I Complain Too Much

TXT Crown - why is it such a good song - analysis of production n stuff

as a nerd, the harmonies are wonderful, the texture is so complex and clever, with a range of pitches and synths which all fit so well together. the bass changes in rhythm, drums have nice reverb. vocal qualities are fascinating. head voice is very clear in places and i love it, break isn't too obvious either which is DIFFICULT. the slightly electric vocoder quality to the harmonies are what i live for

there's some good contrast, the stereo image is beautiful, rhythms are playing off each other which is awesome and the vocals are very present without being too in the front of the mix which is so nice to heeaaar panning of ad libs in last chorus as well i love it. the inclusion of the morse code thing as a rhythm which is off beat and weird in the bridge fits the mood of the lyrics - something weird is happening. the chords i think are pretty much the same throughout but contrast coz rhythm and synths change at different points

That was my first reaction^^^^^^ and I'm leaving it there so that you get the basic summary of what I'm about to say. 

Okay. I think I'm finally un-stressed enough to start talking about the TXT comeback. There are spoilers here, and so if you haven't watched the MV yet, it's probably best to do that before you read this. So....do that.

I'm about to nerd out on you, tell you all sorts of musical stuff that to me make perfect sense and are obvious, but I'm gonna try and explain things as I go along. If something is a bit confusing, let me know so I can explain everything in more detail so that my thoughts are in English not in 'Nerd', which is my real language. 

Okay. I would suggest that you listen to Crown whilst you read this, so you can hear exactly what I'm on about at all times. I've worked out all of the chords and most of the melody at this point, so my notes on tonality and stuff are hopefully as 

Let's start with the intro. I can tell you that it's a repeated D, and from memory I think it's about two octaves above middle C (which is the middle note on any full-range piano). It's Morse code for 'dreaming' as far as I remember, which of course references the title of the album. Clever way to start a title track. Nicely done, BigHit. Panned as well. I love a good sweep from one ear to the other. That is difficult to get right. 

Our next focus is the chords. Syncopated (which basically means slightly off beat and interesting just go with it) on a synth which sounds like it's been compressed (a volume effect) and has a slow attack (attack being the speed at which an instrument plays a note after it's been played. think hitting a piano key). That is why it seems to almost get louder. I could go into detail about the type of sound wave they've used for this  - all I will say is that it sounds kind of like a triangular wave or a sawtooth wave. (i have no idea if I'm right, I'm basing this off of my experience with synthesis). For those, I'm gonna just direct you to Google. 

The chords themselves are relatively simple compared to that. The key is F major, as far as I can tell, in this part of the song, but it uses Bb major (and I think it has an added C in the chord but I'm not certain about that) D minor and C major as the basic chords. A nice combination. 

Electronic drum kit, which has a very 'open' sound I guess in the first verse, it's not overly loud or quiet it's just quite present in the song which is always good. You don't want a drum to be the only audible thing in  a song. No offence any drummers out there. You do a wonderful job, but if you're too loud and levelled wrong, it can be a negative thing. Just as with any other instrument. Reverb isn't too long so the sounds are quite clean and not cut off. 

Basically, instrumental is very well produced. Synthesis, effects, rhythm, dynamics. All good so far. 

All that from the first ten seconds, so I hope you read that impossibly quickly and noticed all of it in the first listen.