Lovelyz ✨ Obliviate

A highlight of the past few weeks is that my favorite kpop group Lovelyz made their long awaited comeback, their first since Beautiful Days back in May of last year—which many fans were a bit disappointed in because they felt that the group wasted the perfect opportunity to change up their concept after the lukewarm reception of Lost N Found; so this comeback was really highly anticipated in a lot of aspects ;u;

I personally like all of the concepts and musical styles they've done from the cute bubblegum schoolgirls to the flowery healing goddesses and I could definitely consume those forever TT but it's been clear for a while that the members themselves are tired of the general public thinking that they lack the versatility and they're itching to branch out with their title tracks, so it's really satisfying seeing them slay this new era and being recognized for it. 💗 None of their actual fans are surprised that they can pull off this reversal though lol; they've clearly shown this potential on smaller stages.

Their new song is co-written by one of my biases Ryu Sujeong (!!) whom I believe came up with the idea of basing it on a spell/incantation and she chose Obliviate (used in Harry Potter by Hermoine to wipe away her existence in her family's lives/memories) and it's about wanting to forget about someone who's caused heartbreak and painful memories. Aside from being a fan of the magical theme, my favorite thing is how the lyrics in the bridge—"All the petals that bloomed in my heart are gone—" are a callback to Lovelyz' most iconic song which goes, "Ah-choo! Flowers must be blooming in my heart!" hehe.

The members have grown so well into confident, beautiful, charismatic young women. 😭 Most of them look more comfortable in their own skin than ever, unapologetically glowing throughout the promotions, like they KNOW exactly what they're serving and are owning it. 💕

Their last MV was noticeably lower budget (for the competitive landscape of kpop MVs...) so I'm pretty pleased with what they put into this MV with all of the sets and making it artsy fartsy. ;u; I describe it as "Harry Potter meets Lacy Blindfolds meets Fairytale-Gone-Dark meets Art Museum meets Widow-who-prob-murdered-her-rich-husband 🔥🔥"

I wish I knew better terms to explain it but I love the musical progression in the song—the instrumental is so interesting and layered (def I think a standout quality about Lovelyz' discography in general is that it never feels musically cheap or empty) and the way it builds is satisfying. Did not expect them to put so much power into the prechorus! And then the chorus gets super funky with a prominent bassline that feels signature to a lot of Lovelyz music. And THE KEY CHANGE WAS INSAAANE the first few times I heard it omg I think the unexpected twists and turns make the song really refreshing. LIKE WHAT is happening with the chords at 3:18 IT BLOWS MY MIND.

And even though it's a big concept change, I appreciate that there's still plenty that ties this into Lovelyz' distinct sound—the sentimentality that they do best, the melodicness, the prominent bass, embracing some retro vibes. I AM, HOWEVER, a little tiny teeny bit disappointed that they're now probably diverging from the ✨story✨ that their main title tracks have been telling all these years... Copied and pasted this from my previous post about Lovelyz:

Candy Jelly Love --- Crush
Hi~ --- Confession
Ah-Choo --- Friendzoned
Destiny --- Jealousy
WoW! --- Distance
Now, We --- FINALLY A MUTUAL LOVE!!!
Twinkle --- Exploring the relationship
That Day --- Break-up
Lost N Found --- Loneliness
Beautiful Days --- Reminiscence

So now it would be....... Forgetting the pain? Or it kind of feels like a grudge? Erasure? It's technically still in line with them getting over romantic feelings, but the last installment was about looking back on things sweetly so it doesn't feel like a natural progression. Welp 🤷‍♀️ the story was nice while it lasted for 6 years!!

~✨~✨~

In my opinion, there are two really standout b-sides on this mini-album (called "Unforgettable")!

"Memories" is A SUPER INTERESTING SONG... There's plenty of Lovelyz' sentimentality, sweet melancholy, and dreaminess—BUT ALSO.... REGGAE?????? And the choruses are upbeat with synths that are totally reminiscent of magical girl/Sailor Moon vibes! And then at the end it's retro old-tape-that's-slightly-off-tune city pop.

"Worry Doll" is an incredibly comforting song T____T about wanting to hear out the worries in your heart, share the painful things together, and quietly stroke your hair as you sleep. 💗💗

And the instrumental is too good... It's too good... Acoustic guitar at first, but then it builds into pop-rock with some strings and flutters of piano, and there's even an unexpected electric guitar solo, and then ends with just acoustic guitar again and soothing vocals.

~✨~✨~

Finally... ack. Lovelyz has been posting a few TikToks of what they're calling the #ObliviateChallenge and a lovelinus friend (one of the ones I met the last time I saw Lovelyz perform in LA!) suggested that I do it....... Was on the fence about it but ended up doing it last weekend. I was ready to try my first social distanced outdoor gathering with friends and it felt like such a special occasion that I started putting on makeup for it—then we postponed on account of the suddenly hazardous air quality caused by the heatwave and fires ^^;; so yeah I tried to dance and filmed it and the air quality still continues to be shitty sigh.

can't believe i installed TikTok for this but i tried the #ObliviateChallenge, as suggested by @/iono_hiro !!
Lovelyz won their first trophy for this song last night, i'm so proud 😭✨#LOVELYZ_OBLIVIATE #오블리비아테 #오블리비아테챌린지 #러블리즈 pic.twitter.com/GpKSAQFLe0

— Eva ❖ CODEX // Gemini (@waterpixieva) September 9, 2020

Nekkoya (Dance/Vocal Cover/Mix Breakdown)

WOW I AM BACK ALREADY!! I posted the thing I mentioned in my last blog that I had worked on and would be putting out soon yay!

asdfddj i'm rly late at this point celebrating #IZONE1stWin but here's a bit of my attempt to dance Nekkoya from Produce48 from a few months ago along with a quick cover ✨ pic.twitter.com/ggSqreqtMT

— Eva @ Gemini (@waterpixieva) November 13, 2018

This was the dance I filmed at Fome's band's studio back in September ;v; Before my injury/surgery, I kept thinking maybe I'd practice Nekkoya more and find a time to re-film it but now I really don't know when I'll be okay enough to try dancing again... It's honestly becoming frustrating that it seems like I would be almost fully functional, but I'm really not close to being normal ;; I hit my limit last night just trying to reach my phone charger that was on the ground while I was in bed, and today I had to call my parents to ask them to help me carry my laptop bag into the house because my chest hurt too much for me to handle the weight. orzzzz Anyway, when I eventually get better, I'll get back into dancing weekly with dance friends! By then I'll probably move on and work on other dances so I thought it'd be a waste if I never did anything with this recording and with how passionate I was about practicing Nekkoya back then. ;o;

I yolo recorded the vocal cover just four days after I was discharged from the hospital LOL. It's really the biggest shame that I was literally using this song to practice my endurance and live singing (initially it was my ultimate goal to sing it live while dancing), only to have it all erased by my lung collapsing...... Although I probably didn't actually have the time to do it, it's regretful that I didn't record it when I was in full condition. Still, I was honestly surprised that I was even able to sing this much right after a lung surgery LOOOL


Lately I've been thinking a lot about making a mix tutorial/breakdown sort of video, so I wanted to share something that I found interesting while mixing this! It's crazy how big a difference different mixing styles make.

Initially I had intended for the vocal cover to be eextreeeemely low effort—and the recording process was indeed low effort...kind of. More like it took my body effort to physically be able to sing, but then I was like, "eh it sounds decent i guess ok moving on to the next line" and didn't record any harmonies. I thought I could get away with a fairly low effort mix too since this was just a fun thing for twitter/blog. ^^;;

What I ended up doing was tuning, timing, panning my doubles out 10% (one double -3 dB quieter than the other), putting these effects on my vocals bus, making volume adjustments for the most noticeable parts, and doing minimal mastering. (Alright~ it's actually a lot but I consider it to be fairly low effort because I usually manually go through everything to do a pass of clean-up, volumes, and EQ... This time I relied mostly on effects that just worked across all the vocal tracks, and I didn't fine-tune the settings as much as usual.)

So starting with 3 compressors which I made strong bc low effort and hopefully means I don't have to make as many volme adjustments. Multiband compressor to bring down parts that were too mid heavy. EQ to just slightly boost highs and cut lows and mids. C6 Stereo is a multiband compressor by WAVES that I find to be good at making things sound more balanced and polished even with low effort. :'D And then some delay and reverb.

For mastering, I used Izotope Ozone and all I did was use the Maximizer (aka you pull down one handle and the mix magically sounds better!!) and then used gating in the Dynamics module to bring out the bass in the instrumental, basically by doing the opposite of compression.

What I ended up with was this mixdown which I really thought was going to be the final mix. Because low effort!

Fast forward two weeks when I finally slapped this mix on the video and realized that I wanted to redo the mixing LOL... It may be ""low effort"" but demo 1 is mixed (and I think would've been acceptable for another kind of song)—yet when I went with a different approach it sounds drastically different and in my opinion, way more fitting for this particular song.

I find it really interesting that even though I didn't re-sing anything, just because of the way it's mixed, demo 1 sounds way more expressive and energetic than the final! (Truthfully I even think I sound like a better/stronger/more interesting singer here..) Somehow making it sound more robotic and uniform just fit the song much better in the end. The first thing I needed to get rid of was all of my strong breaths at the end of notes—they made me sound constantly short of breath, because well..I really was lol...... That part I had to do manually. =_= High effort but made a huge difference! I also went back and re-tuned a bunch of parts that were off lolol.

The biggest game changer was sort of diluting the vocals and making it sound like there were more of them (thus weakening the focal point) and making them blend more into the instrumental. This I did by adding the WAVES effect Doubler4 Stereo [settings], making the instrumental louder, and using the two multiband compressors to kill a bunch of the mids.

Because twitter video can be ass, you can also listen to my final mix here~ Oops, this ended up really long. If anyone is interested in this kind of stuff and wants to discuss anything, do feel free!