NewJeans Attention Chords

HYBE's new label ADOR's new girl group NewJeans (뉴진스) - Attention is currently doing very great in the Korean music chart, hitting no.1 on Melon music chart, beating BLACKPINK - Pink Venom. Here in Korea, you literally hear the recently debuted girl group's music pretty much everywhere you go. Today I will be breaking down chords for NewJeans Attention.

Weekly chart for Melon Music. NewJeans is first on the chart.

Hope this post could be helpful to anybody that would like to learn about the chords / harmonies behind the recent successful debut of NewJeans (뉴진스)!

 

FYI this is my first time writing a post fully in English, just to see what kind of global traffic I could pull off :)

If you happen to be at my blog reading this post somewhere out there, welcome!

Also, if there's any song that you would like me to deconstruct, let me know in the comment :)

 

Key

First, in order to properly analyze the chord progression for any given music,

We need to know the key of the song.

For NewJeans(뉴진스) - Attention, it is Bb Major

Bb Major Scale

NewJeans (뉴진스) - Attention has a very unique chord progression and its harmony is quite unusual compared to ones you might regularly listen in K-pop music, which IMO, played a significant role in making the HYBE's latest girl group sounding 'fresh & new'

 

Now let's get into it right away.

Verse (0:28-1:04)

The verse starts with a very unusual chord, a diminished chord.

If you tell me to think of a K-pop song that starts right off with a diminished chord from the verse, It will be very hard for me to come up with one, as I said, the song is very unique harmonically speaking.

 

The Verse consists of 16 measures, with 5 different chords,

Consider each cell as each measure.

Measure 1 C dim	Measure 2 C dim	Measure 3 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj	Measure 4 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj
Measure 5 C dim	Measure 6 C dim	Measure 7 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj	Measure 8 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj
Measure 9 C dim	Measure 10 C dim	Measure 11 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj	Measure 12 Bb add9     /    Bb Maj
Measure 13 D dim	Measure 14 D dim	Measure 15 C7 alt	Measure 16 C7 alt

The verse / pre-chorus sounds like this:

 

5 Chords that you need to have in your library to play the verse are:

C dim / Bb add9 / Bb Maj / D dim / C7 altered

And here are the exact voicings of each chord played in the song.

(The voicings might be a little bit off, but I believe it'd be pretty much identical)

 

C dim

Bb add9

Bb Maj

D dim

C7 Alt

 

Chorus (1:04 - 1:22)

The Chorus consists of 8 measures, and again there are 5 different chords,

Chorus shares the same chord progression for the Intro.

 

I love the chord progression used in the Chorus part.

It beautifully utilized the Ab Maj 7 / Eb Min 7 / Gb Maj 7 as an unique Modal Interchange chord that you rarely find in K-pop music. (I will give further explanation on the harmonic analysis later of the post)

Measure 1 Gb Maj 7     /    Ab Maj 7	Measure 2 Bb Maj 7	Measure 3 Gb Maj 7     /    Ab Maj 7	Measure 4 Bb Maj 7
Measure 5 Gb Maj 7     /    Ab Maj 7	Measure 6 Eb Maj 7     /    Eb Min 7	Measure 7 Gb Maj 7     /    Ab Maj 7	Measure 8 Bb Maj 7

The Chorus sounds like this:

 

The 5 chords are:

Gb Maj 7 / Ab Maj 7 / Bb Maj / Eb Maj 7 / Eb Min 7

And here are the voicings:

Gb Maj 7

Ab Maj 7

Bb Maj 7

Eb Maj 7

Eb Min 7

Harmonic Analysis

As I mentioned above, the harmony used in NewJeans (뉴진스) - Attention is very unique.

That is because it utilized this unique harmonic technique called [Modal Interchange]

Modal Interchange is a technique where the chords from neighbor modes are burrowed.

 

For non music majors, think of Modal Interchange as surprising, unexpected chords that somehow fits in perfectly.

 

The one thing to note, in the song is that, while using the unique Modal Interchange technique, it borrowed from an even more unique mode.

 

Usually when Modal Interchange are used in K-pop music, it usually borrows from its relative Major / Minor chords.

Since NewJeans (뉴진스) - Attention is in key of Bb Major, The typical chords that might be used would the the Diatonic chords of Bb Minor, the relative minor key of Bb Major

 

Eb Min 7 is a chord you can find in Bb Minor, the IV Minor Chord.

 

However, that Ab Maj 7 is not borrowed from Bb Minor,

It is a super unique chord that could be found in Bb Mixolydian Scale... the bVII Major 7 Chord.

 

So the overall chorus chord progression is as follows

(I've highlighted all the Modal Interchange Chords in Yellow)

Measure 1 bVI Maj 7      /     bVII Maj 7	Measure 2 I Maj 7	Measure 3 bVI Maj 7     /    bVII Maj 7	Measure 4 I Maj 7
Measure 5 bVI Maj 7      /     bVII Maj 7	Measure 6 IV Maj 7       /     IV Min 7	Measure 7 bVI Maj 7     /    bVII Maj 7	Measure 8 I Maj 7

NewJeans has definitely made their mark on the K-Pop music world.

On top of indisputably beautiful choreography, concept, M/V, they did a great job in music as well,

Bringing a truly 'fresh sound' in the K-Pop music scene.