Granblue Fantasy - 『 Zero 』 VS Lucilius HL (Lucilius Theme) // Reaction & Analysis

[00:00:00]Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back to another Granblue Fantasy reaction.

[00:00:03]Today we have on requested by D Vent and my executive producers as that coalition of people making me listen to more Granblue stuff continues on. And I just want to read the title of this video because it is long and it kind of made me laugh the way it's phrased. Reading it word for word as written, Granblue Fantasy BGM high-fi audio zero versus Lucilius, I think, HL Lucilius theme lyrics GBF OST. That is so many qualifiers to a title. I'm not saying it's wrong and I'm not sure if Lucilius is how you say it. I'm fairly certain, but regardless, I have to listen to this now, so that's what we're going to do today and this is a fairly long one, so don't expect too much like music theory breakdown stuff. It's just that with these longer songs, they tend to be harder to break down to a granular sense and still make sense after I've heard everything for like 12 minutes. Either way, let's go.

[00:00:58]>> [music] >> Wait [music] a minute.

[00:01:10]I recognize that.

[00:01:17]Have I heard this motif already from something else?

[00:01:23]>> [music] >> I guess it's not impossible, but >> [music] >> Beautiful organ by the way.

[00:01:38]Very like true to form on that composition.

[00:01:42]Not everyone gets an organ right when they write it, but this sounds fantastic.

[00:01:48]>> [music] >> Like actually utilizing the whole organ >> [music] >> separately and properly instead of just making generic organ sounds.

[00:02:23]>> [music] [music] >> Man, they are really setting the mood with this one.

[00:02:39]Just the organ droning, you know?

[00:02:42]The voices got really quiet.

[00:02:51]I love when songs make you feel every beat.

[00:03:03]Again, >> [music] >> fantastic use of organ here.

[00:03:11]>> [music] [music] [music] >> I'm actually starting to wonder if this isn't like an actual recording of an organ with how accurate it is.

[00:03:31]If not, it's a great library.

[00:03:36]>> [music] [music] >> Strangely positive melody on there, too.

[00:03:55]>> [music] >> Oddly hopeful, but there's probably a reason for that in the plot.

[00:04:03]>> [music] >> But for such a usually dark instrument like an organ, kind of interesting to hear something so bright and cheerful.

[00:04:23]And now we're in a harpsichord.

[00:04:30]>> [music and singing] >> Oh, it's God.

[00:04:39]Literally.

[00:04:48]>> [music] >> I mean, the organ makes a lot of sense in general, but a lot more now.

[00:05:01]>> [music and singing] [singing] [singing] >> Thrive is a bold choice of words.

[00:05:31]>> [singing] >> Kind of like how spaced the lyrics are, too.

[00:05:39]>> [music] >> Like actually letting each word like have its time.

[00:05:47]>> [music] >> Mhm.

[00:05:56]Mhm.

[00:05:59]That's kind of froggy.

[00:06:09]Yeah.

[00:06:10]I like that pattern.

[00:06:12]Again, lots of room in there.

[00:06:17]>> [music] >> But it's very syncopated with the rest of what's going on.

[00:06:27]>> [music] >> I would say that reflects a god and fighting a god very well.

[00:06:34]>> [music] >> Something that's epic, but also heavily against the grain.

[00:06:44]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Ooh.

[00:06:58]Guitar time.

[00:07:06]Got to pump up the speed a little bit.

[00:07:15]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Again, upbeat stuff here.

[00:07:42]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] [music] >> I want to hear where they take it now.

[00:08:08]Are they going to double time it again?

[00:08:11]>> [music] >> Not yet. They might.

[00:08:16]Ooh.

[00:08:18]A more supportive the chorus [music] section there. The chord progression is like carrying everything a little bit heavier now.

[00:08:28]>> [music] >> More supportive.

[00:08:36]>> [music] >> Like I know it's got to do something [music] else, too. It wants to.

[00:08:57]Ooh.

[00:08:59]We take a step back.

[00:09:04]>> [music] >> Like they I can feel the drums building in. It wants to go somewhere.

[00:09:12]>> [music] [music] >> I'd be disappointed if it didn't go anywhere.

[00:09:31]Just hanging on this drone though, it might.

[00:09:38]Ooh.

[00:09:43]There it is.

[00:09:44]>> [laughter] >> You can feel all that energy.

[00:09:48]All that potential welling up that whole time.

[00:09:52]>> [music] >> Beautiful.

[00:09:59]>> [music] >> Gorgeous resolution there into a new section.

[00:10:04]>> [music] >> Way more triumphant.

[00:10:13]>> [music] >> New lyrics.

[00:10:21]It really is moving.

[00:10:23]The visuals are definitely helping me like figure out [music] the story a little bit, but I might as well be watching a movie right now. You know, it's so good.

[00:10:34]>> [music] >> It's just telling that story in the music.

[00:10:39]You feel every emotional shift.

[00:10:47]>> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> Again, more syncopation there.

[00:11:12]>> [music] >> Now the drums are sitting on that and separating themselves.

[00:11:22]>> [music] [music] >> Wise sublime >> [music] >> This is epic as [ __ ] >> [laughter] [music] >> I really adore how how clear everything is. It's so clear.

[00:11:55]>> [music] >> And I pray to >> [music] >> glorious and pure, wise sublime.

[00:12:10]And I pray to you >> [music] >> glorious and pure, wise sublime.

[00:12:22]>> [screaming] >> And that's got to be the outro now, right?

[00:12:30]Let the vocals hang.

[00:12:43]>> [music] [music] >> And now I got to wonder cuz like for the visuals we saw who I can only assume to be like the god figure in the scenario like get that purple aura around them, but then like the dude with the wings, you know, so it's like okay, he's probably the one probably the protagonist fighting, you know, the underdog story little Icarus vibe going on there and then it's like okay, cool, but like then why didn't the purple go away? It might have just been the editor not getting rid of it, but I feel like the god isn't dead. I feel I assuming a lot off of the edit, which was probably just that, but maybe maybe that one's done on purpose. I don't know.

[00:13:38]>> [laughter] >> All right, so kind of like I mentioned the intro, there's not too much I'm going to get into with the music theory on this one. Just like overview stuff.

[00:13:45]This is a beautiful composition. From the very start, I was like, "Damn, they're using the organ properly."

[00:13:52]That's pretty rare. Like there are plenty of songs I've heard doing what I do where I've heard good organ, but it's still a very very small amount of songs that actually use it properly. Like probably close to maybe 20 songs that I've heard that use a true organ feel in their composition. And that's how I immediately knew this was going to be a [ __ ] banger in whatever way it ended up being. I didn't know where it was going to go, but I could feel that we were going to be kind of leaning towards the like religious back end purely because of the visual, frankly. And they of course organ being a large part of that identity. It's just, you know, sensible things. You start to make sense out of similar instruments being used for similar tales. And for this song, I loved how it evolved into the metal and still utilized the droning of the organ pretty much throughout. It wasn't exclusively there. Like it went away for kind of a good chunk of the sections in the middle, but it was still very present. You never really forgot where that drone was or that the presence of that larger scale figure was there. And I think that was supposed to represent the guy, you know, who I'm assuming is probably Lucilius. I'm still not entirely sure. It could be the main character's name being Lucilius, but if it's versus Lucilius, I'm just putting two and two together as well. But regardless, I still love where it was, where it went. And like again, the friendliness that this song had with itself. It was so confident every single time it took a turn. When we got those changes from the organ to the metal stuff, when we got a little bit more of the proginess being added in there to add some of that syncopation, and again create this like feeling of unease in the song where it's like there's this a kind of unstable footing that the song has. For those of us who are used to hearing that, that's great, you know, like we're used to hearing that sort of a change up. To us it might just be math, you know, you're counting it out, that's normal. But for the majority of people and for the characters in the context of this song, you're starting to understand that there is this like sliding around of what the norm was. The song started out very structured and then we get a change of that. So it's entirely feel-based and the support of having things like those proggy elements of changing up the rhythm is very useful for those moments. It's just one of those things, you know, a composition needs to be more than just sounding great. It needs to have a little bit more thought and identity behind each choice being made. If you want something to sound sad, you switch into a minor key. That's kind of like the baby mode example of it. Like if you have a song you want to be sad, make it into a minor key because that's just how we're expecting to hear music. But that expectation that we are basically born and bred to expect, the the life experience we have with music is very structured growing up. It's easy, it's simple to remember things like the ABC song and [ __ ] That's stuff where it's just like very straightforward. And then we have something from nursery rhymes to this and you are going to be completely confused. If you go to church, you're just singing songs that are [ __ ] standard counts all the time. They're not going to have an 18-5 count in church, you know, it's all going to be 4-4 or maybe a swing if you got a fancy church or you're Baptist, maybe. But that's exactly why it hits so hard with this song because you start with that structure, you start with that expectation, and even within just this song, you are set to expect that pretty much all the way through until the song kind of turns that on its head and we get something completely new. This song just keeps expanding beyond that, and it keeps taking breaks and changes as they need to in order to progress the narrative. Every single time something new came in, the song kind of takes a breath, and then brings you into that new section, especially there for that like climactic section at the end.

[00:17:34]Probably the best example of it because we had that moment where I felt all of that tension. Nothing was really releasing in the song, and then all of a sudden, boom, there it is. We get that beautiful resolution in the chords. The entire chord structure kind of shifts into something new. We get something that's more positive and progressive than what we got before. There was still some of that in there, but it was definitely a more rigid form of it. When we got that climactic section, the song itself started changing its energy, and that's the importance of changing those things up and switching around those structures as you go in a song to tell a story. If you don't do that, that's fine. And obviously, you can take a much simpler approach if you're not doing something this complex or telling a story this in depth. The most simplified version of this is just verse chorus verse chorus. There you go. That's still a narrative structure. It just doesn't have as many ebbs and flows like this song does. The things where these are major moments, these major shifts are happening, whereas compared to a normal song, you're just telling a story most times. It's probably something that's just more personal and related to you, not the grand scale of a god and fighting one for god's sake, you know?

[00:18:41]But that's exactly why this song works out the way it does and why it feels so good. And again, just the mix and everything was really solid. I do think if I'm to nitpick anything, the voice might have been a little bit too sibilant, a little bit too much on the esses and like just the the harsh qualities of the voice, but that's going to happen if you're not too careful. And also, some mixes just kind of end up exacerbating that. Sometimes it's just the YouTube uploads I listen to have a little bit more of that like harshness on the high ends. I am using neutral headphones, so that can also be a factor. It's all very just subjective to whatever they mixed on. However, the person mixing and mastering it feels like the song needs to sound. I can see why they would have had those harsher tones in there because you need those vocals to cut through. But in my opinion, they could have pulled it back with a little bit of soothing, maybe.

[00:19:27]Literally, maybe put a layer of soothe on there, like the plug-in soothe, might have handled that a little bit better and controlled some of that. But that's also something that's more modern and I don't think they would have approached with this song. That's something that people only started doing maybe 5 years ago on a regular basis.

[00:19:46]So, it's not like it's super new.

[00:19:48]De-essing has been around forever, but that wasn't the problem. It was just the amount of sibilance on the top. And nowadays, people are a little bit more aware of how harsh that can be, so they tend to control it with things like soothe. That's neither here nor there though, and a very much a nitpick. This song was beautiful. I love this soundtrack so far. Everything I've heard from Granblue has been so beautiful in its own way and very creative in another. So, it's just I'm excited to hear more. Every single time I hear something from Granblue, I'm like, "Oh, they're not done yet. They're still cooking in that [ __ ] kitchen." And I'm always excited to hear it. So, I'm sure there will be more. Again, that collusion of people and my executive producers who want me to hear a bunch of Granblue stuff still has not broken up.

[00:20:29]There will definitely be more Granblue stuff. So, if you want to see all those, I'm sure they'll be coming eventually.

[00:20:35]Go ahead and follow me and support me if you want to do all that. Or if you want to guarantee something, much like that collusion and Devent did for this one, you can go to my Patreon. And if that tier is open, you can guarantee something out of me. It doesn't matter what it's from or who it's by. It can be from Granblue. It can be from something else. Doesn't really matter. But 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.

[00:20:59]Goodbye.

[00:21:02]>> [music] >> I want [music] I want you.

[00:21:13]>> [music]