#milky up

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The fact that the Milky Up group is still hanging out makes my heart so happy. I love their friendship so much 🥰

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Build Up Episode 8 Recap Part 4: Uptown Funk

Hello! You know the drill -- this is my recap series for MNET’s Build Up. In the last one, I covered Waterfire’s cover of Drama by Aespa. In this one, I’ll cover Milky Up’s cover of Uptown Funk. Let’s do it!

It’s Milky Up’s turn on stage now. We see them backstage, doing their little cheer, in English: “Nobody ever believed in us. Show and Prove!” 

They come out and introduce themselves as different flavors of milk.

LTR: Geonu, Haram, Seohyung, and Soomin

Wow, look how funky Haram is! Normally, when people wear a baseball hat, they put the visor in the front, but he’s put it in the BACK! He is breaking loose! He’s going wild!!!!!!

Something awful happens and Geonu introduces himself as banana mlk and asks everyone “If you drink banana milk, will you fall for me?” And  like, everyone is over it, even Just B teammate Bain (“What’s he trying to do?”) and judge Jaehwan (“There he goes again…”) and me, BPR Noona (“Geonu, will you please stop???”). 

But I really love the haircut. 

Dahee comments that Soomin doesn’t look sleepy today the way he has other days, and Jaehwan asks what caused his change of heart. 

Soomin replies that he doesn’t know what the Korean term “change of heart” means -- it must be a “vocabulary” word in Korean, the kind you learn at school, and Soomin probably learned Korean at home from his family. Seohyung leans over and explains, in excellent English, what it means (“a change or a difference in your mind.” 

Once Soomin understands the question, he says something really interesting: “I don’t want to go home anymore.” 

This provides some serious context! Did Soomin want to go home the whole time? Was he unhappy and homesick? Aww, poor kid. He’s so calm and mature seeming that in some ways it’s easy to forget that he’s barely out of high school. It’s hard to be in a foreign country no matter how old you are. He doesn’t 100% speak the language, he’s not used to the culture, he probably doesn’t feel confident about little things like, how do you order at particular restauraunts, or how do you use the subway, that kind of thing. But then on top of it, to be really young and maybe away from your family for the first time, while also being in the high stakes environment of the show -- maybe he was really, really unhappy.  

They say he looked sleepy before, but looking at the pictures now, he looks sad.

It might explain why he came across as kind of obnoxious in some of the earlier episodes. I think we’ve all been there, right? We’re nervous, so we try too hard to act confident and it just comes across weird. 

In any case, the way he says it, it seems like maybe he’s been pretty open at times about wanting to go home…? Because no one is like, “wait, you’ve been wanting to go home?!?” They’re just glad that he doesn’t any more. 

The team promises to put on a good show, and we head into the flashback. This is actually a pretty cute little segment. It’s like an incredibly wholesome teen movie in miniature. So if you’re not in the habit of watching these clips, this is a good one to seek out.

Soomin looks really sad here, too.

Haram, the home-school kid, is going to hang out with the rest of the team for the first time. They want to teach him how to have fun.

Oh no! The terrifying blur is back! This time, it’s eating this poor stuffed animal’s face!! 

They surprise him with a little song  -- “We really wanted to see you! We really wanted to see you!” --and he’s totally overwhelmed. He doesn’t know what to do, so he SHAKES THE HANDS OF THE STUFFED ANIMAL.

Oh god, if this is really Haram’s personality, he’s basically the most precious cinnamon bun of them all. 

He interviews, “I’m an introvert. Honestly, it wasn’t easy at first.”

We find out that he specifically wore his sweater vest because he thought it would make him look cooler for his new friends. “Look how wide my pants are!” he says. “You look good,” Soomin says, kindly, then makes him super uncomfortable by unbuttoning the top button of his shirt for him. 

Haram interviews, “I thought I was on a hidden camera show.” 

Geonu says that when they picked him, they saw the “Young, wild and free nature” hidden inside him. Questionable, but sure!

Then they do a little skit where they pretend that they are just now thinking of doing Uptown Funk for their performance. Geonu asks Seohyung if he can do the deep tone right at the beginning. He says he can. But… can he? 

Haram actually really loves the song, and though at first he’s a bit reluctant, he gives in. He thought he was only suitable for sad and emotional songs, he says, but feels fearless when he's with this team. The other guys put him in some “cool clothes” -- a Metallica t-shirt and jeans. 

Then they have a cool kid disco rave in the living room. Oh, bless all their hearts. 

We cut ahead in time to their midterm evaluations at those round folding table in that high school gym. It hasn’t gone well -- most of the other teams have chosen them as the Low Tier team.

S w e a t e r and sadness

They decide they have to do something about it. They watch a video recording of their performance and Geonu says, “We look like we were forced to do it.” Haram agrees, and so do the others. Geonu encourages everyone to focus on looking happy, whether they look happy or not. So they decide to have a lot more fun. 

Then we get a montage of them having fun. They play games. They hang out at someone’s apartment and have dance-slumber parties. 

They eat tacos and just generally try to have fun. They want to have the best chemistry. 

Now it’s performance night! Backstage, the guys on the other teams aren’t sure what to expect. Sunyoul says that he’s worried about them -- it’ll either go great or terrible. Inhyuk says, not unkindly, “Honestly, this isn’t what Haram is good at.” Oof. 

The performance begins.

Full version without reactions.

My thoughts:

I have really mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, this was super fun and sweet to watch. On the other hand, it wasn’t really a vocal powerhouse performance, and in many ways it left something to be desired. 

I was ready to not like this performance much. Sure, I love Soomin’s vocals and I find both Haram and Seohyung personally quite endearing, but the whole “cool kid” vibe of the team was a bit off-putting. Also, Uptown Funk? What? It’s almost ten years old at this point -- Soomin would have been in elementary school when it came out. Hasn’t it been done to death? 

Counteroffer: I think they could have done a good job with Adore U by Seventeen. I mean, obviously the song they did worked out fine for them and all that, but I think Adore U would have been great for them and fit their vibe. I also really would want them to do Ugly Dance by ONF, even though it's obviously a bad idea. ONF even has a deep voice guy (Wyatt), so there’d be a part for Seohyung to do. I think it would be kind of perfect for their vibe -- a song about just letting go and having fun and not worrying about what you look like. But (a) it’s a song about dancing so they’d kind of have to dance and (b) it’s not a popular song so it wouldn’t be a smart choice to cover it. 

Anyway, we live in this world, and they did this song, and it came out really fun. All the stuff that the audience and judges enjoyed about it -- I enjoyed that too! Soomin’s vocal tone and big smile, Seohyung’s deep voiced sing-talking, Haram obviously having the time of his life, it all came together. Even Geonu’s dancing looked less cringey in this environment. They had the backup dancers and the enthusiasm and it was fun. 

But someone has to say this: vocally, there wasn't a lot here to really get excited about.

First off, Seohyung wasn’t hitting that deep note at the beginning. He was almost a semi-tone off a few times! He also doesn’t quite hit the higher notes in that “bass line” properly, either. He sings it slightly differently each time he runs through it. It’s not good. I feel like I’m in living in crazy land because no one is acknowledging this. He doesn’t really have control over those extremely low notes. 

Next, Geonu’s voice didn’t sound too great, honestly. I don’t want to go more into it because I talked a lot in these recaps about how weak I think Geonu’s voice is and I don’t want to keep dunking on the guy. 

Another problem is that there aren’t a lot of harmonies here. It’s not exactly vocally challenging most of the time. There are the high pitched "woo"s and that's about it.

Haram doesn’t get much of a chance to sing here, either, maybe because he had trouble learning the English lyrics or something. We hardly see him. What we hear of him sounds great -- he had that one big note -- but we don’t see much else. It was nice to see him doing something so different, though. Homeschool kid goes wild!

So, why did they win? I really think the audience just enjoyed getting up and dancing and having fun. This was probably a really long filming day and everyone was tired and stressed out and having a fun, familiar, exuberant, silly song with lots of backup dancers and confetti was just what they wanted. I think this succeeded because of three things: the song itself, Soomin, and Seohyung, in roughly that order.

Yes, I think the song was the main reason they won. I know that just a few paragraphs back I was saying they should have done other songs, and I still kind of think that. It's a paradox, right? I think they shouldn't have done this song even though it's this song that made them win--? But I don’t know if it’s right to win just because you pick a song that everyone likes to dance to, and then they dance to it. 

That said, I should add that when I first watched this, it was late at night and I was tired, and it made me happy to watch it and I watched it twice in a row. So there’s that.

I don’t know, gang. In the end this won, so I guess my mixed feelings about it don’t matter much. 

The MNET edit is absolutely adoring. Tons and tons of reactions and instant replays. We see that Dahee is having fun… 

And all the judges are dancing.

Everyone applauds and the guys are happy. Seohyung leans over to Soomin and says (in English), “We did our best, bro.” 

Dahee says, “I thought the original singer had come to Korea!” and everyone cheers. 

Jaehwan is still dancing, and I’d make a gif of it if it didn’t take me like 20 minutes to make a gif and I were feeling a bit better. I had some rough travel this week, my friends. Anyway. 

It’s time for the judges to actually vote, and the guys look nervous. 

Backstage, Park Jeup says…

“It’s round four. The judges shouldn’t get carried away…” 

I get the impression that at least some people feel the way I do -- that vocally, there wasn’t a ton to evaluate here, and that if we’re supposed to be making a vocal group, shouldn’t that be the point? I mean, think about the close harmonies in Drama, or the passionate vocals (and excellent harmonies) in Drowning and Guilty, and then compare that to this.

But the judges do in fact get carried away and they got a 96 -- from Vocal Coach Guy! Come on, Lee Seokhoon, I expect more from you!!! 

VCG says that their performance was completely unexpected and really good. He says that their live performance was better than the pre-recorded version.

Hey, VCG? Did you take a moment to compare the live vocals of Guilty to the studio version? Because I prefer the live vocals in that song, too. And that was a LOT more challenging of a song to sing. Their live vocals were insane. Just insane. Perfect. 

VCG goes on to confirm everything I’ve said, and I low key want to scream. “Your singing skills matter, of course,” he says, and then goes on to explain that they don’t because “despite the long hours of the shoot, you made everyone who’s tired excited.” THAT’S NOT THE SCORING RUBRIC, VCG.  Your name is VOCAL Coach Guy, not DANCE Coach guy. 

VCG also praises Seohyung’s low voice, which is fair. Aside from the stuff at the beginning that was off key, his low voice stuff was in fact a lot of fun.

Eunkwang compliments Geonu for not being cringey this time. It really feels like the judges are grading based on effort and improvement.

Backstage, Soomin and teammates congratulate teach other for their success.

And that’s basically it! 

I know that I've been a bit negative and cranky here so want to repeat that I really did enjoy Milky Up's performance. If this was Boys Planet I'd be delighted by this. Soomin has such a gorgeous voice and I want to keep hearing him sing, and I think Seohyung’s deep voice brings something really special to the team. The performance was super fun to watch and I’m not saying they should have gotten criticized. I just don’t think this team displayed their skills here very much and it’s criminal that they got such a high score. I’m pretty sure that if they had gone first, they would have gotten a much lower score. The judges were just tired and punchy. Sigh.

Thanks as always for reading my recaps. You’re the best! <3 

Take care and I’ll see you in the next one, when we cover team DoReMeFa!