Dovey" only a 7 on the Jukebox, and last July I recommended to Edward that we run either "Bubble Pop!" or "Roly-Poly" but not both, wasn't even sure we should run either, believing maybe we should hold off for something better. For sure, this was before either of us realized how welcome Korean tracks would be on the Jukebox, but nonetheless for some reason those two very accessible songs took time to seep into me, ditto for "Trouble Maker" in December. And maybe I should relisten to that Exid track, which struck me as a major botch.]
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no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 05:36 pm (UTC)But I think this gets to the heart of Shinsadong Tiger vs Thomas Troelson, though. Like, I don't think Tiger's productions are spare at all, they are just clearly narrated. Like Johnny To's action sequences.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 05:40 pm (UTC)Have you heard the B2ST stuff? I kind of think "Fiction" is the obvious antecedent to "Volume Up," even though it is not bosh-trance and has no sax.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-02 09:23 pm (UTC)About B2ST, Imma pull out my Big Bang bias one more time and point out that Mystery (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WoG7bBrVsS4) is clearly an answer to Lies (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_QamplVE49M). And then B2ST/Shinsadong Tiger continued to release songs about this same (or a different but very similar) tempestuous relationship for years, before finally admitting it was all "Fiction" lol.
In my conspiracy-and-narrative-loving brain, I have a theory that Shinsadong Tiger got tired of all these "it's been months but I'm still hung up on her!" songs, and that's where the inspiration for Whoz that Girl (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cj1H0xKD2-I) came from: a song in which the breakup-ee retains some dignity. XD. (It's not that I believe it, exactly, just that it's fun to imagine.)
EDIT: And I like this theory particularly because EXID is Shinsadong Tiger's baby, so he can write whatever he likes for them.
this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-02 09:42 pm (UTC)But following maddielovekpop's observation that 4minute are always weather vanes for the kpop industry, the trend right now - for girl bands - is the "Alone" trend of being sexy and adult instead of euphoric and wound-up. So they did the production that way, with restraint, and even a sexy saxophone, despite the song assuming you'll be keyed up right away (it's even called "Volume Up"): and that's why it sounds that way.
I really really don't know much about music production, so this is all wild theorizing XD.
Re: this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-03 06:50 pm (UTC)Re: this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-03 09:37 pm (UTC)Re: this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-03 07:20 pm (UTC)Re: this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-03 10:46 pm (UTC)If there is a "sexy and relaxed" (or in 4minutes' case, sexy but still wound-up) trend going on now, is it because a) the groups are growing up with their (middle-school) audience, b) the groups are following up on the success of Miss A "Bad Girl Good Girl" and Brown Eyed Girls "Sixth Sense" etc, c) the censors are taking a break and allowing stuff through that would have been banned before, or d) a combination?
I think SNSD want to grow up too, but their fanbase might be mostly... young girls, actually, at this point. So they might be stuck.
Re: this just occurred to me
Date: 2012-05-03 08:32 pm (UTC)What for Katherine is six voices (incl. sax) vying for attention sounds to me like a clear division of labor: the sax is our maître d, decked out in tux (but little balls of bass are tugging at its feet), HyunA enters first as our warm-hearted hostess, the witty ohs and ehs and ahs spilling out of her as tasty offerings, GaYoon takes over, not loud yet but with need and heat in her voice, HyunA's back but this time as the crescendo, the hot rapper, assertive and demanding and bringing us to JiYoon, who's the stomp and the volume and the wail, her voice spilling over our returning sax like a fountain. Then (as we're gasping from having been drawn into the dance) SoHyun comes over in a pleasantly accommodating voice to start us over, dispense more morsels, asking, Is there anything we want at the moment?, with HyunA nearby interjecting ohs and ahs and ehs, though this time we're more attuned to the sassy little invitations and demands embedded within those syllables. And on as before, with JiHyun in the interlude to remind us of flowers and lace and a hint of emotional ache.
(I don't really know who's who in 4minute — that'll be my next project once I manage a passing grade in my current course, which is SNSD Advanced Name-To-Face Correlation — so I'm relying on the K-pop color code site to connect voice and name for me. Without having had a moniker for her, I did recognize JiYoon as the crucial voice in "Mirror Mirror," and GaYoon as the one whose boy-attracting role in the "Mirror Mirror" routine was a precursor to the HyunA spread-leg dance. If any of you have a better feel for each vocalist's previous roles in 4minute songs, you probably have a richer sense of what's happening in this one.)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 08:16 am (UTC)Haven't yet explored much of Brave Brothers' oeuvre; Wikip has him on the boards of a whole lot of recordings.
I do feel closer to the 4minute sensibility. I have no trouble now following the "narrative" of "Volume Up," but that's because I took the time to learn it. To quote Duncan J. Watts, everything is obvious* (*once you know the answer). "Mirror Mirror" sounds similarly audacious, now that I return to it. And I just sat and analyzed "One & One," Shinsadong Tiger's first track for T-ara, and it doesn't even pretend to have a chorus.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 10:55 pm (UTC)I don't know that much about 4minute, apart from HyunA is an interesting person. I thought I had a handle on Kpop and Korean culture, and then I watched "Huh" and I was like... "huh", I guess not, lol.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-03 11:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-07-19 05:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 07:17 pm (UTC)Actually half of EXID have now quit the group. Commercially they did pretty decently for a rookie group, so they must just not have liked that life. LE is still a member though
no subject
Date: 2012-05-04 07:59 pm (UTC)I like LE's rapping, though how to use her could pose a problem. She's not naturally in your face, which made her forceful rap in "Whoz That Girl" seem forced. There's a potential, laid-back blissfulness in her voice — reminds me of CL's, even though CL doesn't lay back — but since LE's laid-back rather than bubbly, it's not going to be a bubblegum bliss.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-06 08:51 am (UTC)I thought her rapping in the song worked pretty well actually. Didn't read it as forceful, more like she's in a permanent slightly drunk wisecracking mode. I wonder what her demo version of Trouble Maker sounds like.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-08 05:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2021-04-21 06:01 am (UTC)Influence
Date: 2012-05-06 05:54 am (UTC)The saxophone
Date: 2013-10-04 02:55 pm (UTC)Re: The saxophone
Date: 2013-10-08 05:17 am (UTC)Re: The saxophone
Date: 2013-10-08 05:18 am (UTC)