Zenless Zone Zero - Prophecy (feat. Gin Wigmore) // Reaction & Analysis

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

[00:00:03]Today we have Prophecy as requested by Antori Saki in the comments of the last video and I don't know what to expect here, but there were a lot of replies to that comment saying I can't wait for him to get to this one. So, it'd be dumb if I didn't. So, I guess without further ado, let's go. Okay.

[00:00:29]>> Oh, we got a jazz singer here.

[00:00:34]>> Yeah, we do.

[00:00:41]>> I love that they started with the uh >> like recording count in too.

[00:00:49]I always love those little personal [music] details.

[00:00:56]>> Hello [music] [laughter] What is that texture?

[00:01:14]>> A very loose snare. Maybe [music] >> really really loose snare.

[00:01:21]The snare wire is just flopping around [music] in there. on the ground.

[00:01:26]He says with gravity shadow, [music] [singing] >> you know, I didn't recognize the name of the singer, [music] >> but I think I've heard their voice.

[00:01:48]>> If not, >> I'm going to be listening.

[00:01:52][music] A prophecy.

[00:01:56]No one makes a prophey.

[00:02:05]>> I love how much stink these verses have in them.

[00:02:12][music] >> The attitude is so palpable here.

[00:02:19]is always coming to a masterp. [music] [music] Damn. [singing] >> It breaks through my head.

[00:02:58]>> I knew it was coming back in.

[00:03:01]>> Can't fake me out like that. Not in this genre. [laughter] Spice begin to s. [music] [music] >> This is like a guilty pleasure of mine.

[00:03:26]This specific sound of music.

[00:03:31]Albeit, >> I feel like guilty pleasure is inaccurate because I'm not guilty of anything. I don't [music] feel guilty at all, but [music] Woo!

[00:03:50]God, girl, [music] >> get it. Damn. [laughter] >> The scream of somebody who smacks five p [music] smacks five pokes smokes five packs a day.

[00:04:10]>> Vibing so hard. Can't even get my words together.

[00:04:16]I knew the price of Oh, I love that they let the voice just be there at the end. No fluff. Cut out the music. Let the amazing vocalist have their moment there. [ __ ] brilliant choice. Oh man, I'm going to have fun.

[00:04:42]All right, so obviously I enjoyed myself with this one. This had so much going on in it. I love the main chord progression. A really surprisingly simple chord progression, but extremely jazzy. Using a lot of sevens. Shocker there. We talk about them all the time here. But we have [music] this E minor 7th here. C sharp. Don't forget the seventh. A C with a seventh on it. and then a B which sometimes has the seventh which I actually really like because it plays with that note really well. So like you could go and like have a little bit of like a jazz slip in there. I love those moments as little incidental hits that might just happen naturally during the song honestly. But again, this chord progression is just absolutely fire.

[00:05:30][music] It just has so much tension on the end.

[00:05:33]that seventh on this B7th here.

[00:05:36]Absolutely. Doing a bunch of work. It also does slip into a B minor sometimes also including [music] that seventh which just makes everything a little bit dirtier in the song at that point. So it just again that's one of those moments where those incidental slips I think actually does happen where it just kind of goes down from there. I think that's really cool. One place that I do know actually does have that B incidental thing is a B sus4 which it settles in that way. Again, the same thing could be said about going from the B to the B minor. So, it's very you can just kind of walk down that way.

[00:06:12]But, I don't think those slips ever happen together. It's usually one or the other. And it kind of just depends on where the song's going. But I think the uh main chord for this one that really gets this song going to me is the C sharp minor into the C because that is such a close relationship in these chords and that's what kind of adds that tension and then settling into something like a B7th just kind of answers that in a really nice way. Very jazzy. Love the sound. Also, I have heard this singer before. I didn't even realize it, but I have heard some of their songs before.

[00:06:50]Not even sure where. I think it was just casual listening and it just popped up in a playlist somewhere. I do listen to like pre-made playlists often, so it's very possible that somebody else knew of them and was just like, "Hey, let's make this song happen." And I was like, "Okay." So, I have heard this vocalist before. I just didn't realize it until now. So, that's cool. But again, this song moves around a lot. Those are kind of the main chords and main adjustments that happen. There are a few other ones in here. Like I think we start on a D just to make things feel a little bit different at the very beginning, but there's really not too much else that happens in the song aside from just bouncing around those. That's pretty much where the song stays and that's where it belongs. You know, I love that quality about jazz because it's very condensed. Everything tends to just be around the same cluster of chords and notes. And that's could that could be said about a lot of songs and a lot of genres, but for jazz specifically, it's the fact that they're willing to slide into those things like the incidentals that makes the entire thing feel a little bit more alive and therefore a little bit more expansive. Even though you're still within that cluster, it moves within that cluster very, very aggressively. And it's [laughter] just like, hey, let's [ __ ] go. I love how unafraid jazz is of being nextdoor neighbors with other notes and chords.

[00:08:16]It's just something that doesn't really show in many other genres. They use chords, duh, but it's the familiarity that jazz has with the chord structures they use. The sevens allowing things to move around and get very dirty and grimy in there. You know, like there's a lot of major 7s and a lot of sevens that are used in jazz all the time. And that's kind of why they have these doors open constantly to these other chords and other choices. So, it just makes the entire thing feel very condensed, but very powerful. Like, it's so confident in itself. And that's just one of the qualities I love about jazz. The other one is just the freedom of it. And that kind of does play with the exact same point. But either way, it's just fun to listen to. Now, there is something that I loved about the very end of this song, and that it's when the voice was the only thing left and all the instruments cut out, they kind of settled on something I didn't expect. For the last chord, we actually kind of have something that's a little unconventional. I wouldn't call it an actual chord necessarily, but it's utilizing that B sus4 that we were talking about earlier. And instead of sliding into the natural progression of going back to the B there, we have the [music] seventh included. And it doesn't really resolve as much as it does end on this tension. Let it hang. And then Jyn's voice goes and just plays with the two middle notes of that. And that's where it ends. And this kind of [music] roots back in that D that I was talking about at the very beginning of the song. So it kind of comes full circle in a very strange way there by landing on that tension because at the very end of the song we end up doing this like kind of tensive playground with this B sus4. It doesn't resolve into the B as you would expect and your ear is kind of wanting it to resolve into that. it decides to stay there and it includes the seventh I think. So we have this really tight cluster which is utilizing both the top note of the B chord there as well as the E and the E minor is the key that we're in and where a lot of the chords started for this song's progression. So we have a lot of that movement in this and I just love I love how this song ends there. It's like closing a book in the most perfect way. A lot of songs will end on their tonic note. It's a very reflective final moment where it's just like, "Okay, we're done. We're out of here." But the fact that it doesn't do the E minor as much as it does just end on two of the dominant notes in this piece and just lets it hang. And it doesn't have any other chord build or anything to make it more emotional. It doesn't even like [music] borrow from a different chord that still has it in there. It doesn't really settle in. It just lets itself be. And that is probably the best way that this song could have ended for the genre and everything. It just works really well.

[00:11:19]But I do think that's about all I've got to say on it. That is saying a lot too because like I would like to talk about it more, but if I keep going, I will keep going and I've got a bunch of videos to record today. So, thank you all so very much for watching. If you enjoyed this video and you want me to get to something else from Zen list, by all means, drop in the comments below and I will do my best as always to get to those. 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. Goodbye.

[00:11:53][music]