For me, it was because I download random things all the time. At that time, the only Shiina song I had heared was her duet with Utada Hikaru, I wont last a day without you. I hated it. I still kind of do. Being extrememly biased, everytime someone mentioned her I would immediatly say I couldnt stand her. In some forum, a person uploaded "Kyoiku" from Tokyo Jihen, and I had no clue it was her band. I'll be honest, I thought it was like some middle aged woman who smoked a lot >_> But for some reason I still loved the sound of it.

I was terribly surprised when I looked them up on Wikipedia and found outshe was the vocalist :D Ever since I've been listening to her music, and I absolutely adore her voice and her talents as a songwriter/composer.

Judging by her latest releases......:P:P

OMG you just put my memory back into my head. That's exactly how I felt the first times I heard a couple of Ringo songs. And I assume they were either MM or SS ones. I truly thought the voice sounded like it belonged to some old, left house wife that smoked all her life.
The difference from you would be that I didn't like the sound of the music at those first few listens. It had to grow on me.

Actually, Ringo was a smoker for a long time. I think she quit sometime recently, though...

The brand of cigarettes she smoked was Hi-lite Blue, 1.4 mg. As we know most women's cigarette contains nicotine varying from 0.1 to 0.5 mg. Hi-lite Blue is way too heavy for a girl. Therefore it damaged her voice.

Ooh, interesting! o_o I'm glad she quit recently though, since it doesn't fit her image anymore and isn't necessary (in my opinon.)

I think a large part of the reason she quit was because of her son. But it's good for her too. :)

Haha! I'm glad people agree XD. Most of my friends had to grow on Ringo, too (thats all they hear when they come over).

The one I find people have the most trouble liking, if they're not particularly a Ringo fan, is Tsumi to Batsu. Theres a lot of power in that, and it really threw them off >_>.

That's odd, I thought Tsumi to batsu would be a good first song for people to start liking her. I wonder what the best "introductory" song would be... I guess it depends on what the person likes already.

I think the best introductory song is honnou
maybe because I'm introduced to SR by this song
but when I use it as introdution method it works very well
XD