Zenless Zone Zero - Original Me // Reaction & Analysis

Added: 2026-06-04

[00:00:00]Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another Zen the Zone Zero reaction.

[00:00:02]Today we have original me as requested by Authie in the comments of the last video and a lot of people wanted me to get to this one, but also 60s to8s 2 said that I should listen to the acoustic version because it would be easier for John to understand. My name's not John. I know that it's a joke, but I'm not John Zenless either. I am John Reactor Boy. My name is Rob, if you've ever been wondering. But either way, I suppose I'm going to listen to this song. Without further ado, let's go.

[00:00:33]Okay, great start.

[00:00:40]Oo, I love that bass.

[00:00:56]Love that organ sound. That's so nice.

[00:00:59]It's so clean.

[00:01:11]Exactly the buildup I'm expecting.

[00:01:18]Oh.

[00:01:28]>> Oh, this is fun.

[00:01:33]Oh, a little synth in there.

[00:01:39]It's so crispy.

[00:01:49]>> Ooh. Okay. I was going to say it's a very trebleheavy mix, but there's a little bit of bass.

[00:02:02]Oh man.

[00:02:06]This is fun. This is really fun.

[00:02:18]>> I love the rhythmic break up there.

[00:02:34]Still love that.

[00:02:39]>> Also like the guitar parts like right before the chorus especially It's just it's so fun. It's It really is. Why do I keep Why do I keep landing in like really fun songs? You guys are really good at picking songs.

[00:03:32]I loves me a good delayed hit.

[00:03:39]I love the the groundwork of funk on this.

[00:03:55]Oh god, it's so good.

[00:04:04]A little bit of finger style stuff in there.

[00:04:10]That's That's super creative. Like I keep saying things are fun because they are, but there there's certain levels of fun that each different song hits. Like Dami Dami on screen right now that hits a different level of fun from this one, but it's still really fun in its own right. And for this one, I think it's the funk backing and just like the creativity of what they're doing, what they're going for with especially the uh the rhythmic stuff, like having the uh the guitar in there. Those like it feels like somebody's actually like playing that in there and it's not just like samples, which happens a lot. There's more humanized features to it, and it feels so good. This one's just really fun. To be honest with you, I think that this is not necessarily the most creative song I've heard out of Zen List. There are so many super creative songs that is Endless, but this one has such a [ __ ] vibe energy to it. Well above some other songs and other genres that they've touched on. There are some great ones that I still listen to on a regular basis. Like Tiny Giant is still part of my like work playlist. I cannot stop listening to that little [ __ ] I don't know what it is. It's just really fun to listen to. Same thing with Dami Dami. Honestly, I go back to that one pretty regularly. It's just really fun what they pull out in this game and who they hire to produce these songs is [ __ ] peak every single time. It's kind of insane, especially given that this song is fairly basic on how it's made, how it's constructed. The chords are not complex and they don't do much that's like super unique or anything, but it's the application that makes the song. And that's why this song feels so fun. It's simple enough to get into on a super bass level, but it does so much with its expansion of the technique that it's utilizing in the rhythm section especially and having these other sounds and textures as a part of the song that make it feel so much more fun. And honestly, it sounds a lot more complex than it actually is. So, the core of this one is uh D minor, E minor, A minor, and I believe that A minor is the key we're in. I also believe that they are all seventh. So, it'd be more like and that's just it adds that extra little hang. I talk about it a lot. I love sevenths. They're so pretty and it just feels really nice. And then we do also have a C in here at one point, which makes sense given that it's the A minor. We would have a C in there.

[00:06:31]They're within the same key, of course, but also they play off each other very well. So, it's a good extra to throw in there. We also have a G and an F. We kind of go F G C I believe is for one of the uh like bridge portions like as it gets into the pre chorus before we hit the chorus. That's what we do in order to break things up. And we also I believe go like D E before we like do that D build, which is the E. We're building on that E. And what I love about that, by the way, I know I'm going really fast with this. Sorry. Feel free to pause and go back. I'm really loving this one. But what I do love is we get this full and it just builds up on that, but not every single time and not exclusively. I believe for at least one of them, probably all of them, they're utilizing the D diminish in order to bring it up instead of just following two E all the way to the top. We're going and it adds an extra little, you know, kind of a tension in there and it makes it feel that much more mysterious having that in there. And it feels so neat on top of everything else. I just really love cuz we could just, you know, as I mentioned, but the the building into that D diminished feels so much more spooky in a way. Like not necessarily in the scary way, just a hey, we have some information that we're leaving out. It adds some tension, like I said, but also it's beautiful. And those chords just feel like a full story, but also with just a little bit of information left out, like you're missing one page out of the book. And I love that. That's the energy they bring to basically this whole song. I love that all the way through, the evolution of everything.

[00:08:14]And of course, the guitar, as I mentioned, really helping out with that.

[00:08:17]Having things in there like those uh finger style plucks really making this song feel more alive and just more human in general. It might not be. It might just be samples, honestly. But I wouldn't be surprised if those were played in there. But given how heavily produced the song is, I'm assuming that it was probably just samples. Either way though, I love that they decided to include that there because it makes the whole song feel a little bit more personal. It really makes the song break away from that potential of just becoming another overly produced pop song. And that's the sort of qualities that I love when producers add to the music because you could have all these other things going on there, the beat and everything. That's all fine and good. Sounds great, but it's those little details that make this song flourish in a way that could have completely been missed had you had another producer tackling it. You know, it's just the quality of the person making it that makes it feel that much more impressive. And then the song's vocals, again, everything felt very crispy and that was very well balanced around the voice. I think they did a fantastic job of making her feel like she was a part of the song instead of just slapping her vocals on the top of it cuz that happens a lot too. It's really not something that's wrong when that happens, but it feels so much better when the song is mixed to include the voice as a part of that discussion instead of mixing like the whole song and then putting the vocals on top of it, which is a thing a lot of producers do. And again, while not necessarily wrong, you miss out on that quality of the voice feeling like a part of the song, this song does feel very thin as a result of that because they're balancing that female vocal with the music and it's going to have a little bit more treble in there. That's where the female voice tends to land. That's where my voice tends to land a lot of the time, especially when you're singing high.

[00:10:01]That's where we all end up. but having the song balanced as a whole in that range in order to make some room for the voice to be a part of it instead of just being in it. And again, that's another quality of the song that makes it feel that much more organic despite it being very produced and very much something that would come out of any DJ, producer, etc. There's qualities to the process that make it feel that much more alive and present and that that sits well in the ears. You know, a lot of people would probably listen to this and go, "Oh, it's just a normal pop song. It's fine. But that's because any good producer would be doing this. And it's happened a few times on the Zenless stuff. They don't tend to have bad post-production by any means. But there's also been quite a few times that haven't had that level of polish to it or that level of attention paid to specifics in the voice or some other lead instrument that feels like it's just left out of the conversation and thrown in almost as an afterthought. So, this song has beautiful body to it. I love the flow of it. I love that the textures lead you into each section individually and it doesn't just leave you with, oh, it's another pop song. It leaves you with an actual experience to hear it. Having little things like that buildup into it makes it feel so much more like a present quality to this song that I just cannot get over. And having that little bit of story left out makes it feel that much more believable as a story instead of just another song. But I do think that's all John Zenless has for you today. So, thank you all so very much for watching. If you enjoyed this video and you want me to get to something else, by all means, drop in the comments below and I will do my best as always to get to those. Or if you don't want to do any of that, maybe just want to follow me and support me for more stuff coming in the future. You know how to do all that. And I'll see all of you in the next video. Goodbye.