BTS's Weird Song Structure (And Why It Works) | Steal This Song Ep 13

Friedemann: My wife and I, several weeks ago, went to see BTS live in concert. We went to the Brussels concert, the first of the two, and it was really quite an experience seeing sixty thousand fans raving, screaming, singing along every single lyric, for a two, three hour concert. It was really an incredible experience that I'd really never seen before. the amount of excitement that fans have for this band is really quite something. Today, would rather take a more analytical approach with this band, though, and really take apart their songwriting and see how it's done, where it came from. This whole thing is based off of a request that that we got from one of my subscribers, Tatiana McClintock5332, requested this. So that's what we're why we're doing this today. also the writers on this, were RM, Rap Monster is the lead of BTS. And then a whole bunch of other writers: Tyler Spry, James Esssian, Sean Foreman, Jameson Bacon, Ryan Tedder of OneRepublic fame, Kirsten Spencer, Derek Milano, and P Dog. All I believe part other than RM, of course, part of Ryan Tedder's team. Producers on this are Tyler Spry and Eclair. So as far as I understand the story. Ryan Tedder was writing for the record before the band had even decided what kind of music they wanted to make and sent in hundreds of tracks just every day because it really wanted to be on that record. And this is one of the tracks that made the record and it is obviously one of their most favorite tracks from their new record, Ari Rang. So it's there's a massive hype around this. Let's start listening and analyzing. Okay, so first of all, let's talk about the chord progression, which is the same chord progression throughout the entire song. It's a four-three. Quite an unusual chord progression, I would say. I mean, there's no one or six first and foremost. It's just a little bit unusual, even still for modern pop. I know a lot of modern pop songs now heavily, you know, start with the four. That's not that new But then not to even hint at a tonic sound, I think is quite cool and quite unique. Also, the three is such a dark chord, and especially the four and three next to each other, both are, you know, that's quite a dark combination because one is a half step below the other. So it's quite a dark chord progression, especially for a song that sounds as floaty, dreamy, right? Like that's kind of the vibe it's going for. let's take a look at the synth here This is an eight-bar pattern, and we have a three-four superimposed over four, four. So essentially a polymeter. So we hear three four over four four. So we have a a shifting of accents. And the same thing happens over C sharp minor again. The patterns are three, three, three, three, four. Now the synth we are in the intro is exchanged for something a little bit simpler, which is probably because once you start rapping, you want the rapper to have a lot of freedom to rhythmically express themselves. And if they want to move across the bar line, then that should be possible. But if there is no clear bar line, Their rapping is gonna be a little bit more confusing. So I think that's why they tightened up the patterns here and made it a little bit simpler when we had the intro, a melody is very simple, so we can get a little bit more complex with the music. Now the wrapping is very complex and we want to make the music a little bit simpler. So the pattern looks like this. Again, it's the same two chords, it's the same two chords throughout the entire song almost. And the pattern is now based on four. So it just very neatly lands on the one every time. with this pattern we hear D major seven bada du ba and C sharp minor seven bada boda except when we hear C sharp minor seven, something really cool is going on, namely that we still have this movement in fours, but it's kind of misaligned. If you look at the notation here, it starts with a group of three and then it goes four, four, four, one essentially. So you could just say maybe the pattern has been reversed a little bit. So instead of going one, three, five, seven, it basically goes three, five, seven, one. So it's quite interesting, like how that not quite aligns with the the expectations set up in the first four bars, where the one always lands on the downbeat. Here the one lands on the four of the measure. Lyrically speaking, as far as I'm concerned, there's nothing to write home about, there are quite a nice production tweaks to the vocals. Specifically there's a really nice delay on bad world and a beautiful reverb on bad girl and backgirl in the last lines. This is one of my favorite sections on the track because it's got this live bass playing. I love the way it sounds, I love the distortion, I love how it's low cut and how it sits in the mix. I think is absolutely great. And it is a live instrument, which always is a big win for me. Let's get to the chorus. So here's the notation for that. One thing that's really interesting about this melody, I think, is that it starts so late. Most pop bangers will start either on the downbeat or before the downbeat. Here we don't start until the three of the first measure. That combined with the D major seventh sound with that four chord, which is a very dreamy sound, I think gives the whole song its relaxed and and calm vibe. I've previously called this a Euroboros melody, like the snake biting its own tail. And that is because typically melodies will start on the one and end somewhere before the next one. But in this case, everything is shifted backwards. So we start on the three and we actually end on the three or the two of the next bar of the next section. So you can see how it overlaps into the next four bars. Does that make sense? so we have this line, waterfallin' off your skin. And this note is already on the downbeat of the next four bar section. And that's giving it this overlapping vibe, propelling us forward through the chorus. so what you just heard was the second verse, and let's take a look at the arrangement here. This is, of course, using my principles from the addiction formula. It's again quite an interesting arrangement. I mean, it is verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, chorus, but the way that the second verse works is quite different than we would expect. So let's go through the entire arrangement real quick. We start out with just synth and vocals singing the chorus, and the second half of that chorus, a bass synth is added, then we move into the verse. Where we have that groove come in and the rap vocals. we also change the synth lead to a synth pluck, playing that D major seventh sound, and we have an E piano coming in in the second half of the verse. Then we move into a pre-chorus where we add that live bass and it sounds more legato. The hi-head is taken out and the drum sound is exchanged for a more lo-fi sound. Then we move into the chorus and we have the bass come in and that intro synth makes a return. And we have that little flicker synth at the beginning on the one. So actually, that's a really smart move in many ways, I think. First of all, it's a really recognizable sound. It does sound like water, and it fills the space, it fills that gap before the vocals come in on the three. In the second half of the chorus, we add in some backing vocals. We'll take a look at that in just a second. then we move into verse two, where that synth pluck from verse one has now been replaced by a pad. We again have that groove and we have a little bit of wrapping. And in the second half of that we add bass, choirs, and a lead synth. If you look at the energy curve here, you can see that this second half of the second verse is already the energy level of the first chorus. We have seen this kind of behavior before when we looked at Hunterx's free, we saw the second verse pushing us into chorus territory energy wise. And it seems to be a very k-pop move because it makes us think, whoa, we're already here. How crazy is that? You know, we're still in the verse and it's already at this level. Like, what's gonna happen next? the second verse is always the hardest to arrange. And I think the solution that this, you know, K-pop perhaps has found, or at least the two K-pop songs that we have looked at, is to just move up in energy as quickly as you can after the energy drop to verse two. And it does both songs, free and this, have both managed to do it. Within the second verse, immediately we're back up to chorus level. It immediately creates that wow effect. this is a technique that I consider relatively new. Back when I wrote the addiction formula, it certainly wasn't a thing yet. So this is a new thing that we're hearing in music right now, but the second verse moves us into chorus territory. Then we move into chorus two, which is the same as chorus one, although in the second half we add a whisper layer to the vocals, which gives it a little bit more intensity. That's something new we didn't hear before. Then we move into the bridge, which is almost a looser solo improvisational section. We have wraps with delay and reverb. We got some pan sins wandering around. And then the second half of that, it becomes a little bit more legato, and we have some backing vocals singing in these choirs. And finally, we end on another chorus at a low energy level. This is quite weird, quite unusual. Most pop songs end on a big finale. This song doesn't do that. This ends with a low energy version, just electric piano, vocals with reverb, and then the second half we add some backing vocals. Quite unusual. Let's continue listening. we're going to hear the second chorus next. do pay attention to that whisper layer in the second half. Did you hear it on the line, this is where it all begins? That's the part I was talking about. Also, let's talk about that call and response. Here's what that looks like, very neatly arranged, just filling in the gaps between those swims of the main vocals. The only thing of note here, as far as I'm concerned, is that the main vocals are singing swim, five three, and then those responses sing three to two, adding in a more colorful note here. Finally, we end on this section. So for the first time in the song, we now hear a new chord progression. Instead of that four, three, for the first time we get two, six, five, five, two, one, five, five. So six and one kind of being interchangeable chords, right? They're both tonic sounds. One is the more minor version, one is the more major version. And it kind of ends on an uplifting note because of that. it also gives the last section something new and interesting, right? Where if we're dropping energy, it's nice to give the listener something. That feels new and unexpected. And hearing that chorus with new chords, I think adds a new emotional perspective that wasn't really there before. What is going to be the technique that I'm going to steal from this? It is going to be. The second verse moving into course territory. Let's call that a second verse jump. It is essentially a challenge to the writer. If you already go into chorus territory in the verse, where do you go after that? How do you push yourself even further after that? That's what I think is exciting about it. And maybe it'll open up some new ways of storytelling and some new things that, you know, previously were unforeseen. Maybe figuring out ways to make the second chorus more exciting. That's something that I definitely want to try and I will try. So that's the gonna be my stealable technique for this episode. If you are interested in what we do with holistic songwriting, please do check out our website, holistic-songwriting.com. Link is in the description. we have tons of courses for teaching you how to listen to music better and how to write your own music just like this, right? my whole life essentially has been about figuring out the rules of great music and then giving you principles and giving you techniques and tools that you can use to make your own songs better, no matter where you are on your journey from. Complete beginner to complete professional, right? We have stuff for everybody out there. So if you're interested in improving your craft, do check out our website. If you want to send us a comment, feedback, questions, ideas for future episodes, please email us to steal this song at holistic dash songwriting.com. That's steal this song at holistic dash songwriting.com. That's it for me. Thank you for watching, and I'll see you next week. Stay gefährlich.