I showed my 70 Yr old dad this for the first time on fathers day. He loved it,but one thing he noticed at the start of violets tale, that I don't think no one has noticed, was his knees were up on the bed like someone who is having a baby. He just came out with it before any lyrics were sung. Such a cool moment. My Dad went down the rabbit hole. He just kept saying show me another Ren song. So proud.😊
Since the Dr called in the surgeon and with how fast Violet seemed to fade, I assumed the twins were born by C-section. The thought of poor, beaten Violet having to go through labor with her all her injuries feels like more than anyone should have to bear.
Here's the origin story of the trilogy 🤩😁🤯 This wasn't originally a trilogy story. Ren read a small article in the paper about a 14 yr old boy killing a young prostitute with a knife in an attempted robbery. Knife crimes had been skyrocketing lately. Later that same evening that boy had been shot and killed by the police . It disturbed him, so he set out to write a commentary not just on senseless violence, but on how desensitized we've all become to it. The words he ends both Jenny and Screech's Tales with "It's such a Shame" we say these words all to often and just move on with our business without a second thought. The article quoted the lead inspector at the scene saying " So Young, It's such a shame". Violets Tale was written over 2 years later adding yet another layer of commentary by Ren. Not only generational violence but making us think (how can both these siblings be so cursed). Born out of violence on that cruel night and then both killed with brutal violence in the same night 14 yrs later. Here's a couple of things that made me go Hmm...🤔🤔 Jenny has the same traits as her mother Violet, quiet, voiceless, and timid. Where as Screech mirrors his father Stevie in every way, Loud, obnoxious, and easily prone & provoked into violence. They didn't know one another and had never met their biological parents. What made these kids so much like their parents? Was it simply Nature, inherited traits from their genetic makeup OR WAS IT Nurture, being brought up in the broken government social system filled with broken, mistreated & forgotten children? Love your channel & Woo hoo to Andy Rue Cheers 🥂
My two cents: recent studies have uncovered the phenomenon of “generational trauma” that can be handed down to our offspring even in the womb, when a trauma response causes certain genes to be “flipped on” indefinitely. It’s both horrifying and fascinating.
I think that is a nothing more than a creation out of your own mind. As Iundrestand he read a story in the paper about a 14 year old schoolboy being stabbed to death. The rest of this is probably bullshit and you could Hans Kristian Andersen a run for their money. You’re probably one of those tossers promoting the story that ‘How to be me’ was filmed at the suicide spot. Sorry pal but you’re a sick little puppy but not in a good way!
So to your point on how they ended up so much like their parents. I was adopted as a baby in 1976 and I never knew my biological family growing up. Fast forward to 4 years ago and I ended up finding my biological family not far from where I grew up. Both parents passed but I found my 3 brothers, 2 sisters and 1 first cousin, my oldest biological daughter was 17 at the time and my biological sister, whom again we had never met before, are almost identical to one another. From looks to voices to mannerisms. They literally could be mother and daughter. So while I do believe a lot of it is the environment you are raised in, I also know without a doubt a lot of it is also passed along through our biology. Respect and love always!
In regard to Andiroo’s statement retraction on being classically trained; Ren stated in an interview that he can’t “break the rules” of music if he doesn’t know them.
but then the internet says he‘s studied music performance at Bath Spa University. so he‘s indeed educated in this direction what explains his diverse musical abilities a bit more. so when he says he can‘t break the rules of music if he doesn‘t know them i guess he possibly means he’s been lazy in learning back then. but for sure he‘s gained the right tools for development.
BP, You need to let Andi know that Ren taught himself to play guitar, he tried to take lessons before but couldn't wrap his head around sheet music or remember anything that someone tried to teach him, he had to figure it out himself. He also has stated that he tunes his guitar for ease of use with a song through trial and error on what notes he wants to hit and the easiest way to play them. He talked about all this in the Justin Hawkins interview.
The thing that I keep thinking about is this. Martin Scorsese spent $25 million to make Goodfellas and people lose their minds over the one shot of Henry and Karen walking through the restaurant. It was 3 minutes long. Ren & Sam made Violet's tale for less than $500 and it's a one shot that includes many of the same elements (going in and out of rooms, up stairs, etc.) and it's almost 6 minutes long.
Everyone is talking about one take this and one take that but can we talk about how the hell he did Hi Ren and The Tales while simultaneously dealing with noise complaints, angry landlords subsequent visits after said noise complaints, and people screaming at him out the window to "shut the f**k up" while trying to film the Tales! It's pretty mind-blowing if you really think about it. Idk. I wonder if it has a major effect on the overall performance? I mean, during Illest Of Our Time, they were dealing with some of the people living in that wharehouse taking bats and stuff. What if when he gets the budget to do whatever the hell he wants, his videos lose their edge? 🤔 Haha, yeah, right, I don't ever see Ren losing his edge! It's just crazy to see what he can accomplish when it seems like the world is trying to stop him!
People get the rewind of the guitar because he says it but did you notice he played those same chords in reverse order to come back to where he started the lyrics from at the beginning so he rewound then fast forwarded. Simple, yet so clever
@patriciaasher4614 yeah some reactors thought it might be an address but I think you gotta see when Jenny's tale was written in 2019 and she was 14 when she "escaped" so.... the hive picks up more than I do but I'm not obsessed to that degree lol. Let them figure it out and blab it all around 🤣🤣🤣
Great reaction, guys. Regarding the spiral staircase--not only did they use it acoustically, I think it symbolizes the whole story and the endless cycle of abuse.
With a background in classical literature, this feels very much like Chaucer would have been had he lived now. Classics were often a social commentary put in an educational format that was easily digestible. One of my favourite authors said that the two greatest ways to educate people is through comedy or through music. I would also add that the medium of tragedy is an effective literary device as well for educating people. Ren brings them all together in this song but his comedy is satirical in this song.
I think "reinventing music" is more possible when you look at his guitar training: he wasn't. According to an earlier interview, he had 2 guitar lessons: neither made any sense to him (he blamed his ADHD). When there was something he wanted to learn, he canvassed youtube videos until he found one he could learn from, and used that. His earliest training seems to have consisted of getting videos of Jimi Hendrix, slowing them way way down, and learning to follow what he did. No classical training. He commented on chromatic scales, and said he'd figured them out early because he liked them, and eventually learned that there was a name for it. He follows his ears. My guess is that this is why he's so successful at mashing up different styles and genres, they aren't put in separate boxes to begin with, but are "music". The man has EARS.
Ren said a few days ago (on a Twitch livestream, I think?) that the total cost of making the Violet's Tale video was $500 (five HUNDRED, not thousand). 🤣🤣🤣 The hospital was obviously not a hospital, and the bed was a child's bed with no legs so they had to get creative with the camera angle LOL
Another thing I noted was that Ren says 'Jenny felt strange as if there was something in the air' just before me bumped into her twin, Screech. There is a lot of stories of telepathy between twins, if they hadn't experienced that 'twin' feeling before so it would have been confusing not knowing what it was, which may have added to Jenny's freezing and Screech freaking out and killing her.
Except violet's tale came out a couple years later. Jenny and screech's tale was written about something that really happened. I think Ren just decided to put a different twist on it two years later. Unless he already had it written and just didn't release it till two years later.
@kevinsykes2549 thsts a good pount, I have wondered about that too. Did Ren have the trilogy planned, or was Violets tale a clever addition.. If it's the latter, it blows my theory out of the water 😆
His biggest project yet that he's working on has a £1000 ($1250) budget. Ren is going all out lol. It says so much about what he's been up to so far, and what he could do with the millions that he should be given to work with.
You all commented on the descending, sung chromatic scale at the beginning of Violet's tale. The descending chromatic scale is a trope signifying death, forecasting Violet's fate before a word is spoken. The fact that Ren gets that--knowingly or just intuitively-- without classical training is astounding.
I knew Andiroo would like this one! Great reaction ❤ Since the last twitch stream, whenever I see the start of Violet's tale in the "hospital room" now all I can think about is how they bought a child's bed by mistake and notice how comically small it is 😂
I just keep picturing them sawing a whole rack of other people's bikes off the wall. Ren, Sam, and Josh do NOT eff around when they're going for their guerilla video shoots. 🤣
Just to clarify the Hi Ren one take discussion…the audio is all done in one take live (which was take 3 out of the 4 that recorded)…most of the video is from that third take they did, but for certain parts of the video, they used shots from the other takes (i.e. the close ups where he’s standing up).
@@mariogansbeke There are close-up shots at the end, as others point out. The first sign of a second takebeing included that I've noticed is when he first makes eye contact with the camera, because they cut to a second shot and he's looking at that camera as well. This is after the breakdown/possession verse when he goes back to the "Hi Ren..." verse. Are you saying that the mic can be seen in different locations prior to that last verse? During the back and forth opening verse?
Almost 3 years between the first to the last and the tale of jenny is 4 years old, need to take that into account when you talk about the soundproduction
Hi Andiroo, Black Pegasus great to see you guys doing another Ren reaction together. This story always gets me, Ren can story tell and write. I'm starting to notice with these reactions there has been more technical obs, its great. Awesome...👍☝️🖼☝️🎇😌
@Andrewyourpicture Ren has mentioned that he was not classically trained and that he can’t break the rules as he doesn’t know them. Which reminds me of a part of a one of my favorite books: We spent countless hours discussing the craft of it. How songs fit together. How chorus and verse play against each other, about tone and mode and meter. These were things I’d learned at an early age and thought about often. And though Denna was new to this study, in some ways that worked to her advantage. I’d learned about music since before I could talk. I knew ten thousand rules of melody and verse better than I knew the backs of my own hands. Denna didn’t. In some ways this hampered her, but in other ways it made her music strange and marvelous. . . . I’m doing a poor job of explaining this. Think of music as being a great snarl of a city like Tarbean. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers. Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning and clever. Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone. But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.
@@Beckaj5446 it’s from the second book of the Kingkiller Chronicle, called Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss. The first book is The Name of the Wind. We’ve been waiting on book three for quite some time, but I’m hopeful. The series has been beautifully written so far. And it’s peculiar how many parts of the stories line up with things about Ren.
I only noticed after a couple of listens, but I really like the way that Ren "moves forward in time" just before the hospital scene at the end. I don't have the ear for it, but I would not be surprised if it was the exact opposite of the guitar run he played to "go back in time"
Always a pleasure seeing BP and Andy together doing a reaction to my fav artist Ren! The Tales are so well executed and they tweak all of our senses! Thank you ❤
Love the reactions! I never noticed the focus part either (I have probably seen this trilogy about 50-100 times now). Thanks for pointing it out BP, much love, congrats once again on the 100k. Have a great day!
LOL Andy, you got me as a new sub when you mentioned Skyrim. 🎶🔥😎💖 BP, great reaction! I absolutely love seeing you bring in new folks and introduce them to artists. Bless you, brother.
There is a few I’ve come across, they fully give in to the artistry and just enjoy the performance. Usually it’s an internal struggle the whole time, between wanting to be impressed by the talent and cringing at the violence being depicted.
I literally think about 100 different things when reacting to these, so occasionally the lyrics end up vague to me 😭 and then I rewatch it after and I’m like “oh shit how’d I miss that” 😂
You got to 100k because you're bloody brilliant. I wish I'd found your channel much sooner. I reckon 200k subs will come this year. Totally deserved: you're that good.
@21:56 interesting to see people acknowledge that US underground is now following the UK. US started it but from the Hip Hop scene, UK underground music has always evolved quicker, maybe cos we're a smaller Island?
Ren tells the stories and the filming of the stories are all done so well i found myself looking for the bodies laying on the ground. The saddest thing about this is the fact each of these things are happening in every country at this very moment and the cycle continues
The best part about you inviting the "young guy" in is that I believe his young mind has to be ON FIRE after this. And that's the whole thing that Ren brings about. Completely changing the game and the idea of what music and what the music video is. My guess is that this will help him be even more creative than I can already tell that he is. It's like a whole new world was opened to him. I'll be interested to see how he runs with it.
I love the conversations that come out of Andy's reactions. Now, if you could get Andy and Joe E Sparks in a reaction together with you for a few of Ren's pieces, that'd be tight.
Loved it, Always Great, nice to see a shift in his music, this is my fav, like In Story telling Musically , love his play, he just captivates me in this whole trilogy !!!!💯 💯
I LOVE THIS!! I also believe that “Hi, Ren” was mostly one take, but there were cuts. His hand positions between when he said “newsflash” and started playing…it’s obvious. That was a cut. Also: the “chromatic” run was not actually even completely chromatic. And it is one of my favorite runs I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’m old. And stupid. And I’m needs a lover. I love this guest. And I love this channel. You guys make me love music so much more. I appreciate you so much. And I am so with your guest that this is probably not him classically trained. This is a dude like Edward Van Halen, who he obviously took creative lessons from for the violet’s tale video.
Well done andy. You are right, Hi Ren has an edit. They had to edit to get one of the cameras off the tripod and into a hand held for the monologue at the end…. I’ve stated this on almost all of bps hi Ren reactions, lol
If you want to hear a great breakdown of this song go to Virgin rocks analysis that lady is a historian and delves into what ren does from the Medieval Times
I think he told Justin Hawkins that he has no idea what the rules of music even are. There's no rhyme or reason (pun intended) to how he writes music. He just comes up with stuff he likes and then finds clever ways to put it all together.
A lot of people missed the fact that Jenny was the same age as screech she's only 14! out on the streets in heels in the middle of the night 😮that's not a very good sign of what she was doing😢
Yeah and there is even a line that says "shed walked it a thousand times before". So it does allude to her having a less than ideal life. This series of songs does highlight the idea of generational trauma
To be fair though he didn’t associate them as brother and sister at the time of writing the initial tales so Jenny could have been any age - though no doubt young. It wasn’t until a few years later that he actually associated them together and tied the stories in through Violets tale to reveal they where twins - so in a later aspect yes he was insinuating Jenny was a Prostitute at 14
Something that is theorized is that violet is pregnant from her own father. That's why she's able to get a welfare flat at 16. Also explains why Stevie keeps accusing her of being a liar. She was pregnant when they met. Generational trauma x a billion.
Yes and one of the other commentators mentioned that it’s based of a true story off a 14 yr old killing a prostitute. I never quite understood why a 14 yr old would be in high heels walking the streets at night she walked so many times before. Crazy how I missed that, I thought I knew the story inside out. Poor Jenny and RIP the woman who actually died.
You're the first person I've seen who has commented on the eye/focus thing. It was something I spotted when I first watched the video but have been surprised that despite watching so many reactions to it, no-one even saw fit to comment on it (which suggests they either didn't notice, or didn't realise that it was intentional).
Andiroo--i hear you on the "pub music" call...first thing i thought was the minstrel from The Witcher, no? i still love that guy's tune, and Ren may be channeling that just a bit. the thing Ren does better than anyone i can think of is his variations on vocal inflection, pacing, and the force he uses in plucking and/or strumming on his guitar to share the immediacy and intensity of the moment in the more urgent parts of a given song. for instance, when it's revealed the Violet is preggers and breaks her silence...it's an urgency she uses to beg the doctor to save her baby. babies (but she didn't know it was two of them). musical theater directors would LOVE to have Ren as both writer AND performer because of all that. boy's got so many skills, and not just decent at a lot of things, but OUTSTANDING at all he does. you can tell, even, that if he narrowed his focus for awhile and worked just on guitar, he absolutely could become an absolute shredder.
I love how you Black Pegasus watch Ren like it's your very first time seeing him every time Great reaction and I hadn't noticed the blurred vision before "Stevie pinches her eyelids and folds them up" and then it's suddenly clear vision..lots of information and great breakdown!
Love reactions with Andiroo - knew he would love this. He should definitely check out MG1. I also love watching BP going back to different Ren videos and picking out new elements each time - much like us as fans too - listening to other peoples ideas about what Ren’s thought processes were/may have been. Thanks for another great reaction. 🔥🔥
Obviously I'm happy that rens music is getting out there more but, it really does get better when you bring these other artist on to hear their point of view. Thanks BP seriously
To clear things up with the "one take" on Hi Ren: They did multiple One-Take-Shots (4 or 5 I think it was) and they had 1 cut in the version they used and this is right before the camera gets close to Ren near the end. It wasn't technically possible to pick the camera from the tripod when switching to the more shaky hand filmed stuff. So there it was cutted. Samuel explained that way better than me under one reaction video somewhere on youtube. Still impressive though.
i love3 Andy's reactions. he seems like a very intelligent young man. something i noticed for the first time watching this reaction was, when Ren was tapping during the start of violets tale, it almost seemed like the sound of a hospital monitor. i don't know if that was intentional or not but, it something that stood out to me.
'Hi Ren' was a one-take per Ren. Or rather multiple one-takes and they chose the best. I think I will believe Ren if he tells us how they constructed the videos. Even 'Money Game I' was a one-take. However, per Ren there were over 100 actual takes before they got one they liked. 'Illest of Our Time' appears to not be a one-take. 'Suicide' was definitely not a one-take since he added on the 2nd half after discussion with others. Ren also has a live version of the Tales posted that is amazing. There was a clip of a video of a live version of 'Hi Ren' too but cannot find the full version of that song.
There's also a video to go along with the Trilogy called "In morte, ut in vita, numquam partiemur". ruclips.net/video/KMaLHODne5c/видео.html I think it was used as a promo tease video prior to the release of Violet's Tale.
I looked and couldn't see you doing a reaction to Ren's video Crutch (with Bibi). Apologize if I missed it but it's my favourite so I always check to see if anyone does that one. It was written from before his diagnosis and it's haunting and beautiful. Hopefully you've seen it, it's worth the time.
For ‘Bard” think Alan o’dale in the Disney cartoon Robin Hood. A (medieval)singing minstrel telling news through song as he travels from village to village.
Never noticed he plays so much with tempo in Screech's tale before this. The signature is 3/4 for part of the intro, and then 4/4. But the tempo slides around kinda crazily- usually every time he changes voice, though the "bard" voice takes some of the load by stretching his slides. That's clever, because a lot of it is constantly very slightly increasing the tempo measure to measure, and the bard bleeds off some of that tension.
Love all of your reactions, and the original content too. I also love the incredible artistry and skill of the one-takes. If you haven’t checked out any OK Go videos they are the king of the one take music videos. Favourites include This too shall pass (incredible Rube Goldberg machine version better than marching band version but either is great), White Knuckles (best one take featuring dogs ever!), upside down and inside out (zero gravity one take), or I won’t let you down (mass choreography is amazing). Definitely worth a look visually and musically.
So Andy's disbelief that Hi Ren is a one-take is interesting to me because I recently watched a reaction from a musician (not going to list their channel because I don't want people swarming the video to argue) who said that Hi Ren was absolutely recorded in a studio, just from the way it sounds. And if you pay attention to the difference in sound quality from the end of the song to the start of the monologue, there's definitely a difference in mic ambiance (I'm probably using the wrong words-I'm not a sound guy lol). That doesn't mean he's correct, or that Hi Ren isn't a live one take, but it did serve as a good reminder to me that there's things that the Ren fandom-and by extension, a lot of reactors-take as fact and spread around and fervently believe in ("Ren was signed to Sony Records and got dropped when he got sick" is a good example), but is, at best, a distortion of the truth (Ren was signed to a label owned by Sony, and their parting was mutual; you can see how the truth spins into the more dramatic "good guy/bad guy" version that gets spread around, but it paints a very inaccurate picture of what happened). I've got enough faith in Ren that if I heard him say Hi Ren was a live recording, one take video, that would absolutely settle the question for me (I don't think I've heard him comment at all on Hi Ren, but I've been lagging on all the interviews because they're so danged long lol). And his track record with obviously live one takes (Jenny/Screech, Money Game) makes me fairly happy to consider Hi Ren one as well unless proven otherwise. But it does give me pause when reactors with studio experience find that assertion to be dubious. Ultimately, it shouldn't really matter, right? Being a live one take or a recorded song with a matching video is a matter of technical execution, not artistic end result. The fandom flashes the "live one take" as a badge of honor, as if THAT is what will prove to people that it's an amazing song. No, it's an amazing song because it's an amazing song, not because there's something inherently "extra" about being a live one shot. I'd be really curious as to Andy's take on Ren's live collaborations with Chinchilla, Chalk Outlines and How To Be Me. Partly because they're great songs, and partly because I'd be curious about his opinion on the recording of those.
I've never heard a commenter realize this, but it's obvious that Jenny is an underage prostitute (e.g. "streetwalker"). That adds a new layer of tragedy to the story. "She had been wanting to escape..."
Interesting to me, though such a minor detail, but I've never seen a reactor mention the only video cut in this whole trilogy. Guitar intro to Screech's Tale, at 14:54 in this reaction vid (3:31 in the actual).
I showed my 70 Yr old dad this for the first time on fathers day. He loved it,but one thing he noticed at the start of violets tale, that I don't think no one has noticed, was his knees were up on the bed like someone who is having a baby. He just came out with it before any lyrics were sung. Such a cool moment. My Dad went down the rabbit hole. He just kept saying show me another Ren song. So proud.😊
The one thing no one has noticed (other than me) is the sign or chart on the foot board of the hospital bed says "Bed #3 Violet"
@@annebiebrich9155 just because we don't write a comment doesn't mean that it's not noticed. The video does need to be in full screen to see it though
Since the Dr called in the surgeon and with how fast Violet seemed to fade, I assumed the twins were born by C-section. The thought of poor, beaten Violet having to go through labor with her all her injuries feels like more than anyone should have to bear.
I suspect that's what happens when you say, "it doesn't matter, just order the least expensive white bed they have..." 😂
My belief is that the introduction with Ren looking around etc is Violet after death wondering where she was
Here's the origin story of the trilogy 🤩😁🤯
This wasn't originally a trilogy story. Ren read a small article in the paper about a 14 yr old boy killing a young prostitute with a knife in an attempted robbery. Knife crimes had been skyrocketing lately. Later that same evening that boy had been shot and killed by the police . It disturbed him, so he set out to write a commentary not just on senseless violence, but on how desensitized we've all become to it. The words he ends both Jenny and Screech's Tales with "It's such a Shame" we say these words all to often and just move on with our business without a second thought. The article quoted the lead inspector at the scene saying " So Young, It's such a shame".
Violets Tale was written over 2 years later adding yet another layer of commentary by Ren. Not only generational violence but making us think (how can both these siblings be so cursed). Born out of violence on that cruel night and then both killed with brutal violence in the same night 14 yrs later. Here's a couple of things that made me go Hmm...🤔🤔
Jenny has the same traits as her mother Violet, quiet, voiceless, and timid. Where as Screech mirrors his father Stevie in every way, Loud, obnoxious, and easily prone & provoked into violence. They didn't know one another and had never met their biological parents. What made these kids so much like their parents? Was it simply Nature, inherited traits from their genetic makeup OR WAS IT Nurture, being brought up in the broken government social system filled with broken, mistreated & forgotten children?
Love your channel & Woo hoo to Andy Rue Cheers 🥂
💯
My two cents: recent studies have uncovered the phenomenon of “generational trauma” that can be handed down to our offspring even in the womb, when a trauma response causes certain genes to be “flipped on” indefinitely. It’s both horrifying and fascinating.
I think that is a nothing more than a creation out of your own mind.
As Iundrestand he read a story in the paper about a 14 year old schoolboy being stabbed to death.
The rest of this is probably bullshit and you could Hans Kristian Andersen a run for their money.
You’re probably one of those tossers promoting the story that ‘How to be me’ was filmed at the suicide spot.
Sorry pal but you’re a sick little puppy but not in a good way!
🤩😁🤯
So to your point on how they ended up so much like their parents. I was adopted as a baby in 1976 and I never knew my biological family growing up. Fast forward to 4 years ago and I ended up finding my biological family not far from where I grew up. Both parents passed but I found my 3 brothers, 2 sisters and 1 first cousin, my oldest biological daughter was 17 at the time and my biological sister, whom again we had never met before, are almost identical to one another. From looks to voices to mannerisms. They literally could be mother and daughter. So while I do believe a lot of it is the environment you are raised in, I also know without a doubt a lot of it is also passed along through our biology. Respect and love always!
In regard to Andiroo’s statement retraction on being classically trained; Ren stated in an interview that he can’t “break the rules” of music if he doesn’t know them.
but then the internet says he‘s studied music performance at Bath Spa University. so he‘s indeed educated in this direction what explains his diverse musical abilities a bit more. so when he says he can‘t break the rules of music if he doesn‘t know them i guess he possibly means he’s been lazy in learning back then. but for sure he‘s gained the right tools for development.
Poor bloke has certainly had enough time sitting around doing not much to play with music and work out how to manipulate sounds to express emotions
Music performance is not music theory though.Related no doubt but not the same.
@@greenogre22Obviously I’m speculating, but I think he got sick around age 19, so I don’t think he could have gone more than a year or so.
@@NilZed1 exactly.
BP, You need to let Andi know that Ren taught himself to play guitar, he tried to take lessons before but couldn't wrap his head around sheet music or remember anything that someone tried to teach him, he had to figure it out himself. He also has stated that he tunes his guitar for ease of use with a song through trial and error on what notes he wants to hit and the easiest way to play them. He talked about all this in the Justin Hawkins interview.
Noted!!!
Ren really blows my mind every time I react 😭 Like bro how is anyone THIS creative?? 🔥🔥🔥
Appreciate you being part of the magic, genius & healing on BP's channel & with Ren in particular. It's bigger than the sum of its parts.
Red diamond or Ragnar the red?
The thing that I keep thinking about is this. Martin Scorsese spent $25 million to make Goodfellas and people lose their minds over the one shot of Henry and Karen walking through the restaurant. It was 3 minutes long. Ren & Sam made Violet's tale for less than $500 and it's a one shot that includes many of the same elements (going in and out of rooms, up stairs, etc.) and it's almost 6 minutes long.
Everyone is talking about one take this and one take that but can we talk about how the hell he did Hi Ren and The Tales while simultaneously dealing with noise complaints, angry landlords subsequent visits after said noise complaints, and people screaming at him out the window to "shut the f**k up" while trying to film the Tales! It's pretty mind-blowing if you really think about it. Idk. I wonder if it has a major effect on the overall performance? I mean, during Illest Of Our Time, they were dealing with some of the people living in that wharehouse taking bats and stuff. What if when he gets the budget to do whatever the hell he wants, his videos lose their edge? 🤔 Haha, yeah, right, I don't ever see Ren losing his edge! It's just crazy to see what he can accomplish when it seems like the world is trying to stop him!
People get the rewind of the guitar because he says it but did you notice he played those same chords in reverse order to come back to where he started the lyrics from at the beginning so he rewound then fast forwarded. Simple, yet so clever
I did finally catch that at the same time it occurred to me the two zero zero five is the year.
@patriciaasher4614 yeah some reactors thought it might be an address but I think you gotta see when Jenny's tale was written in 2019 and she was 14 when she "escaped" so.... the hive picks up more than I do but I'm not obsessed to that degree lol. Let them figure it out and blab it all around 🤣🤣🤣
The chord progression forward and reversed is how musicals (a la Broadway) communicate changing time period; the technique is borrowed from there.
Great reaction, guys. Regarding the spiral staircase--not only did they use it acoustically, I think it symbolizes the whole story and the endless cycle of abuse.
With a background in classical literature, this feels very much like Chaucer would have been had he lived now. Classics were often a social commentary put in an educational format that was easily digestible. One of my favourite authors said that the two greatest ways to educate people is through comedy or through music. I would also add that the medium of tragedy is an effective literary device as well for educating people. Ren brings them all together in this song but his comedy is satirical in this song.
I'm still not used to seeing the 100K subscribers. Congrats again, guys!
I think "reinventing music" is more possible when you look at his guitar training: he wasn't. According to an earlier interview, he had 2 guitar lessons: neither made any sense to him (he blamed his ADHD). When there was something he wanted to learn, he canvassed youtube videos until he found one he could learn from, and used that. His earliest training seems to have consisted of getting videos of Jimi Hendrix, slowing them way way down, and learning to follow what he did. No classical training. He commented on chromatic scales, and said he'd figured them out early because he liked them, and eventually learned that there was a name for it. He follows his ears. My guess is that this is why he's so successful at mashing up different styles and genres, they aren't put in separate boxes to begin with, but are "music". The man has EARS.
Ren said a few days ago (on a Twitch livestream, I think?) that the total cost of making the Violet's Tale video was $500 (five HUNDRED, not thousand). 🤣🤣🤣 The hospital was obviously not a hospital, and the bed was a child's bed with no legs so they had to get creative with the camera angle LOL
Another thing I noted was that Ren says 'Jenny felt strange as if there was something in the air' just before me bumped into her twin, Screech. There is a lot of stories of telepathy between twins, if they hadn't experienced that 'twin' feeling before so it would have been confusing not knowing what it was, which may have added to Jenny's freezing and Screech freaking out and killing her.
thats dope x
Lets not make more of it than it actually is.
Yes, @chrisparti... Absolutely! I've been thinking this all a long... Part of the "divine intervention" he mentions... It's very real indeed...
Except violet's tale came out a couple years later. Jenny and screech's tale was written about something that really happened. I think Ren just decided to put a different twist on it two years later. Unless he already had it written and just didn't release it till two years later.
@kevinsykes2549 thsts a good pount, I have wondered about that too. Did Ren have the trilogy planned, or was Violets tale a clever addition.. If it's the latter, it blows my theory out of the water 😆
I've been waiting so long for someone to mention the waltz-time in Screech's tale!
Me too!
His biggest project yet that he's working on has a £1000 ($1250) budget. Ren is going all out lol. It says so much about what he's been up to so far, and what he could do with the millions that he should be given to work with.
You all commented on the descending, sung chromatic scale at the beginning of Violet's tale. The descending chromatic scale is a trope signifying death, forecasting Violet's fate before a word is spoken. The fact that Ren gets that--knowingly or just intuitively-- without classical training is astounding.
I knew Andiroo would like this one! Great reaction ❤ Since the last twitch stream, whenever I see the start of Violet's tale in the "hospital room" now all I can think about is how they bought a child's bed by mistake and notice how comically small it is 😂
That was a hilarious tale! They had to somehow prop the bed up cos it was too low.. 😂
Loved that story too. 😂
I just keep picturing them sawing a whole rack of other people's bikes off the wall. Ren, Sam, and Josh do NOT eff around when they're going for their guerilla video shoots. 🤣
@@kellyvan7228 😂😅😅😅
I do love his twitch get-togethers
@@icyravens wait, what?
Just to clarify the Hi Ren one take discussion…the audio is all done in one take live (which was take 3 out of the 4 that recorded)…most of the video is from that third take they did, but for certain parts of the video, they used shots from the other takes (i.e. the close ups where he’s standing up).
Second this^
Just keep your eye on the mic on his hospital gown, you'll see it change position during the video.
@@mariogansbeke There are close-up shots at the end, as others point out. The first sign of a second takebeing included that I've noticed is when he first makes eye contact with the camera, because they cut to a second shot and he's looking at that camera as well. This is after the breakdown/possession verse when he goes back to the "Hi Ren..." verse.
Are you saying that the mic can be seen in different locations prior to that last verse? During the back and forth opening verse?
Sam said that only the end monologue was a different take.
Nah. It’s one take mate.
Almost 3 years between the first to the last and the tale of jenny is 4 years old, need to take that into account when you talk about the soundproduction
Hi Andiroo, Black Pegasus great to see you guys doing another Ren reaction together. This story always gets me, Ren can story tell and write. I'm starting to notice with these reactions there has been more technical obs, its great. Awesome...👍☝️🖼☝️🎇😌
@Andrewyourpicture
Ren has mentioned that he was not classically trained and that he can’t break the rules as he doesn’t know them.
Which reminds me of a part of a one of my favorite books:
We spent countless hours discussing the craft of it. How songs fit together. How chorus and verse play against each other, about tone and mode and meter.
These were things I’d learned at an early age and thought about often. And though Denna was new to this study, in some ways that worked to her advantage. I’d learned about music since before I could talk. I knew ten thousand rules of melody and verse better than I knew the backs of my own hands.
Denna didn’t. In some ways this hampered her, but in other ways it made her music strange and marvelous. . . .
I’m doing a poor job of explaining this. Think of music as being a great snarl of a city like Tarbean. In the years I spent living there, I came to know its streets. Not just the main streets. Not just the alleys. I knew shortcuts and rooftops and parts of the sewers.
Because of this, I could move through the city like a rabbit in a bramble. I was quick and cunning and clever.
Denna, on the other hand, had never been trained. She knew nothing of shortcuts. You’d think she’d be forced to wander the city, lost and helpless, trapped in a twisting maze of mortared stone.
But instead, she simply walked through the walls. She didn’t know any better. Nobody had ever told her she couldn’t. Because of this, she moved through the city like some faerie creature. She walked roads no one else could see, and it made her music wild and strange and free.
I absolutely love this, it’s a perfect description. What book is it? Thank you so much for sharing.
@@Beckaj5446 it’s from the second book of the Kingkiller Chronicle, called Wise Man’s Fear, by Patrick Rothfuss.
The first book is The Name of the Wind. We’ve been waiting on book three for quite some time, but I’m hopeful. The series has been beautifully written so far. And it’s peculiar how many parts of the stories line up with things about Ren.
That's a very longwinded way of saying someone has natural talent 😅
So here for this 🤩
I only noticed after a couple of listens, but I really like the way that Ren "moves forward in time" just before the hospital scene at the end. I don't have the ear for it, but I would not be surprised if it was the exact opposite of the guitar run he played to "go back in time"
Correct the rewind is the opposite scale of the fast forward
Always a pleasure seeing BP and Andy together doing a reaction to my fav artist Ren! The Tales are so well executed and they tweak all of our senses! Thank you ❤
Love the reactions! I never noticed the focus part either (I have probably seen this trilogy about 50-100 times now). Thanks for pointing it out BP, much love, congrats once again on the 100k. Have a great day!
Hello Andy. Nice reaction with some great insights guys. Big congrats on 100k🦇
LOL Andy, you got me as a new sub when you mentioned Skyrim. 🎶🔥😎💖 BP, great reaction! I absolutely love seeing you bring in new folks and introduce them to artists. Bless you, brother.
Love music 123&4
Would love to see him back!
That kid is super smart ✌🏼
Andiroo is the only reactor, I think, to bop his way happily all through the violent scene😂😂😂
There is a few I’ve come across, they fully give in to the artistry and just enjoy the performance. Usually it’s an internal struggle the whole time, between wanting to be impressed by the talent and cringing at the violence being depicted.
@@Beckaj5446 It's mostly not paying attention to the lyrics to closely. Or, at the very least not thinking about the subtle story line.
I think he was appreciating how Ren was able to keep lyrical rhythm without any music in that section.
I literally think about 100 different things when reacting to these, so occasionally the lyrics end up vague to me 😭 and then I rewatch it after and I’m like “oh shit how’d I miss that” 😂
@@itsandiroo That is why I dislike the "first time listening" reactions. Especially those that the lyrics are so important to the piece.
I love how much focus you put into watching a video you ve seen sozens of times. It leads you to notice yet new things
Ren is just mad talented.. those guitar skills 😮
I'm a 49 yr old industrial/goth 25 yr clubber...Ren is my new fav
HAHAH I love this
You got to 100k because you're bloody brilliant. I wish I'd found your channel much sooner. I reckon 200k subs will come this year. Totally deserved: you're that good.
Love your reactions with Andy!
@21:56 interesting to see people acknowledge that US underground is now following the UK. US started it but from the Hip Hop scene, UK underground music has always evolved quicker, maybe cos we're a smaller Island?
Ren tells the stories and the filming of the stories are all done so well i found myself looking for the bodies laying on the ground. The saddest thing about this is the fact each of these things are happening in every country at this very moment and the cycle continues
Yay, finally a reactor has spotted the focusing of the camera with the eye lids lyric. Awesome
That is so great! Pls stay in touch!
I’m so very happy! Great choices here❤❤❤❤
Welcome back Andiroo! Great reaction once again guys 😎 Yes Money Games pt1 next, I think you will be suitably impressed 💜👍🏼
Love when Andiroo comes thru. The song you both collab'd on is great also!
The best part about you inviting the "young guy" in is that I believe his young mind has to be ON FIRE after this. And that's the whole thing that Ren brings about. Completely changing the game and the idea of what music and what the music video is. My guess is that this will help him be even more creative than I can already tell that he is. It's like a whole new world was opened to him. I'll be interested to see how he runs with it.
I love when you have Andiroo on, keep having him visit - always great convos & he knows so much! :D
I love the conversations that come out of Andy's reactions. Now, if you could get Andy and Joe E Sparks in a reaction together with you for a few of Ren's pieces, that'd be tight.
If Ren were in Skyrim, he'd be the head of the Bard's College.
Loved it, Always Great, nice to see a shift in his music, this is my fav, like In Story telling Musically , love his play, he just captivates me in this whole trilogy !!!!💯 💯
Great review guys! Always great to hear Andy’s perspective. Thanks guys!
I think his bard intros kind of tells the stories before he sings it. Especially in Violet’s tale. Listen again and see if you see/hear what I mean.
Great reaction!! More reaction with Andy!!
Nooooo waaaay!
Something legendary doth cometh!!
Yessss! Another Andiroo adventure! Love listening to you picking up on the musicality. Represent for us musos
Love Andyroo’s insights on this, always a pleasure to see you two react together x
As a classically trained pianist as well, I appreciate Andi's musical insight.
Yo its not even a Monday but I love it and I'm here for it
Congratz on 100k.
Well deserved
Great reaction video lads.....
Thanks!
thank you ❤️
I LOVE THIS!! I also believe that “Hi, Ren” was mostly one take, but there were cuts. His hand positions between when he said “newsflash” and started playing…it’s obvious. That was a cut.
Also: the “chromatic” run was not actually even completely chromatic. And it is one of my favorite runs I’ve ever heard in my life. And I’m old. And stupid. And I’m needs a lover. I love this guest. And I love this channel. You guys make me love music so much more. I appreciate you so much.
And I am so with your guest that this is probably not him classically trained. This is a dude like Edward Van Halen, who he obviously took creative lessons from for the violet’s tale video.
Really love the reactions you two do!! Keep em coming
Hellz yeah! Let’s go! 🎉
Well done andy. You are right, Hi Ren has an edit. They had to edit to get one of the cameras off the tripod and into a hand held for the monologue at the end…. I’ve stated this on almost all of bps hi Ren reactions, lol
If you want to hear a great breakdown of this song go to Virgin rocks analysis that lady is a historian and delves into what ren does from the Medieval Times
I think he told Justin Hawkins that he has no idea what the rules of music even are. There's no rhyme or reason (pun intended) to how he writes music. He just comes up with stuff he likes and then finds clever ways to put it all together.
A lot of people missed the fact that Jenny was the same age as screech she's only 14! out on the streets in heels in the middle of the night 😮that's not a very good sign of what she was doing😢
Yeah and there is even a line that says "shed walked it a thousand times before". So it does allude to her having a less than ideal life. This series of songs does highlight the idea of generational trauma
To be fair though he didn’t associate them as brother and sister at the time of writing the initial tales so Jenny could have been any age - though no doubt young.
It wasn’t until a few years later that he actually associated them together and tied the stories in through Violets tale to reveal they where twins - so in a later aspect yes he was insinuating Jenny was a Prostitute at 14
And Paddington (along with kings cross) is streetwalkers central!
Something that is theorized is that violet is pregnant from her own father. That's why she's able to get a welfare flat at 16. Also explains why Stevie keeps accusing her of being a liar. She was pregnant when they met.
Generational trauma x a billion.
Yes and one of the other commentators mentioned that it’s based of a true story off a 14 yr old killing a prostitute. I never quite understood why a 14 yr old would be in high heels walking the streets at night she walked so many times before. Crazy how I missed that, I thought I knew the story inside out. Poor Jenny and RIP the woman who actually died.
You're the first person I've seen who has commented on the eye/focus thing. It was something I spotted when I first watched the video but have been surprised that despite watching so many reactions to it, no-one even saw fit to comment on it (which suggests they either didn't notice, or didn't realise that it was intentional).
This is a great reaction! Love it when you bring him in!
Andiroo--i hear you on the "pub music" call...first thing i thought was the minstrel from The Witcher, no? i still love that guy's tune, and Ren may be channeling that just a bit.
the thing Ren does better than anyone i can think of is his variations on vocal inflection, pacing, and the force he uses in plucking and/or strumming on his guitar to share the immediacy and intensity of the moment in the more urgent parts of a given song. for instance, when it's revealed the Violet is preggers and breaks her silence...it's an urgency she uses to beg the doctor to save her baby. babies (but she didn't know it was two of them).
musical theater directors would LOVE to have Ren as both writer AND performer because of all that. boy's got so many skills, and not just decent at a lot of things, but OUTSTANDING at all he does. you can tell, even, that if he narrowed his focus for awhile and worked just on guitar, he absolutely could become an absolute shredder.
Great reaction guys... One Love ✊🏽
OMG I LOVE BARD CORE ! Please do a reaction to get it on the map!
I love how you Black Pegasus watch Ren like it's your very first time seeing him every time
Great reaction and I hadn't noticed the blurred vision before "Stevie pinches her eyelids and folds them up" and then it's suddenly clear vision..lots of information and great breakdown!
Never get tired of watching your reactions! Andy is one of my favorites of your guests!
Great comments about the musicality from Andyroo. Bring him back for Money Game and then Losing It to lighten the mood 😎
BP WE LOVE ANDIROO ❤❤❤❤ He needs to be on full time 🎉🎉
Hi Ren is not 1 take per se, Sam said they used different take on the spoken work at the end, but the song itself is a 1 take.
I have stated this so many times on this channel, but always gets missed.
Only because they used a hand held camera for that part.
@@NicksGotBeefI see you say that all the time. 🤣🤣 I even know that by now.
Glad to see Andiroo back again...that's awesome. I love all the guests!!
Love reactions with Andiroo - knew he would love this. He should definitely check out MG1.
I also love watching BP going back to different Ren videos and picking out new elements each time - much like us as fans too - listening to other peoples ideas about what Ren’s thought processes were/may have been.
Thanks for another great reaction. 🔥🔥
Interesting reaction. But the thing that grabbed me was your idea about inheritance of these two kids. It has its sense. Now I see it too. Thank you👍🏼
Obviously I'm happy that rens music is getting out there more but, it really does get better when you bring these other artist on to hear their point of view. Thanks BP seriously
It’s great as everyone adds or picks up on some thing different. 👍
nice!!!!! Glad to see andy back!!!!
To clear things up with the "one take" on Hi Ren: They did multiple One-Take-Shots (4 or 5 I think it was) and they had 1 cut in the version they used and this is right before the camera gets close to Ren near the end. It wasn't technically possible to pick the camera from the tripod when switching to the more shaky hand filmed stuff. So there it was cutted. Samuel explained that way better than me under one reaction video somewhere on youtube. Still impressive though.
I totally heard the bardcore during parts of this. I only know it because of seeing/hearing the medieval bard named Jaskier on Netflix’s The Witcher.
i love3 Andy's reactions. he seems like a very intelligent young man. something i noticed for the first time watching this reaction was, when Ren was tapping during the start of violets tale, it almost seemed like the sound of a hospital monitor. i don't know if that was intentional or not but, it something that stood out to me.
'Hi Ren' was a one-take per Ren. Or rather multiple one-takes and they chose the best. I think I will believe Ren if he tells us how they constructed the videos. Even 'Money Game I' was a one-take. However, per Ren there were over 100 actual takes before they got one they liked. 'Illest of Our Time' appears to not be a one-take. 'Suicide' was definitely not a one-take since he added on the 2nd half after discussion with others. Ren also has a live version of the Tales posted that is amazing. There was a clip of a video of a live version of 'Hi Ren' too but cannot find the full version of that song.
Yes, that busking version of the tales is great. Shows what a command Ren holds over his audience.
There's also a video to go along with the Trilogy called "In morte, ut in vita, numquam partiemur". ruclips.net/video/KMaLHODne5c/видео.html I think it was used as a promo tease video prior to the release of Violet's Tale.
Yes, awesome reaction with Andy, he adds soo much detail. Do Money Game!!!
Best reaction❤❤
You can tell that Andy is a trained musician.
I looked and couldn't see you doing a reaction to Ren's video Crutch (with Bibi). Apologize if I missed it but it's my favourite so I always check to see if anyone does that one. It was written from before his diagnosis and it's haunting and beautiful. Hopefully you've seen it, it's worth the time.
He was a busker..that's how he mastered FX..... not from expensive software..but from his ears in different environments.
For ‘Bard” think Alan o’dale in the Disney cartoon Robin Hood. A (medieval)singing minstrel telling news through song as he travels from village to village.
Never noticed he plays so much with tempo in Screech's tale before this. The signature is 3/4 for part of the intro, and then 4/4. But the tempo slides around kinda crazily- usually every time he changes voice, though the "bard" voice takes some of the load by stretching his slides. That's clever, because a lot of it is constantly very slightly increasing the tempo measure to measure, and the bard bleeds off some of that tension.
Back in 1976 the Aussie band done a song called jailbreak this song also had sound effects of guitars into guns!! You should have a look.
Duude you crack me up as you mouth so many words
Love all of your reactions, and the original content too. I also love the incredible artistry and skill of the one-takes. If you haven’t checked out any OK Go videos they are the king of the one take music videos. Favourites include This too shall pass (incredible Rube Goldberg machine version better than marching band version but either is great), White Knuckles (best one take featuring dogs ever!), upside down and inside out (zero gravity one take), or I won’t let you down (mass choreography is amazing). Definitely worth a look visually and musically.
So Andy's disbelief that Hi Ren is a one-take is interesting to me because I recently watched a reaction from a musician (not going to list their channel because I don't want people swarming the video to argue) who said that Hi Ren was absolutely recorded in a studio, just from the way it sounds. And if you pay attention to the difference in sound quality from the end of the song to the start of the monologue, there's definitely a difference in mic ambiance (I'm probably using the wrong words-I'm not a sound guy lol). That doesn't mean he's correct, or that Hi Ren isn't a live one take, but it did serve as a good reminder to me that there's things that the Ren fandom-and by extension, a lot of reactors-take as fact and spread around and fervently believe in ("Ren was signed to Sony Records and got dropped when he got sick" is a good example), but is, at best, a distortion of the truth (Ren was signed to a label owned by Sony, and their parting was mutual; you can see how the truth spins into the more dramatic "good guy/bad guy" version that gets spread around, but it paints a very inaccurate picture of what happened).
I've got enough faith in Ren that if I heard him say Hi Ren was a live recording, one take video, that would absolutely settle the question for me (I don't think I've heard him comment at all on Hi Ren, but I've been lagging on all the interviews because they're so danged long lol). And his track record with obviously live one takes (Jenny/Screech, Money Game) makes me fairly happy to consider Hi Ren one as well unless proven otherwise. But it does give me pause when reactors with studio experience find that assertion to be dubious.
Ultimately, it shouldn't really matter, right? Being a live one take or a recorded song with a matching video is a matter of technical execution, not artistic end result. The fandom flashes the "live one take" as a badge of honor, as if THAT is what will prove to people that it's an amazing song. No, it's an amazing song because it's an amazing song, not because there's something inherently "extra" about being a live one shot.
I'd be really curious as to Andy's take on Ren's live collaborations with Chinchilla, Chalk Outlines and How To Be Me. Partly because they're great songs, and partly because I'd be curious about his opinion on the recording of those.
Andys break down is awesome 👌
I think Jenny was a prositute. 14 year old with high heels? wallking the same street a thousand times. It would be equal to Screechs career path.
I've never heard a commenter realize this, but it's obvious that Jenny is an underage prostitute (e.g. "streetwalker"). That adds a new layer of tragedy to the story. "She had been wanting to escape..."
Interesting to me, though such a minor detail, but I've never seen a reactor mention the only video cut in this whole trilogy. Guitar intro to Screech's Tale, at 14:54 in this reaction vid (3:31 in the actual).