Behind the Song: Artificial Love and They Never Know
Behind the Song
Tommy Park
June 28, 2016
Song: "Artificial Love" by EXO
Album: EX`ACT - The 3rd Album
Composer: Timothy 'Bos' Bullock, MZMC, Adrian Mckinnon, Tay Jasper
Lyricist: JQ, 서림, 지예원
Arranger: Timothy 'Bos' Bullock
MM: This song is different from a lot of the other EXO songs. How did you come up with this concept?
MZMC: We originally wrote the song for NCT. We knew that one of the NCT subgroups was going to be more funky and electronic, so we just thought it would fit them. We actually didn't even know that EXO had concrete plans for a comeback.
MM: If you wrote it specifically for NCT, how did EXO end up recording and releasing the song?
MZMC: This happens all the time. If a song doesn't get accepted initially, we'll pitch the song to other artists - sometimes to artists at other labels.
[Read more about the song and recording]
MM: How did you come up with the title?
MZMC: Tay came up with the "artificial love" hook and melody. He thought it complimented the "vogue" vibe that the track already had. And he thought that the syllables and rhythm would be easy and catchy for the EXO guys to sing.
MM: What was your first impression when you heard the final EXO version?
MZMC: So, I have to think about songs in two ways: personal opinion and marketability. That said, they often overlap because I don't want to pitch something that I don't personally believe in. Honestly, I was kind of on the fence about this particular song, but I was very impressed with the final version. I work with some very talented vocalists, so it's rare for the final song to sound as good as the demo. But the EXO members did an excellent job and the song translated into the Korean language very well.
MM: Was there a particular part of the song that you were especially impressed with?
MZMC: Yes. Baekhyun. His vocals on the chorus were amazing. You can tell he's naturally a good singer because there's a lot of strength in his voice. A lot of vocals get processed and edited in the post-production process, but you can tell that his vocals were touched just the bare minimum.
MM: What were the members' reactions to this album?
MZMC: EXO wanted this album to sound different from their previous albums. They weren't concerned about Kpop or what's mainstream. So, when they listened to all the songs on the album before they went into recording, they were ecstatic. They truly believed that this was going to be their best album so far.
MM: Do you think that excitement came out in the final recordings of the songs?
MZMC: Absolutely. All the songs came out great and you can hear all the extra blood and sweat in their voices. As a producer, you can direct them to sing the right notes or sing in the right tone, but you can't teach or direct passion. When I met them backstage at their album release event, they automatically started singing the songs that I produced on this album out of excitement. Chen even started serenading me with They Never Know, which I also produced (laughs).
[Behind the song - They Never Know]
Behind the Song
Tommy Park
June 20, 2016
Song: "They Never Know" by EXO
Album: EX`ACT - The 3rd Album
Composer: Paul 'MARZ' Thompson, MZMC, De-Capo Music Group, Jamil 'Digi' Chammas, Adrian Mckinnon, Tay Jasper, Levan Kali, Otha Vakseen' Davis III
Lyricist: 조윤경
Arranger: Paul 'MARZ' Thompson, De-Capo Music Group, Jamil 'Digi' Chammas
MM: Tell me about the birth of this song.
MZMC: I was at a song camp and I had this track that the SM A&R loved, but I couldn't get any songwriters to write to it. Objectively speaking, there was nothing special about the track at that time because it was still a sketch, but I guess the SM A&R saw potential. So, I kept telling my songwriters to write to it, and they'd say they would, and then never get around to it (laughs). They wanted to write to the tracks I had that they thought were hot. Finally, on the last day of the song camp, at like 4am, I was able to convince them to get in a room and finish the song.
MM: Was the song intended for EXO?
MZMC: At the time, Taemin's album was about to come out. So, it was actually intended for him. The song was fixed to be on Taemin's Press It - The 1st Album album, but later it got dropped and disappeared for like 8 months. So, recently I went to another song camp and, thinking that SM wasn't going to use the song, we wrote a completely new melody to the track. And literally a week after we finished the new version, SM called me and told me they wanted the original version for EXO (laughs). I felt so bad because I had just wasted the songwriter's time writing the new melody.
MM: This song created a bit of fanwar between EXO fans and BTS fans. Can you shed any light on that?
MZMC: I'd love to! So, producers often use what are called sound libraries. These libraries include different drum sounds, drum loops, synth loops, guitar loops, piano loops, etc. They're shared across the web for producers to use, for free, without having to credit or ask for permission from the original maker of that sound or loop. They're royalty free. So, if a drum sound or a loop is hot, they'll often get used by multiple producers. The electric piano loop that I used was from one of those sound libraries. Since I don't listen to every single Kpop song that gets released, I was unaware that BTS' song, 고엽 (Dead Leaves), had the same loop. A lot of fans think that both the producer of Dead Leaves and I sampled Blackbear's Deadroses. That's not the case. It just turned out that all three of us used the same loop from the same sound library.
sources: marz-music IG, Music Mind (1, 2)
I find reading about song writing and other production bts things to be interesting so I thought I'd post these.
I hope the tags are ok mods, I had some trouble deciding what to use.