The Drums of Persona Shopping

This is going to be the most ridiculously specific thing I have ever written about.

I write way too much about Persona already. If you couldn’t tell, I do have a certain fondness for the series. A lot of what I love is the small stuff, where you can clearly tell effort and care was placed into even the tiniest of things. So, in the spirit of that, I’m gonna talk about the drum track to one song in Persona 5, specifically, Butterfly Kiss.

So, some background quick; if you haven’t played Persona 5 (how dare you), this is the song that plays when you visit Tae Takemi, the resident doctor and medicine shop of the game. It’s background music for your shopping, basically. So keep that idea of what it’s meant for in mind, and let’s dive right in…

...Into some drum terminology! Hehe. I promise, this’ll be quick and painless.

Hi Hat: The cymbal you see drummers tapping on all the time. I’ll be talking about two kinds of hits here, taps and crashes. Taps are quick and quiet, crashes are longer and louder.

Snare: You know that sharp snap of a drum beat you hear during songs? That’s the snare. You’ll pick up on it quick.

Beats: Count “1 2 3 4” over and over to yourself to the beat of the song. Congrats, you now have the skeleton of how drum beats are counted.

And that’s about it! Here’s the song, and let’s get going:

So, to establish the beat of the song that lasts until about 40 seconds in, let’s get our bearings. This beat can be quite chaotic at first, so to steady yourself, focus on the loud snare hit every few seconds. That snare hits on the “4” of the “1 2 3 4” beat mentioned above. To make it simpler: the beat loops after every snare hit. Now, in that timeframe is where we’re gonna focus.

The progression of beats (this isn’t tied to the 1 2 3 4, just fits in the time from 1-4) overall goes:

Crash - Tap Tap Tap - Crash - Snare - Crash - Tap Tap Tap - Crash - Snare

This beat almost breaths as it goes. It goes from the quiet taps, to the louder crash, to the loud BANG on the snare, then back to the crash, then the taps, and on and on it goes. It’s got this up and down rhythm to it that makes the song feel like it’s never standing still, even at the lowest, most calm moments. It’s really good beat variance, and most importantly, it never feels like it’s jumping around or being sudden, as a more casual, shopping theme should. It’s just good work all around.

Of course, the song can’t stay like this forever, and when shifting to the next bit (0:40), we’re going into steady triplets on the hi-hat. You’ll hear the snare every 6 taps, and 2 hits on the bass drum in between. Basically, the point of this part is meant to be a climax to the song of sorts, going smooth, steady, and high intensity, while keeping it not overwhelming by never throwing in any odd, off beat hits.

As the song comes off this height, it doesn’t quite go back into the beat from before right away. A variation of the earlier beat plays right after the high point (1:10). This version has the hi hat constantly going in the background at a much louder volume. As well, the snare hits much earlier and much more suddenly in this section compared to the first one. This is a sort of cool down period, taking a half step from the more intense part so it doesn’t jump up and down, keeping the smooth feeling of the song going.

And that’s basically all the differences in the drum beat throughout the song! These beats aim to create interesting, constantly changing beats while also trying to keep it from jumping around. To achieve this, the song keeps the individual, low energy beats breathing up and down smoothly, while relying on the high energy segments to carry it by themselves. In between these beats, it takes careful pains to make the transitions as smooth as possible. It’s a beat and song that never feels like it’s standing still, always feeling like it’s moving in a unique and interesting way. It’s just another feather in Persona 5’s impressive musical cap.

Blooming Villain: A Top Tier Boss Theme

I am a complete and utter drum nerd. I love drums. I listen to the drum track of songs far, FAR too much. And because of that, I was kinda flipping out when I heard Persona 5’s boss theme, Blooming Villain, which is a heavily drum based track. There’s plenty of other cool parts to this song, but the drums are what carry it through and make the song so heavy and so gosh dang good. 

We begin with 4 heavy thuds on the drum, going immediately into hi-hat hits at the same pace. This pattern is what makes up the first 25 seconds or so of the song, and it sets the stage for what is really a song driven by the drums. Every time the drums beat, they overtake the melody in the background, which is actually fairly unusual for a standard beat. The cymbals clicking away keep the beat constantly going, and to make sure when the drums do hit it’s a lot more impactful.

The other half of this opening segment is the deep, almost ghastly wail going on. While it provides some nice instrumentation, i guess, the real value in this comes from the tone it sets. It comes across as dark and deeply menacing, while also building things up, like you’re gearing up to fight some evil force. Very appropriate for a boss theme.

Ok, so for the song proper, the drums get kind of complex but also super interesting so we’re gonna have to break it down a little bit. To start, you can tell that the hi hat is now being slammed down upon on every quarter note (starts at 0:25). After 2 loops, the main quarter note beat then swaps from a hi hat to the ride cymbal (at 0:38), making the beat ring rather than crash. The ride cymbal is moreso used for continuing beats, so it’s smart to switch to this halfway through the verse to give the song more of a steady feel and lay back on the intensity for a bit. Another thing you’ll notice is that the snare drum is hitting all over the place, but typically in between the main 4 “beats”, adding some chaos to the song.

The next 20 or so seconds (starting at 0:50) are purely a bass riff with hi hat hits going at the same time. The most interesting bit here is the snare hits: again, they’re off the main 4 beats, but when you combine that with how normally understated this segment is, it catches you off guard and makes a much bigger impact than the offbeat hits earlier. Besides that, this lull in the song really adds weight to the next bit. Most of the song is running at high intensity, so in order to make the “climax” of sorts in the song sound more impactful, they added a very low key segment before it to build it up by being quiet, ironically enough.

When transitioning to the final part, a quick pause with 2 guitar chords kicks it off, which is fitting for the only part of the song where the drums take a backseat (being in the background with your standard rock beat). I don’t honestly have much to say on this part, just that it’s an excellent release of tension and really explodes into the grand feel these boss fights give.

And that’s Blooming Villain, surprisingly only a minute and a half long before it loops. The rest of the song has some minor differences, but overall I’ve covered the meat of the song here. It’s rather impressive how a 90 second loop can sustain up to 20 minute encounters, but that’s the beauty of variance and pacing a song properly. Truly one of Persona 5’s best tracks.

Persona in the information age

I am so glad to see a game that tackles the information age in such a head on way. Besides Persona 5, the only game in recent memory that uses this a lot is Watch Dogs 2, and even then that’s mainly just a way to call your experience points a “follower count”.

Spoiler warning

Persona 5 doesn’t do much with it to influence the gameplay, but when I realized it was gonna impact the story, I almost squealed. A very long RPG is the perfect medium to see how information spreads day by day, and how public opinion changes. And to see how your actions influence what the public is saying, and how your group reacts to that, is simply one of the best parts of the game’s story.

It is absolutely drenched in public opinion. You walk down the street and you hear public chatter about whatever news is on their minds. Gossip and rumors abound when you’re in school. Sometimes at the end or start of the day the game will cut to more public whispers. And finally, you’ve always got the Phantom Thieves popularity bar down in the right corner, with messages from users on their opinion of you.

Before I go any further, this is excellent worldbuilding by itself! I honestly wouldn’t care if this was all there was. It makes the world feel alive and breathing, it tells you what others think, it gives even a basic walk down the street to buy some medicine a worldbuilding experience. Simply going about your day is how the game builds character for the city, and it’s brilliant. There’s no need for exposition on the world when you get it every few seconds naturally.

However, there’s more to it than that. Besides just being good worldbuilding, it’s also integrated into the story quite well. The slow climb at the start making your fights seem important yet unknown. Your skyrocketing popularity that almost proves to be your group’s undoing. We see a fantastic showing of how public opinions swings almost overnight after you’re framed for murder.

People react realistically to it too. It ends up being a great source of character development and understanding. Ryuji, for example, lets a lot of it go to his head. He wants to be a source of hope for people, and have their exploits be shown and appreciated by all. But through that, he understands that this sort of world is very volatile, and public opinion swings like mad.

This is all, well, very realistic? It’s one of the main reasons why Persona 5 is so grounded, because we live that world of information every day. It’s refreshing to see a game not strictly about communication tackle it so head on, because this is a part of life nowadays that affects everything. It leads to one of the most realized worlds I’ve experienced in a game, and I really do hope that it leads to more games set in a more modern world. It’s a brilliant tool for storytelling.

Persona and Sound

The music of Persona 3 and 5 is super, super interesting. They’ve both got different styles and all that, obviously, but the intent and how each soundtrack works with the game is quite different.

(Also i won’t be looking at 4 because it’s somewhere in the middle and I want to look at a clear dichotomy. Sorry 4, your ost was killer though)

Basically, 3’s soundtrack is informed by the tone and themes, and 5’s soundtrack informs the tone and themes. That sound kinda pretentious? Well, yeah, but it’s actually a pretty important distinction. 3’s soundtrack carries the themes and tone of the game. Every song on the ost feels like it was written in close consultation with the writers, and it really shows. Whereas in 5, it almost feels like the entire soundtrack was composed first, and the writers wrote a story from that basepoint.

This is probably very confusing so let’s compare the main themes, Burn My Dread, and Wake Up, Get Up, Get Out There. They’re both very very good songs, and accomplish very different things.

Let’s start with Persona 3. Burn My Dread is a song about the themes of the game, and as a piece of music is very much in service to them. It doesn’t vaguely establish a tone, it directly and pointedly sets up what the themes are, the activities and locations you go through every day. "Dreamless dorm". "Windless night". "I still live". Those lyrics are to the point and powerful, and given great prominence and space between them. Of course, in doing so it does give up some song flow, and overall I’d say is a weaker song than P5’s theme, however it makes up for it in being a song that tells a story, and it’s themes.

Persona 5 goes for a more conventional song, with a much different effect. It vaguely sets up a tone, and a vibe that’ll last throughout the game. While that sounds not as strong as 3’s, it’s a really damn strong tone setter. The story of P5 is very grounded (well, for persona) and has a lot of conflicting themes that all work in story, but they alone cannot establish a tone. That’s where songs like this theme come in, tying together all the elements with a sound that brings it all together. Listen to it, then listen to 3’s theme. You’ll almost certainly come away with a better idea of what 5 is like than what 3 is like. It’s smartly made, and while the songs aren’t as evocative as 3, they serve just as important a role and are excellently done.

I really don’t wanna get into which one is better, because that would be a, uh, bloodbath. I have my preferences (read: i prefer 3) but on the whole it’s super interesting to see how each game uses sound to reinforce, inform, and establish story and themes in the game, and they both do a top notch job of it.