Mili - Mushrooms // Reaction & Analysis

[00:00:00]Hey, what's up, everybody? Welcome back to another Milli reaction. Today, we have Mushroom as requested by Isaac and my executive producers. No other details. It's just another Milli song, and mushrooms makes me feel like I'll need them for this song. Cuz if the song is named that, and it's Milli, Lord knows I'll need some help. So, I guess without further ado, let's go.

[00:00:30]>> [music] >> Oh.

[00:00:33]Okay.

[00:00:35]I'm assuming this is a calm lying.

[00:00:41]Maybe not, though. I just know they like to use them.

[00:00:43]>> [music] [music] [music] >> Ooh.

[00:01:01]>> [music] [music] >> It's been a long time since I've heard this sound out of Milli.

[00:01:28]It feels like something out of like Millennium Mother.

[00:01:31]My peeps.

[00:01:33]>> [music] >> There's the Milli-isms.

[00:01:50]>> [music] >> Got to love Milli-ish.

[00:01:54]>> [music] >> Mhm.

[00:02:01]Exactly what I expected.

[00:02:03]And I love that. Great progression.

[00:02:07]>> [music] [music] >> And a breath.

[00:02:39]>> [music] >> Mood.

[00:02:44]>> [laughter] [music] >> I love how this song is building.

[00:03:00]>> [music] >> I mean, I usually do like their builds, but mhm.

[00:03:05]This has a great kick to it. [music] >> [music] [music] >> Given the variety.

[00:03:23]>> [music] >> Very much a milli thing. All this variety in the uh the rhythms.

[00:03:34]>> [music] [music and singing] [music] >> Valid subtitle.

[00:04:00]>> [music] >> By the end of that with the mushroom thing it was giving me the whole like badgers badgers badgers feeling. But I'm probably that's that's an unk ass reference. Like maybe 20 of you are going to know what I'm talking about with that. So this song falls squarely into what I'm going to call the majestic milli mess. I mean this song goes all over the map. Largely we do stick between like B minor and like an F sharp F sharp minor kind of depending on the part of the song, but that's exactly why it's kind of a mess. You know, like it is very much well done in the usual milli fashion. They control that stuff so well, but this song moves so much.

[00:04:45]It's insane. It's like it moves down between I think two maybe three different slight variations of the key.

[00:04:53]I can't tell it might be within the same key of B minor that is kind of again one of those ones that we tend to sit in a little bit, but the whole like F and F sharp minor but again we do actually have like an actual F in here as well.

[00:05:06]So it's just like what is going on with this song? Narratively it's actually a little bit easier to figure out at least compared to the music theory stuff in this one, but I think the story for this one is kind of interesting too because at least through my interpretation of it, it seems to be talking about somebody with major like self-image issues. Like I would don't know if it's just purely self-confidence that's failing here, but it seems like they're very reactive to every single possible perception of themselves from the outside world in a way. Like if I were to break this down it sounds like the mushrooms are supposed to be like humans, like other people, and there's like a mention of a bird in this as well, and I can't tell if that's supposed to be the main character, or if there's like another person in that mix.

[00:05:56]It's kind of vague, you know? Like I'm I'm not entirely positive about that one. I feel like it might just be the bird, but that's that's what makes it feel so strange because it feels like there is a third person there. Like maybe the the woman in the picture is actually more directly what the song is about. It's also possible that maybe it's somebody who can shapeshift between those options anyway, so like a bird woman, you know, and just kind of has the freedom to do that. But I feel like the mushrooms are supposed to be a placeholder for humans, and again, their perceiving of her. It seems like every single time somebody would see this person and she has these self-image problems, that she would lash out. And if not straight-up kill people, at least within the story of this song, it's at very least implied that there was some degree of backlash to an extreme extent from her part until eventually somebody decided to peel back that whole like layer, like the mask basically that she was trying to hold in front of her face.

[00:06:57]And it's like, okay, that's definitely a story I can get behind and I understand where they're trying to go with this one. At least to the point where they were like, okay, well, now over time she's starting to get a little bit more comfortable with it to the point of being surrounded by the mushrooms, which feels very much like acceptance to me.

[00:07:13]I'm not entirely positive, like I said, it's easier to figure out than the music stuff, but that does not mean that it is a firm grasp on whatever the intent of the story is. A lot of their songs are very much up to interpretation, very subjective, and the narratives are not just clear, you know? So, I'm listening to this and looking at the lyrics and going, man, this one has more going on that I'm not entirely sure I know the whole story of. And I was right, this is part of Millennium Mother, so maybe there's one of those like Millie verse deeper points in this song. It might be connected to one of the other songs, but I don't know. It's been so long since I've heard a lot of those other ones that if it does follow up or is like the direct sequel to or a prequel to one of these, uh there's no way that I would remember it. Most of the Millennium Mother stuff I did like almost a year ago, I think at this point, so a lot of that is just kind of lost information on me, but the song itself, as with most Millie stuff I hear, gorgeous. I love what they're doing. So much fun. Like I mentioned, the whole B minor and the whole F sharp thing. There is plenty more going on in here. We get a lot of other chords. D, [music] E, C sharp is another huge one in this song. A little bit of D sharp as well. There's G in here. G sharp is another one. Like the relationship between like C sharp and G sharp is pretty important in this song.

[00:08:37]And that relationship is actually part of that whole thing I mentioned earlier with like the song evolves into something that feels like a new key, but I think it might just be shifting the energy of the song, too, cuz we go from that whole B minor F sharp or F sharp minor relationship for the majority of the first chunk of the song, and then we shift to having that C sharp and the G sharp be more of a part of it. And that's when the F sharp kind of takes more of a uh a front seat to that. So like we get a better relationship between those [music] three than we would with the F sharp minor in there.

[00:09:09]But it is still this nice little hook.

[00:09:12]Like you could easily have that in there as a little bit of a tension in the song. So there's plenty of options for this song, plenty of directions as most of their tracks do, but there's so much open-ended question marking in this song, even including these chords, stuff like that where it's like, "Ooh, that's a nice jazzy one."

[00:09:34]You know how Yuka and Cassie love to do.

[00:09:37]Beautiful one and this does play into other chords we have like the F minor is in that second half of the song as well.

[00:09:44]So like these two play together very well and it just plays very nicely.

[00:09:49]That's where like in the second half of the song the chords that are being played are much more positive compared to the first part of the song. So that follows the narrative of this character starting to slowly open up a little bit and get a little bit more softer and kind of I don't know if I would call it happier but definitely a little bit more uh calm I suppose. The song feels a lot less like it's hanging on this impossible expectation of the character and starts to be a little bit more about acceptance and that's why this song feels so good. So that sort of an adjustment is a very hard adjustment to make frankly. Like being able to go from something like the B minor F sharp minor to then going from this to this and like making the entirety of that song feel natural in that progression by utilizing things like the D in there and the E in there just to add these like connective pieces, these tissues that you need in order to create this bridge across to this new energy. This is something that Milli as a whole, the entire band is [ __ ] brilliant at. They are so good at bridging these emotional gaps and making sure that the story follows a beautifully smooth a succinct transition between something that's a lot darker to something that's lighter, especially when the story is trying to do that which is most of their songs. Even when the song itself sounds so much brighter than the lyrics, sometimes that sort of an adjustment is what you need in order to make that sort of thing work. This contemporary classical sort of approach to music that they have in a lot of their songs, that's kind of roughly the genre we're in and it's just that is so difficult because there's so many options and again that's a lot of the playing with the sevenths and having these sorts of relationships in their chords and then having that sort of balance out as the song goes on. You have to have that in there. There's a lot of diminishes as well, stuff like that where it's just really gross and that shouldn't be in there, but like you need to have it in there because that hooks into other chords that we have and it's all important to the song and the emotion you're trying to reach.

[00:11:54]All of them are played multiple times except for maybe one or two. Like I think there is like a weird connection with like I think that D sharp minor was only played once or twice. You know, like it's not like they're always there. And there are other ones where it kind of hangs on some interesting choices like the F minor at one point kind of goes up and like does like this. I don't remember if they did like an add nine.

[00:12:20]Something like just a beautiful option for the chords there. I know I kind of like swapped my hands. Don't come at me.

[00:12:26]I don't actually play piano. But what all those options do and what they love to do in Milli is use those in order to further the story instead of just doing it because it's cool. Every single chord progression change in their songs, every single little interlude piece that they add, every single just single chord, every single chord that they have can go somewhere else and often times does or could be used as the bridge to that next section and that entirely new emotional feel of the song. This is just what Milli does and Mushrooms is just another example of how well they do that every single time. I am never bummed when I hear a Milli song. I always know I'm going to be hearing something brilliant.

[00:13:08]I always know I'm going to be hearing something well above my ability to actually explain the music theory, but I do my best because I know that a lot of you appreciate me trying and even though I'm by no means a professional or a professor in this field, I still love to be able to break this stuff down and try to figure it out for myself so I can share that with you and we can all kind of be in the same like Milli Verse zone and understand it a little bit better together. So, that's about all I got to say on this one. Very yappy session this time around. So, thank you all so very much for watching if you made it this far. If you have another song you want me to get to from Milli or anyone else, drop in the comments below and I will do my best as always to get to those. Or if you want to guarantee something much like Isaac did for this one, you can always go to my Patreon and if that tier is open, you can guarantee something from me. Doesn't matter what it's from, who it's by, if it's good or bad, none of that matters. That's why it's a guarantee. 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.

[00:14:03]Goodbye.

[00:14:04]>> [music] [music]