The Promotional Parade [July 2008]

Well, it’s been over a full year since I last did one of these. And why yes, this is oooooooooold. Half a year old. But I started this before my school term started again, before my Internet crashed, and before I lost my faithful laptop of 6-7 years. I have it, I poured hours into it, and so this is getting stuck up here anyways. Give it a look through anyways – if you have my taste in music you may find something new. Or you may just have fun when I poke fun too.

My Five Favorite Men in Japanese Pop

Partially inspired by Randi’s Top 20 Asian Females post over at pink_wota, partially because after a recent JE-fandom wankfest post that sprung up on LJ I need to remind myself who I love and why I love them, and also just because.

Also because I’m procrastinating on the other 19 posts I have waiting to be written on this blog. (Some go back to… March. When I started this version of the blog. Ouch.)

Unsurprisingly, you will see Johnny’s on here. Very unsurprisingly, you will see AAA on here. (At least, I would hope that’s very unsurprising to you. If not, you haven’t read this blog much, have you?) Because this is a list of only 5 men and all of them in primarily music-based careers. If we were to throw in actors, the list would be longer, include a variety of ages (including one Terajima Susumu and one Yamamoto Taro), and be somewhat less personal and pretty. If we were to throw in males in Japanese music who I feel admiration towards (Kimeru, Gackt, and Miura Daichi being three of them) then this would be a lot less personal, and only slightly more pretty. Hopefully what you want from me here is the personal and a bit of the pretty.

The Promotional Parade [August 2007]

So I’ve been gone from blogging for just over a month. (3 weeks of vacation, 1 week of school.) A lot of releases come out in a month. A lot more promotional music videos come out in a month. There are still more that I’ve been meaning to do for a while, but just haven’t managed to get around to.

And while, y’know, I’m not going to cover every single one of them, here’s a batch with the new single releases of August that I was interested in and have been stagnating on my laptop since. Yes, stagnating. That’s the smell of rotten music videos right there. (No, it’s not the roadkill lying outside the window, nor the laundry that ought to be washed, nor the toilet that decided to regurgitate. Whatever made you think that?)

Slightly unFRIENDly on the ears.

Let me put off the dream a bit further for more members of pop groups gone solo for a bit. After a decently successful first solo single and album, 橘慶太 [Tachibana Keita] has left w-inds. behind for a second go with this single, FRIEND!

Nothing against the boy, I promise you. It’s just that I’ve actually yet to listen to his solo single/album combo despite having given his latest single/album combo with w-inds. a thorough listen. I’ll get around to it… someday.

Lately though, I haven’t been too fond of Keita’s voice. I don’t know why. I absolutely loved it back in 2003, and I can’t deny having the opportunity to hear him grow and mature has been a treat.

But this particular song sort of grates on my ears. Well, not the stanzas. The stanzas sound good, though he sounds like he’s always trying to reach higher notes than he should be doing. The bridge is okay too, despite his raising volume. But the chorus is just too much. Keita’s voice was not made for wailing. Especially not lines like “OH! FRIEND//MY FRIEEEEEEEEEEEEEND”. There are other ways to inject power into your voice, Tachibana. As it is, the chorus comes across as a bad attempt at karaoke-ing the song. Which really shouldn’t happen, since it’s an original song.

I mean, yes, I give Keita some credit for sounding as good as he does without the help of synthesizers – but he’s also got to know where to stop. It’s a bit sad to admit that the instrumental’s a much better listen than the actual song.

The first of the B-sides, 桜想ふ [Sakura Soufu], is slower and a better listen as far as Keita’s vocals go, even when he wails out the ending of the choruses. I was pleasantly surprised to hear his vocals rising and falling so smoothly. The piano has a bigger part in the song, but the guitar still claims its spot like in every one of his solo songs so far.

少年 [Shounen], the second B-side, is exactly what I’m looking for in Keita’s solo works. With more of a rock sound while never completely losing the acoustic guitar, some variety in tempo, and a much better demonstration of his vocal control, he sounds grown-up without being boring. It doesn’t have quite the quality of an A-side, but I definitely expect this song on his next solo album, assuming I listen to that.

So far Keita’s solo efforts have been doing decently on the Oricon charts – but what I really want to hear him singing with less acoustic pieces. I don’t care what, I just want some variety like with Shounen. There are far too many acoustic singers – piano or guitar – on the Japanese market right now. Unfortunately, it seems the only way I’ll get that is listening to him back with his pretty-boy props fellow boyband compatriots in w-inds., Ryohei and Ryuichi.

Games and music combine in a different way.

Just a quick note and random amusement from me.

If you like J-Pop and quick web flash games, especially those of the Escape-the-Room sort, Vision Museum is for you. Even more so if you haven’t already gotten enough of Lead and Amuro Namie’s latest releases, Drive Alive and FUNKY TOWN respectively.

Well, actually, not just any J-Pop. Mostly VISION FACTORY-signed artists, such as w-inds., HINOI TEAM, Uehara Takako, EU PHORIA, Nakanomori BAND, and as previously mentioned, both Lead and Amuro Namie are there too.

But what do you expect? The game’s one big advertisement for VISION FACTORY. And I can’t say that being greeted by Lead at the end of the game (I burst out laughing) or being able to preview songs from the latest releases wasn’t amusing in some way, me being who I am. Though I also have a better quality of Lead’s Drive Alive video on my computer, at least I know what I could be doing with a Japanese phone.

I could also spend this post writing about how this is unique, as compared to the other ways games and Japanese music have mixed – Konami’s Beatmania series, or artists doing songs tied-in with games like Angela Aki for Final Fantasy XII, but it’s past midnight and I’m tired.

Thanks to Jay is Games for pointing this out, because I’d never have found it myself.

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.