SB19 - 'WAKAS' | Classical Singer FIRST TIME reaction & analysis

[00:00:00]Oh, it's so good. It is crazy.  Listen to me when I say it is crazy.

[00:00:10]Today we are back with SB19. I feel like it's been  a while. It is a new release by them called WAKAS.

[00:00:17]That means the end or ending. Quite a big name for  a song. I feel like it's a little bit foreboding, potentially sad. I am told it is a ballad. I  am certainly a sucker for SB19 ballads. If you don't know what I mean by that, then you can find  all my SB19 videos linked in the description. So, I'm very much looking forward to hearing  this one. There's no music video for it. So, we will be watching a fan-made lyric  video. It's colour-coded depending on who's singing at that moment. You'll  see what I mean. Was that the start?

[00:01:54]Oh, that is a lovely melodic shape from  Stell there. I'm so keen to continue. If you've seen my other videos, you'll know that  copyright is a real issue. I have to pause periodically to reduce the risk of my video  getting deleted and me receiving a strike.

[00:02:09]We know that SB19 love to bring in Stell a  little bit into their, well, their ballads, at least their slower songs, with that smooth  higher set chest voice of his. I want to just listen to the start of his bit again to, uh, as  a little bit of a tease for when we carry on.

[00:02:29]Yeah, lovely harmonic preparation  and resolution. All right. Well, in this pause break, let's go over a few  things. Let's start with the lyrics because we can see them very clearly on the screen.  Overall, they're a little bit subjective, at least in the sense that they could  be about many things. It could be a relationship. It could be a personal journey  or even a group journey. But the feeling, the sentiment, the message is very clear. And  of course, that's massively helped by the music.

[00:03:00]We start off with Ken's very airy entry. It  sounds quite fragmented the way he's singing.

[00:03:12]I mean, he has that type of voice anyway,  but he's singing with not much power, not much conviction. It sounds a little bit weak, of  course, on purpose. He even gets a croak in there.

[00:03:25]Again, I know that is sometimes how he sings, you know, before entering. Then Justin comes  in and his entry is quite a contrast. He sings mostly with a flat tone, so not using a lot of  vibrato, especially on the longer notes. But the real surprise to me was how, when he entered, he  almost immediately switches into his head voice.

[00:03:51]Then staying up there with a kind of chesty voice, but still quite a lot of air in the  sound. But just on this note we heard, he's progressing into a more chesty sound,  a fuller sound, a more powerful sound, more rhythmic. It's like the strength with  which they're singing is growing or they've been given strength that's gradually coming in.  So, of course, I'm wondering if Stell's section that we paused at will, you know, will that be  powerful? Will it be strong or will it be soft and delicate? Justin's section, interestingly, let's  listen to how it finishes. I think around here.

[00:04:30]So, he's come back down in range.  It's obviously much softer, airier, lighter. Perhaps the power has kind of  been reset going into Stell's verse.

[00:04:38]I guess we'll wait and see. What about the  harmony? The opening is really interesting.

[00:04:48]When I started, I was like, "Oh, is that even  the start?" It just does not sound like the start of the song. Why is that? Well, we  open with this chord and then we hear, if I put all those notes together, we  basically have a D chord with this E in there. This is a peculiar opening with a  slightly dissonant, unresolved chord. Now, what I'm about to tell you, you will not  hear in any other reaction video. So, if you find it interesting, give  the video a like. In a D chord, D is note number one. That dissonant note E is  note number two. This is called the supertonic.

[00:05:32]That feel of a sound is quite distinct. So many  songs end, they finish with a chord with the supertonic in there. It leaves the song feeling  unresolved. I always comment in my videos when I hear a song that does that. Just two examples  I can think of off the top of my head. Let me, uh, show you. I can only show  a few seconds for copyright, but here's one. Pentatonix, the most  famous a cappella group in the world.

[00:05:58]If you could hear that chord. And the next one, you know this song. Well, this is how it ends,  again with a chord with the supertonic in there.

[00:06:13]So, this is our chord and the supertonic, note  number two, is in there. Exactly how WAKAS opens, and then it moves. So SB19 opened this song with  an unresolved chord including the supertonic, something that is often used to end songs. The  song means end or ending. Enough said. Let's carry on here a bit more and then maybe  later on we can talk about the harmony, instrumentation, that kind of thing. Oh, and  just as we've done with my other SB19 videos, after this I will also be  reacting to a live performance.

[00:06:49]Ken is an absolute unit when it  comes to live singing. That will be linked below if you're interested.  It's on my Patreon and over there you can find all my other extra SB19  reactions that are not on YouTube.

[00:07:06]Such a nice line. Who Yeah, it's a lovely line. I love the little trill  that Justin, Justin just... Justin just did there.

[00:08:36]There is a real feeling of growth  in this song. Again, the language, this language is just so musical. It is no  surprise. It is a nation that loves to sing.

[00:08:47]I've seen so many videos of the most incredible  Filipino karaoke singers. If you grow up speaking a language like this, I think your mouth  just wants to make music. Very melodic. And yeah, the growth of the song, the structure is  really, really nice. Overall, things are sort of repeating in terms of, like, when the verses  and the choruses come. But the instrumentation, you know, we've got a very subtle  electric guitar coming in that we heard.

[00:09:13]That line, quite subtle. Of course, when the  percussion came in, it immediately gives the song a bit more of a somewhat uplifting feel.  Backing harmonies, little vocalizations.

[00:09:35]Of course, in harmony as well,  we're hearing two or three layers moving nicely in parallel motion. Just  gives the song much more of a swooning feel. Contrasting Pablo's voice quite well,  actually, because he has a bit more of a... I tend to think of people's textures, their  timbres, how they sing, as adjectives that I think only make sense to me. But I think of  Pablo as having quite a thick voice. I know that won't make sense to you. So, I apologize.  Anyway, and Justin, just where we paused.

[00:10:05]More conviction in his sound, especially compared  to at the start when he first came in. So, it looks like now we're moving  back to the chorus. This lovely, lovely line that I pointed out when Stell first  came in. The song's structure in terms of verse, pre-chorus, chorus at first was not obvious  to me. Now, because they've repeated it, it is. But it wasn't obvious because of  the chords they choose to use. I think it's really clever. So, if this is the chorus,  the chords that they use are these three: D, E, A. They're all major, happy-sounding  chords. Remember those names? D, E, A.

[00:10:52]When we arrive at A, that's the resolution.  The music has been building up to that point.

[00:11:00]Ah, it's resolved. Now, remember what I  said about the song's opening, that D chord with the supertonic in there, which then  resolves to A, which is when the song begins. So, it's the same type of thing. The opening goes D  with more dissonance to A. And now the chorus, building up to A from D. So, in this regard there  is a sort of unity or a resemblance between the chorus and the very opening of the song, and the  opening was quite strange or peculiar. What about the verses and the pre-chorus? Well, overall,  maybe you disagree, but I'm getting a sense of the feeling of, like, three throughout  the song. The chorus, as we just saw, mostly three chords. The pre-chorus is mostly  also three chords, and then the verses are mostly three chords, but then they also  kind of have a fourth chord. But the chorus: three major, happier-sounding chords. The  pre-chorus: major, minor, sadder-sounding, major. So two happier-sounding, one  sadder-sounding. And then the verses: major, minor, sadder, minor, sadder, major. So two  and two. Overall, I think there's a really nice distribution of happier and sadder-sounding  chords throughout the song. The melodies play off this really well. I think also who they  choose to have singing at any given moment, what range they're singing in, how they're  singing, all these things just contribute to the sentiment of the song. Maybe it's worth noting,  by the way, in the verses such as Pablo's verse, all of that was just one chord,  one of the sadder chords. So, in the verses when we get the sadder chords,  they are actually played for much longer, like more time is spent hearing sadder chords.  Is that significant? I think so, considering the song's lyrics. For example, there, "let me carry  the weight for now," your burdens, your heaviness, not exactly that positive. All right, let's  carry on. We had Justin coming in for the chorus.

[00:13:50]Sorry, I love that guitar line. I pointed out  the electric guitar line earlier, didn't I?

[00:14:01]In between the vocal lines. Oh, it's just so nice.

[00:15:01]Blimey. Sorry. We were getting  stronger, louder. Essentially, a continuous climax moving through  Pablo to Stell. And I was thinking, "Stell's going high." And then,  sorry, what even was that key change?

[00:15:18]So that we've moved, essentially,  the chorus before was now.

[00:15:27]So, we've moved from here down to... we've moved  down a major third. As far as key changes go, that is about as drastic and unexpected as you can  get. And Stell as well, leading up to that moment.

[00:15:47]That note there is what I call  the wow operatic tenor moment.

[00:15:52]Yeah. Really high. Going back to the chorus. So,  we had Justin, who I said had that little trill.

[00:15:57]Stell was the first one at the beginning to come  in with his chorus entry. I love how every time whoever is singing it adjusts it slightly  in their own style. Here we had Pablo.

[00:16:12]Simple, small, subtle change, but I don't know.  I really like it. And then when you have the guitar copying that motif in between the lines  instead of... which is just the chorus melody, you know, it's inverted, flipped upside down. I  think maybe that's why it resonated so much with me. I love that chorus melody in the first  place. Now I'm hearing it upside down. Oh, it it's it's so good. The first  real changes, I guess, are here.

[00:16:46]Josh and Pablo going off each other. Obviously,  we have many more voices in the background. The structure now is changing. We're getting different  chords coming and for how long they're played.

[00:17:03]Stell is just moving up and up and  up. He is just such a good asset to this group. What a voice, you know.  Oh, they can just always rely on him for these heavy moments. And then we got  the key change. We've still got about a minute and a half of this song. So, let's  finish this up before I talk your ears off.

[00:17:56]say similar to the guitar I was pointing out earlier  where they've inverted the melody of the chorus.

[00:18:02]It's great to see Stell doing this at the end. And  sorry, how high is he going? That is ridiculous.

[00:18:08]And it's not even in a full head voice. Like,  yeah, people can sing in full head voice, but Stell has so much chest in the sound.  Ah, it's crazy. It is crazy. No, no.

[00:18:19]Listen to me when I say it is crazy.

[00:19:24]And then a sudden ending almost  as abrupt as the opening.

[00:19:31]I like how they're simplifying the  harmony towards the end with these four-three suspensions. It's just the piano,  so they're very easy to hear resolving and then finishing there. They finish with Ken like  they start with Ken. Immediately you think it's like a cycle. The beginning is the end.  Uh, they actually put that in the lyrics too.

[00:19:52]Is this the beginning and the end? The music  could not depict the lyrics any better, especially after coming off the back  of quite a significant rhythmic change.

[00:20:10]And then real chromaticism in the bass line.

[00:20:22]Yeah, this is a song where, as it progressed,  there was just so much happening, so many new things being introduced, whether it was the  instrumentation, how thick the overall musical texture was, the changes in the rhythms, the  vocal ranges increasing, moving up and up, more powerful. Of course, we don't have the time  to talk about it all, so I will leave that there.

[00:20:42]But I'm very excited to listen to this one again  and just see what things I might have missed.

[00:20:47]And I'm even more excited because now we're  going to go and watch the live version. So if you want to see that with me, head on over to  the link in the pinned comment. And if not, well, thank you very much for watching. Really, really  appreciate it. Especially if you made it this far, would really appreciate a like on the video.  Comment down below other SB19 songs you want me to do. If you want to leave an emoji instead,  today's emoji will just be the microphone like you see on the screen. Now, thank you once  again and I will see you in the next one.