Gackt is born again
So last week I had a slight Gackt-related meltdown. You see, I had a very busy November, and somehow I managed to miss the announcement that he’d be releasing an album in December; I found out the day before it came out. Considering how long I’ve been waiting for this album, I couldn’t believe I’d completely missed it. Can you say fandom fail?
Anyway, RE:BORN has nothing new as far as material goes; the tracklist is composed of songs from the multitude of singles he’s put out over the past year. (And when I say multitude, I’m not even exaggerating: the songs on this album come from six singles, and that’s not even counting the other three he put out this year. He’s been very busy, not that I’m complaining.) A majority of the songs came out in June over four straight weeks of singles, which I meant to review and then never really got around to the last three. So it’s high time to do that now, I say.
Gaga for a bad romance
In general, I pay very little attention to Western artists. Sure, I read the tabloids every week when I’m bored at work, but since I don’t listen to the radio I never actually hear whatever song so-and-so has just put out. However, it seems everyone’s been talking about Lady Gaga’s “Bad Romance” recently, so I thought I’d give it a listen. Though I’d heard of her (who hasn’t?) and seen her … unique fashion sense, I’d only heard a couple seconds of “Poker Face” at most.
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed “Bad Romance” — I’m not sure what it is exactly, but the song is catchy enough to stick in your head. The video was as strange as I expected, given what I’d read about her, but at the same time, it’s relieving to have such an odd video to watch. So much of mainstream Western music these days is made up of cookie-cutter pop stars, it’s refreshing to have an artist who dares to be as different as Lady Gaga does. I might not necessarily understood half of what she does, but I am all for her creative expressions. At least it’s not more of the same — haven’t we had enough of that?
That said, I’m going to go back to my Nightwish marathon now. I discovered them a few days ago and I can’t get enough of them; I’ve been listening to their albums Once and Dark Passion Play on repeat. I have no idea why it took so long for me to discover them, but I’m thrilled I did!
Sunset on bad art, please?
I should apologize for my lack of activity around here recently, but I won’t because I’m not particularly sorry. The fact is I’ve been focusing on other sites this summer and there are only so many hours in the day. I still like having this blog, but it’s not my first priority right now. So, updates will continue to be more occasional than often, because that’s how I roll. (I have made some additions around this domain, though — a 20 years old, a one-page tribute to ONE OK ROCK. ♥)
Anyway. I do have a point I’d like to get to, and that’s a rant about a musician who’s near and dear to my heart. Or more specifically, her cover art.
I speak, of course, about Ayumi Hamasaki. One look at the cover for her most recent single, Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~, should tell you everything you need to know. It’s very pathetically Photoshopped and she looks ridiculous. For Ayu, or at least her cover art, this is a new low.
But it’s one I definitely expected. I haven’t liked any of Ayu’s covers for a long time now, and each one is just another disappointment. The last one I actually liked was talkin’ 2 myself, which came out in September 2007. Since then, it’s been a string of one terrible cover after another.
Discovering: RADWIMPS
Last month, a good friend of mine restarted her Last.fm profile and started using the site more fully. To be exact, she started using the recommendations page, which I’d only glanced at before, to great success. It seemed every day she was finding a new artist she loved! So I decided to take a look at the recommendations, still somewhat skeptical but willing to take a chance.
One of those artists was RADWIMPS. The name alone caught my interest, because all good Japanese bands have a strange name, right? (At least, a good chunk of them do…) Their artist profile described them as having “the funk of Red Hot Chili Peppers,” so I knew I’d have to give them a try.
So off to Youtube I went to see if any of their PVs were there. The first one I stumbled upon was “Sentsuna Rensa.”
And all I could say was WTF?
Gackt reaches for some kind of heaven
When Gackt announced some time ago that he was going to release four singles in four weeks instead of an album (all with fanclub-only versions), the general reaction was either 1) WTF? or 2) jeez, don’t you have enough money already?
My reaction, though, was more along the lines of “bring it on!” To be honest, Gackt has been spoiling us in the past nine months or so with all he’s been releasing, and after how little there was in 2007 and 2008 I’m thrilled to have new Gackt to put on repeat. (Even if he is sucking every last bit of my money away.) I would have preferred an album, it’s true, but at least we get the songs.
The first single, Koakuma Heaven, came out this past week. Its cover alone is fairly controversial, because yes, that is Gackt dressed as a woman. The song, too, is from a woman’s point of view — and it’s not just any woman, it’s about a hooker. Which means that as cheery as it sounds, it is a trashy song. Well, leave it to Gackt to go out there and make me say WTF. (For the curious, you can check out the lyrics.)
As far as the actual song goes, it’s really too dance-y for me. It’s Gackt, so I can enjoy it (and I think repeated listens are making it grow on me), but it’s not the kind of song I generally go for. It’s not bad, per se, and I imagine people who like this kind of music will enjoy it, but it doesn’t really do it for me.
The B-Side, however, completely makes up for this. “My Father’s Day” is a straightforward rock track, exactly my favorite kind of Gackt song, and I quite enjoy it. The song is dedicated to Ogata Ken, an older actor he met and grew close to when he was working on Furin Kazan, who passed away last year. The lyrics are really touching, but it’s hearing Gackt cry out “Good-bye Dad” that’s heartbreaking. It’s definitely one of his better songs, and I expect to be listening to it on repeat for quite a while to come.
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Though I could pass on “Koakuma Heaven“, “My Father’s Day” has me sure that the next few weeks will be great, and I’m excited to hear the new singles.
And tonight, we have ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION.
I’ve been listening to a lot of ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION lately on account of the fact I’ve been working on a fanlisting for them, and part of that has been watching their music videos. To be honest, the only PVs of theirs I’d seen were “Rewrite,” “Kimi no Machi Made,” and “Fujisawa Loser.” The first of those is a pretty standard PV, the second is UTTERLY INEXPLICABLE (more on this later), and the third is a very interesting concept PV. Anyway, as I was looking through them, I found that they’d recently released a new PV, “Yoru no Call.”
And I came to the conclusion that there is not and never will be an ASIAN KUNG-FU GENERATION PV that is anything but downright weird.
BoA successfully takes on America
Well, hello there, Syunikiss. I’m sorry for the long break in posts — I was swept up with end-of-semester schoolwork until about a week ago, and since then I’ve been slacking off. Sad, but true. In any case, I do plan on posting here more this summer, so look out for more posts to come soon! In any case, I’ve wanted to write this review since I got the album, so here we go.
Somewhat ironically, BoA’s self-titled American album was my introduction to the Korean singer. I’d heard of her, but I’d never had a chance to listen to her music until I heard she was releasing an English album. Curious, I decided to check it out.
The first thing that’s clear about it is that it is a very American album, from start to finish. It would sound right at home blasting from any club. As such, it’s fairly typical of American music — lyrics about love, sex, and clubbing are quite prominent. Hardly surprising, given the intended audience.
But if there’s one thing I’ve learned from listening to foreign music, it’s to completely ignore the lyrics and just listen to the music. I do like actually understanding the lyrics I’m hearing, and in the case of “Obsessed” I’d definitely say it makes it more entertaining, but overall it’s easy enough to just listen to the music and enjoy it.
Ayu goes to the NEXT LEVEL
When Ayumi Hamasaki’s tenth full-length album, NEXT LEVEL was announced, I fully expected to hate it. After all, I was already pretty irritated with my Ayu fandom, and had been for several months. When “GREEN/Days” came out, I was in the middle of a three-month “I’m not listening to anything not by Gackt” spree, so I just watched the promotional videos for the songs once, was underwhelmed, and went along my way. I felt about the same way about her next single, “Rule/Sparkle” — while I found “Sparkle” a welcome departure from the norm as far as Ayu was concerned, “Rule” was forgettable. So my hopes were quite low for the album, especially when I found out four of the fourteen tracks would be interludes. If I were the betting sort, I’d have bet highly that I’d hate NEXT LEVEL.
I’ve listened to it almost two dozen times since it came out.
Ayu blew me away with NEXT LEVEL, and I don’t think I’ve ever been so glad to be so wrong. I won’t go so far as to say it’s perfect, because it has a few things that I’m not so big on, but overall it is a terrific album.
ONE OK ROCK rocks my clock… for now
Not long ago pengie posted pengie’s Ten Albums for Traveling, and as I’ve been trying to listen to more artists in an attempt to find what I like, I took a look. I decided to check out ONE OK ROCK, which sounded vaguely familiar, and started with their most recent album, Kanjou Effect.
By the middle of the first song, I was positive that this was an album I was going to love for years to come. As much pop and classical music I listen to, I am foremost a rock fan, and ONE OK ROCK’s sound appealed to me immediately. I wasn’t as instantly sold on the vocalist, but after a couple of songs I found myself liking his voice more and more, and knew I was going to have to hear more of this band.
And then I realized why the band sounded familiar. I’d just read an article the other day about its guitarist, Alex, getting arrested for groping someone, which has resulted in their next single’s delay and the guitarist’s career up in the air.
To which I say: well, damn! Did it have to be right when I got into them?
Despite that, though, I am thoroughly enjoying ONE OK ROCK, and my thoughts on their albums are behind the jump.
Welcome to Syunikiss!
I’m thrilled to announce the opening of syunikiss.org, my music blog. It’s my intention for this to be a blog about Japanese music, in which I’ll write reviews of albums, singles, PVs, and artists themselves. And sometimes I’ll just ramble on about whatever interests me most at the moment. I plan to write about things I get in to when it happens, but I also want to write reviews for some of my favorite albums — and those I haven’t liked so much.
Here’s to hoping this’ll go as well as I think it will. ;) In fact, with some luck, this post should be the first of several, if I’ve managed to start writing reviews!