“They make me violate them.”

Have I mentioned lately my love-hate relationship with Engrish? While painful to listen to, it’s always good for quick amusement when reading, yes.

English is more and more prevalent in Japanese pop music, and artists that are fluent in English become heralded more. As a result, it becomes a bit disappointing to hear said performers sing even one oddly-worded line when obviously, they know better. But there are also the lyricists who know English quite fluently, and their lyrics can be a joy to hear, especially since they’re often the ones singing as well. But that variety’s just a part of life.

On the other end of the spectrum though, you have songs in full English that seem to be fine. When the lines are read individually, that is. Altogether, though, you get a picture that’s odd and amusing at once. Case in point: the lyrics to MELL’s Red fraction.

With a smile and a song…

There are obviously many reasons why people like Japanese music. One:

…actually, I’m too lazy to make them up right now, I’ll get back to you on that?

Regardless, in keeping with that, there are many ways to enjoy this particular fandom. But let’s focus on one in particular: karaoke! There’s a reason why those instrumental tracks are included with so many singles, and not just for appreciation of the music behind the vocals. By the same token, there’s a reason why karaoke is oft referred to as “the national pastime of (East) Asia”, and not just because Asians are crazy people who like to burst randomly into song on the streets. (No, actually, I think that’s just me. In the streets of New York City. Halfway around the world from East Asia.)

Admittedly, instrumental versions aren’t limited to just Japan’s releases, but given their music release system features singles more heavily than albums, it’s certainly more beneficial to include them. And while most casual fans and those more focused on the actual artists will have no use for the instrumentals as a tool to use in their fandom-inspired activities, they are seeing a use.

The more vocal fans of JPop have arrived. Or rather, their era has.

For the most part, they’ve been helped by various lyrics sites like Cori’s, the Cherryblossom Garden, Megchan’s, or AnimeLyrics (whether you’re a supporter of the .tv site or the .com site) for those who don’t know Japanese, don’t have a copy of the official lyrics, find it easier to read romaji than kana, or are just plain lazy. Then there are the torrents, uploading sites, IRC channels, and massive media communities, all of which make getting the songs (and instrumentals) much easier.

But the best part of gifts is giving, right? (Personally, I tend to like the receiving… you may shoot me now.) And the Internet is more than happy to oblige. There are sites like SoundClick, a site set up for promoting amateur musicians but used more often by the Japanese Music fan community to share their recordings. There are subforums dedicated to fan covers in various forums – most notably Soompi and Tokyo-Nights, but also many others, even those dedicated only to a particular artist/group of artists. Some places even hold “American Idol” style contests, like AnimeSuki. And naturally, there are the cover groups – Sekai no Melody, Ongaku! Project, ShuffleMoni, and other smaller ones who are just beginning to spread.

Actually, I’m surprised that so many of them are for Hello! Project (and as a side, anime). You’d think that with all these fangirls for these boybands, there’d be more cover groups for them, but with the exception of the 6-Feet-Under Do-ki Doki Project over at wFL Forums, I haven’t seen any. (As an aside, that was my own introduction to the concept of cover groups. Shame it’s become a bit of a ghost town forum.)

Getting back, though… those who sing, sing because they enjoy it, and it shows clearly. A lot of them are relatively talented as well, with some nice voices to listen to and some covers turning out even better than the original song itself. None of these girls (and rarely, guys) are professionals, but they know what matters when singing, and isn’t that all that really counts?

It’s certainly been interesting to watch this sub-community develop out of the JPop-fandom, but even more so because it’s one that wasn’t done out of necessity. Media-sharing? News-conveying? Reviews/Analysis? Lyrics/Translations? All have been relatively important to the development of Japanese music fandom as we know it today and you might easily say that the people at the head can be considered the “Big Name Fans” of this particular fandom, spreading the word and helping fans gather.

But it’s time one of the more fun, lesser-known aspects had some light shed on it, too.

w-inds.’ Single Mega… Flop.

Hopping on the bandwagon (is there even a bandwagon for this sort of thing?), w-inds. released a Mega-Mix single album disc.

This comes 9 singles and three albums after their ~bestracks~ album. While you can claim that ~bestracks~ is an actual best-of album all you want, I’m going to refer to it as a Single Compilation with four iffy tracks stuck in.

Here, all 21 of their singles are included in the 23-minute titular w-inds. Single Mega-Mix track. So not only is this “Single Compilation Part 2″, do the math. That’s very slightly over a minute for each single. Just enough to squeeze the chorus and a stanza or two in.

fragile they are not.

Here’s a take on a boyband: Pretty boys. They wear makeup and clothing that makes them look naturally beautiful. They sing. They look shiny. They leech money off fangirls.

Now here’s a take on a visual-kei band: Pretty(-ish) boys. They wear makeup and clothing that makes them look gothically beautiful. They sing. They look feminine. They leech money off fangirls.

Now here’s AcQuA-EP: Pretty(-ish) men. They wear makeup and clothing that puts them somewhere between casual and punk. They sing. They look… shiny. (I think. I’m having a hard time on that one.) And of course, they leech money off fangirls.

チューする? (Chu suru?)

I think it’s only appropriate to kick off this shiny new blog with a shiny new video.

But oh my god. The shiny. It burns.

It should be illegal to be so bright and shiny and happy and shiny and youthful and… shiny.

avex, what have you done!? (Also, I should probably be shot for using “shiny” so much.)

I return! Like a ninja in the night…

Wait, never mind. You don’t want me to finish that.

Well, I can’t honestly say I didn’t see it coming (and if I did, you all know it was a blatant lie), so we’ll leave my reaction at that. Though I do find it amusing that this occured the day after I’d posted about a group that had given their permission for their music to be shared.

let it beat! has been deleted/suspended for violating (such a dirty word to use in reference to a bunch of text) WordPress.com’s Terms of Service. And I know which part, too. Kind of hard not to, considering they shut down a bunch of other Japanese music blogs on the same day.

So welcome to Minna STAR – ramblings of a fangirl 2.0. Another blog, another AAA song.

I won’t say things aren’t going to be bigger – how much more of my text can you take? Nor will I say things are going to be better – because let’s face it, there is so much better stuff to read out there, but that isn’t me.

I will say that there’s not going to be as much, if any, media on this blog though. I’m too lazy to go through this particular hassle again, and hey, this is a free service I’m using. I don’t have the right to complain.

Yes, I’m serious.

…

Well, there goes 99% of my “readers”.