New Jihen Song - Amagasa by Tokio
 

so Jihen has a new song, or rather, Ringo and Jihen wrote a new song. This is very last minute random news, but Ringo wrote the lyrics and music, Tokyo Jihen arranged it, it is called 雨傘 amagasa, meaning "umbrella" and it is a song for the huge j-pop boy group TOKIO to be used as the image song to "yasuko to kenji" which airs July 12th from 21:00, and the show will be the first listen anyone will have...but like I said, this is a song by Jihen/Ringo for a boy group....

lame.

Okay can i come to a conclusion that oliviosly Kameda didnt get past his participation of
The Three. Or who's idea this really been in the first place? have to just agree with jihad. Sure yes quite lame indeed.

are they serious

tokio?

int that a johnnynboy band?

new song is new song \o/ and i hope its good enough for her to perform in her next live

Ew.

XD
next time she'll compose for koda and ayu
or maybe momosu O______O nooooooooooooooes

It's just our luck that having taken a back seat with Tokyo Jihen, her first step back into composing is for the freakin' Backstreet Boys.

lulz

Ladies and gentlemen, a new Shiina Ringo song in almost 2 years. (despite Tamatebako, which is not that completed as a song IMO)
Let's try to look at it....in a positive way.

for a pop boyband. sheesh! wtf. Variety and now this.

Shiina is a sadist towards her fans confirmed.

This is seems miles away from Tomosaka Rie.

For reference

This is her newly developed feature to attract her fans.

Betcha the new track will be a good one too and they give it to a disposable group of performers.

Having a songwriters credit for a popular boyband would look good on SR's resume.

She's preparing for retirement as a performer and will be a composer for groups I hate. Wonderful.

this upsets me..

This is a good morning-laugh. Thankew.


...Wait, Ringo's writing for them? ...What? ...Who? ...When? ...How? ...Why!?
NEVERMIND! STOP EVERYTHING! LET'S SAVE THIS MESS GUYS!
Someone, write this in the Book of Fanboyish Messages:

"YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!"

Hopefuly, it will fix her.

This is like Donny and Marie Osmond singing a Steely Dan song. Oh yeah, that happened. I wouldn't mind listening to a crap "band" cover one of her songs, but this is ridiculous.

Why... when I read the thread title I thought this was going to be a joke or something, I was right.

@tokyo jihad: Lol @ Reference video, but that isn't penned by Shiina Ringo.. so it's a bit irrelevant.
I know Nakajima Miyuki once wrote a song for this very same band, and I liked it though I wish nakajima Miyuki would've sung instead of their singer

Tokio ver

and later that same year Miyuki would release the song on her new album, I believe (Maybe Tokyo Jihen will too, or Shiina will on her new album :lol:)

Nakajima Miyuki ver.

So powerful Tokio gets blown off the planet

<_< What the...

its not irrelevent, thats the crap-ass band, thats the pedigree, we're working with.

You know what looks even better on a resume...

True, what I meant to say was it probably won't be as crappy as whatever that was you posted.
I'm sure there's some distinct Shiina in the song, and don't get me wrong, I hate this as much as most of the guys around here (probably) do.

I'm just gonna wait till I've heard the song before I start kicking shiina into the ground though.
But really, if she's gonna keep going this way with her career, I think I might be done with her.

my take on this whole thing is simply that ringo composes a lot of songs that never see the light of day. she is a woman and im sure she produces quite a bit of songs that if ever were released would cause the same reaction. in this case I'm sure she probably either had something lying around or wrote something specifically, but I bet someone approached her about doing this as a personal favor. if you read the synopsis of the story it seems like it suits her pretty well. It is about a brother and sister whose parents die and the older brother was in a gang but accidentally ends up becoming a shoujo mangaka...so he does it for the money I suppose and occasionally he has comedic violent flashes....it is primarily a comedic show...but the website shows him on this huge bike and all....the lead actor is the lead singer of TOKIO hence why they are singing the song....

zuh? I don't quite get why being a woman is of note in that instance.

Either way, its lose-lose. This is probly the only new Shiina(-penned) song we'll hear this year. Meaning the only one for the last almost 2 years solid. If it turns out good, "blah, why didnt Shiina sing it? Rabble rabble" If it sucks on either the performance or songwriting end, "blah, nu-shiina, has been. Rabble rabble."

Well, thinking on the bright side, they're probably making a crappy song for a shitty band, instead of making a crappy song for themselves (see You-Know-Which-Album).

it doesnt matter who will sing it if it's good

ringo sang all the songs she ever wrote for other people in live performances (exception goes to mokuren no cream)

^which was during a time when there was no shortage of new Shiina material.

I didn't think about that... Maybe she'll perform Umbrella during RSRFES xD.

i think so too, look in the bright side.

afterall, Tokio is johnny boy band and johnny boy bands are known for selling tons even if the song is super crappy. Almost every single even the most crappy single get close to 100k+ sold. And thats two times more than those varieity singles.

And the song is made for a prime time drama, along with johnny boy band exposure, if the song is half decent, we are might have a 300k sold. which is more sales than any tokyo jihen single ever released.

Most importanly, shiina ringo will be exposing her song to a group of audience that probably never heard her songs, which is a much of middle age women.

I don't see how thats the bright side, alleon =p

Sure, sales for Shiina but I don't think she's been scrapping any projects for herself to cut costs. And you think targeting the demographic Shiina seems to imagine she's a part of is a good thing?

she should lock herself in a room with the old stuff on repeat until she remembers how to craft the old magic again!!

i think i got short preview of the new song
http://www.veoh.com/videos/v14906697...s=20&offset=40

the song is playing in the background throughtout the vid and a clear preview of the audio is played at 1:30 in to the vid when they introduced their new single.

from what i heard, it shaping up to be a average song. :(

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http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=kaVBFqE6Gbs&locale=pt_BR&persist_locale=1　 is this the song?

kinda reminds me off killer tune

haha agreed

if this is the song, i liked it so far!

Shits straight outta Variety >_>

EDIT: Sounds JUST like Sakuran

EDIT2: Okay, not "just like" but like Sakuran, Variety style.

EDIT3: Its so fuckin Izawa sounding, on the pianos. I don't care, both Uki and Izawa need to go.

EDIT4: Just sorta washes the excitement of Zazen right out the door, doesnt it? =p

it reminds me of Killer Tune (that Bass line at least) still pretty forgettable though:(

sorry for the spam

http://br.youtube.com/watch?v=4Axovxg4NfQ

The best part of that veoh clip? Ryoko Hirosue.

But can't we compare this situation to the times she wrote for both Ryoko and Rie Tomosaka? No, if only because they're hot and that I hold intense, unquenchable hatred for all Japanese boy bands.

what I meant by her being a woman is that I'm sure she has written songs from a more feminine perspective, ala crappy ballads, that would fit in the style of boy bands, that were discarded when she actually cared about her image, or at least maintaining a pale imitation of her former image to appease fans. aka for every kokoro I'm sure there was a crappy ayaka-reject song. even masters make missteps and im sure to get to the good shit she has to wade through a hole lot of crap, editing is key. so she gave one away to a boy band...it doesn't surprise me.

also, women singer songerwriters are in my opinion a lot more versatile than men, but that is my pure opinion. so by such an opinion it would make sense that ringo could possibly release a boy band ballad...heck, KSK was out of left field in it's time too. Who knows...maybe Jihen's next phase will be Boy Band? XD

Good, i hope it is, cuz that'd mean Shiina would be out and maybe on to something better =p

or it could be worse and she might retire and become their manager!!

thats not worse. All power to her. Better to burn out than to fade away.

From what I can hear, it sounds pretty decent to me.

What's the problem. Ringo was asked to do it - like YOU wouldn't do it if you were asked to (think about how much Johnny's stuff sell)

What does writing crappy ballads have got to do with gender? I've heard lots of crappy ballads from male singers/songwriters trying to make a living.

Polite-old-lady style ;D

I don't think she'll stop right now, or at least I hope not. She said, in the interview for Rockin on Japan (that Jonny translated, iirc), something along the lines: "it took 10 years for me to reach this state (she's in)?"
Which means, I believe, that this is like a new beginning. And for beginning, I hope, it doesn't mean becoming a manager or a songwriter-only :x

^what a mess.

Anyway, about the song. Sounds like a Killer Tune demo.

while shes at it. she should write for them too, they are in the same label, johnny's, but they sell considerably more than those old washed up tokio



or him, yamapi, the current face of johnny's entertainment

I love it how Ringo always gives these surprises.
I heard the "preview" now and this definietly is something what Ringo would write. I'm excited of this. I have never listened TOKIO or so but my inner optimism makes me think this might be something good. I won't say a thing before it's released! 8D
Though I must admit that it sounds like a song which is easy to forget.

EDIT I hope Ringo makeing a song for Yamapi will stay as a nightmare in my mind and nothing else :'DD

I can't help hating those guys =_=... It's "Killer Tune" a la crappy LOL.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TTopYNhK93E

so here comes the song. I'm too disillusioned to spare my mind for a comment.

cuz if you were to turn it black and white I think you would find that most female singers are "delicate" and "sensitive" and most men are "ARGHHHHHH" and "angst" of course this isn't true, it is a stereotype, but the stereotype comes from someplace. IMHO women songwriters tend to work from a place that isn't as connected to them as men, as in, they can write songs about love and stories and this and that and so many songs by men I hear are about heartbreak and anger and the whole of the 3 emotions most men admit to allow themselves to feel. in a word, women are more sensitive and that definitely affects her songwriting.

^ So my old saying of Shiina needing to find her balls again totally works! :lol:

Orenji's coolness has never been in question, but I never realized Orenji was this cool. :lol: B)

dont do this to me shiina ringo.

omg...

the song sounds like totally like killer tune with a johnny's entertainment feel to it

Sweet, Alleon posted so I wont have a double post to bitch about the song!
\m/

Wish I'd have taken the over-under on that...

so yeah, the song sucks. Its Killer Tune -meets- Sakuran. If ya didn't like em the first time, with Shiina singing...
What pisses me off most is just how pervasive and assaulting that nu-Shiina sound is. She's not even in the performance and eeeverything I hated about HF/Variety is alll still there.

I had to double check Neko's post to make sure Shiina wrote the music as well as the lyrics. I was really hoping the band made the song....I was hoping I was mistaken...but no. ='( wtf.

It's not a SR/TJ release (yet) so it' not totally end of the world. But its not a good sign, exactly. We all cry for a Shiina penned song, and this is what we get. On the one hand, we have Tametabako: genius, great, ballsy. On the other we have this hot mess.

Snap the fuck out of it Shiina.

I seriously question your expectation ability. Not like she's making Gibbusu 2 or something.

I know, and it was still a boyband song. But I was maybe expecting somehing more on the lines Senkou Shojo not Killer Tune.

(seriously, the drum and bass track are the same.)

Hahahahaha. Shame it cuts off the only good part of the song (the ending guitar solo). I'd believe them if they said this was a song cut from Variety and donated to Tokio. Same shitty sound as Variety where poor Hata gets left in the background and hollowed out.

Phase 3. Believe.

kuro totally agree, I want to hear this issue with the goddess Ringo at the microphone !!!!!!!!!

Hm, anyone knows if the band (TJ) played the instruments or only provided the arrangement?

They definitely played the instruments. Just listen to the guitar and bass. There's no mistaking Uki's sound.

well, at least the drama looks like its pretty funny.

That's what I was thinking too x)
Hope someone starts subbing it.

Maou, lol. I wanted real proof =P

They might have asked Shiina to make out something like Killer Tune? Who knows. But yeah, that's what it really is. I wouldn't complain about it if this is too soft or pop or whatever, because that's very possibly it what it needs to be to get accepted for JE band.
Song itself is not bad, just not anything too big. I would be interested to hear opnion by a TOKIO -fan! Because I don't know what kind of stuff that band usually gives out so maybe some fan of them even thinks this is the best track by the band ever :'D

the song is really good I like it and can't wait to hear ringo's ver :D

omoooooooooiokoooosee iiiiinochiiii jibun no dougu wo moteamasu kurai nara

nuretekaereyoooooooooooooo

In before "It doesn't sound at all like Killer Tune :hmph:"

Hmmm.
Umbrella. Rain in Killer Tune PV.
Everything is making sense now.

Maybe this is like that Kuki stuff! Play the 2 songs at the same time for an awesome song.
Omg, I want to try that!

It just occured to me, the mathematical chance of seeing another album as good as shouso from Shiina is practically 0. I'll have to fight and dig for the rest of my life to find the gems in her future output. So disillusioned...I'm gonna pre-order Zazen right now to asuage my inner torment.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs, but my throat is so sore...

You knew it,
I knew it,
We knew it.



Let's shoot SR.

Sounds like an Izawa.

at this point, i settle for a kameda song

According to the news article, Ringo wrote the lyrics and the music while Jihen arranged it.

Oh whoa, this is weird. o_o Still, I'm excited to hear news from them! I can't really hear what the song is like though, so I hope the full version comes out soon! >_<

the reaction to this clip is really surprising. I'm not crazy about the song but it sounds like it fits the drama well...it accomplishes it's purpose...just as the music she wrote for Kabuki worked really well in context for that as well. I think Ringo, especially after Sakuran, is experimenting writing music for other people. I mean how long is she going to have a realistic solo career writing and performing her own music? I think at the moment she is kind of feeling her possibilities out to secure a real long term status in the industry, which isn't a bad thing at all. However, this song isn't something she wrote for herself, you can tell that. I sincerely doubt she wrote this for herself and culled it for TOKIO from her own personal stock....it seems pretty apparent that she wrote the song for this use in mind, otherwise I doubt we would get such an arrangement and final product. Either way, this isn't a TJ song or a Ringo song, so there is no reason to assume any future endeavors/succeeding work will have anything even remotely in common with this work.

that being said, TJ is performing at least 3 times in August, at Fuji Rock and then twice at their very own Society of the Citizens 2, so I think we will probably get to hear some new material most definitely, so we should all just sit tight and hope for this crap to pass.

I don't understand why you have such a pessimistic outlook at performing, Neko. "How long is she going to have a solo career" Look at Phil Collins, Peter Gabriel, Sting -- hell, Cher and Madonna (even if they dont write for themselves.) The Stones and Aerosmith have been around forever. They may not all be super mass-market, but all are well-respected, profitable, and successful. This goes along with some of your previous sentiments of "She's a mother s she can't do this" "Shes not 20 anymore so she can't do this" I know Shiina was immensely popular at a young age, but that doesn't mean she has/had the shelf-life of other pop acts like Brittany Spears or New Kids or whatever.

I think theres still some "grounds" to talk about the song since it sounds very very likely that Tokyo Jihen is playing on the track, excepting the vocals. Either that or its the best Jihen cover band out there.

I'm also quite surprised at everyone's overreaction to this song. At least this time she actually wrote the song so the criticism is fair, I guess, but if she wrote the awesome kabuki song and then this nonsense, that doesn't mean that she's erratic now but rather that she can compose for whatever the situation calls for.

The criticism for Variety is more than justified.

I meant the criticism at her for Variety. The "oh noes she can't write music anymore even though she didn't pen a single song".

I don't think anyone was saying that...I think the criticism was levied at her decision not to write songs. She rightly deserved our scorn for allowing talentless (in comparison to her) hacks to write an entire album, she is the leader, afterall.

No, it was definitely both those things. I don't mean to point fingers but the one that stands out the most was Canto (I think) exclaiming that all her super powers had gone down the toilet.

Its hard to listen to Variety without thinking that. Even if they're not written by her, they're still performed by her and the band.

yeah, notice how every single artist you listed is foreign....point of the fact is that Ringo is in the Japanese music scene and it tends to push artists aside once they reach a certain age. You should read Tori Amos autobiography, Piece by Piece. Once she reached a certain age her record label pretty much was like okay you aren't going to sell records anymore cuz your old so we aren't going to promote you. Aging is one thing, but aging and being a woman is a completely different story. Ringo is very very smart and I think she knows that at some point she is going to stop being a recording artist and work on the producing/song writing aspect. This is all speculation but there is a point where I'm sure she is going to withdraw, she can't go on forever.

I think a lot of what I think about Ringo is actually influenced by Tori Amos, who kind of led a similar career path and had the whole same failed marriage/kid thing go on. There was a period in which she withdrew and her music changed radically cuz she was very conscious of her image due to her child.

I'm not pessimistic. Becoming a mother changes everything and I think it is unrealistic to expect Ringo to 1) make the music she made before and 2) remain a recording artist forever. Such endeavors as starting a band and having them eventually write their own cd, while she took a back seat and contributed vox, combined with the scoring and songwriting she has done lately, just points to the fact that she is branching out and possibly expanding her scope. That is all I meant.

I personally don't think Shiina is such a rollover, and I don't know so much about Tori Amos admittedly, but she's still kickin'. And hey, Puffy are more commercialized, more pop, and they're still doing their thing yet they're older. I personally don't think it's unrealistic. To think every album would sell as much as SS is unrealistic, and maybe high expectations to think any album would at least be interesting like KZK. But just maintain a steady quality of work and not totally choke like she's been doing.

Then again, what I believed about Shiina and her current events have been at odds with each other.

OMG! This is exactly what I'm talking about! How is she choking??? How good do you think a song fitted for a boy band is going to be and how much more awesome can a song for a Kabuki show get??

Its the last year+ Hedo! Its not impossible to write a good pop song, Kameda did it twice with Jihen (Toumei Ningen (DO), and Senkou Shojou.) However, its highly unexpected to rehash KT.

No crap it's not impossible when you're composing for your own band. Whatever dude.

What I'm saying is this: Neko was talking about trying her hand at something else. Trying something new.

However what she made was essentially exactly what she's been making. And that's completely disheartening.

in order for an artist to survive they had to adapt to the changing climate of the music industry. ringo simply wrote a pop song and gave it to a boy band and people are throwing their hands up with disappointment. better her give it to them then use it herself, think about what she is probably keeping to herself. what I mean with all my other comments is simply Ringo is going to change and grow and experiment and do all sorts of things and to expect her to not release something that will piss everyone off here and then is not realistic. it took tori amos 3 albums or so to release another "angry" album and it had her fans crying out in relief and pleasure. I'm sure at some point in the future ringo will probably return to form, I mean I'm sure it is still within her somewhere....I just don't know if she will ever release it under the guise of TJ. Maybe once the band breaks up...

I fail to see how her composing a song for some random boy band constitutes as "not being able to pen an original song anymore". Shiina Ringo has been known to write songs for other people in the past so this shouldn't really be that big of a deal to anyone. It's just that it happens to be TOKIO that everyone flips out. Who cares? Yeah, it's not that amazing of a song but it's not completely awful either. It's about what you'd expect for a pop band to perform. It's not like Shiina Ringo has "punk rock" cred either and can't go commercial. I don't really get the hate.

No, I'm not a big fan of TOKIO Jihen. But I have a feeling this will be their only release so it's no big deal. Honestly, a lot of you guys can be such drama queens sometimes.

i am just desperate to hear another good Shiina song! so to see her expend energy on this stuff completely frustrates me.

honestly I would have been more interested if she actually attempted to write some brainless tune typical of a johnny's idol group and maybe put a twist on it. This new song is really a Tokyo Jihen song with some guy singing instead of Ringo. What's the point of writing for a boy band if they end up sounding exactly the same as your jazz rock band?

basically...

an average song, for an average band, that no one is going to remember in 5 years' time.

It's not the end of the world, but it's hardly anything to cheer over.

It does fit pleasantly as background music for the show.
So, I guess the objective for the song was accomplished.

It's probably an alternate version of Killer Tune that was left out from Variety, and was reworked for this occasion. It's very common for artists, while composing, having 2 or 3 possible variants of a song, toying with different ideas and possibilities, and usually only one of them gets chosen as the final version and the others are forever scraped, and no one gets to hear of them.

But I guess shiina felt that this was still decent enough for a drama show, which is not inaccurate.

Decent background music for something else, not much more than that. I guess I could give a couple of listens to it occasionally, if I'm in a very happy mood.

And don't forget that Ami has a child as well. Cocco, who is older than Ringo, quit the music business for four years, came back and has written some great music. Jun Togawa is 49 and recently released a well received new album.

I don't think age is a limiting factor in the career of a female Japanese singer unless she is one of the countless "idols" who have no songwriting talent and rely on looks alone. There isn't an army of younger Ringo clones waiting to take her place.

Songwriting talent doesn't fade with age. Haruomi Hosono of YMO turned 61 last week and is still making very cool music. I think that Ringo's history of change should give us hope about her future. Even if she is in a dry spell right now, that is no reason to pessimistically presume she is in inexorable decline.

I agree with kuroneko (even if i don't know of Tori so much :D) and osiris here. I think some of the persons around here make this things too big deal.
As I said earlier, Shiina very probably was asked to make song like that for the drama & boyband. Request of one type of song, isn't end of Shiina's talent.

Who knows if Shiina just haves tiny artist block going on and gives out nonsense, which I don't think that song was though. Just not the BEST she has been makeing during her quite long career. Everybody has to fail at some point.
I don't Shiina has yet been able to disappoint me at least.

I wouldnt be mildly upset if it was one of Ukigumo's there were tossing away.

Shoujo Robot is a kick-ass song and was near impossible to purchase and difficult to listen to because Ringo gave it to whatshername.

I'm just glad Ringo covered her own tune in live performance or I'd never have a copy of the song to purchase.

funny thing that happened was that the TJ version outshined the version sung by whatshernameagain. So maybe Ringo has a secret desire to plant traps like this for less-talented people. Make it look like she's being generous, then kick their ass by singing her own song WAY better and with a better band.

a TJ song can sound like a complete disaster if put in the wrong hands/mouth [Ken Hirai].

I thought Rie's Shojou Robot was great *shrug*

Onsoku Punch was the only song I liked from her comeback album. I was so disappointed in it since I loved Rapunzel and Sungu Rose almost s much as MM and SS. She instantly won me back after she kicked ass at the Live Earth concert. :wub:

Jun Togawa recently released a NEW album? Wow, I missed that. I noticed that she just released a best-of album.... I'll have to investigate.

And Haruomi Hosono is a genius--the complete oposite of a one-trick pony. His understanding of music is so advanced, and his songwriting has always been so mature that I can't even comprehend of him doing anything other than making music for the rest of his life. I think he's unquestionably the greatest Japanese songwriter ever.

I thought so too, but I think TJs version was even better. I was actually surprised that I liked the original so much after hearing TJs version of it.

I think Rie's version is just as good to listen to as Shiina's ? in fact i personally lean more towards the Rie version.

Pshaw. that is all. :lol:

I have only heard Rie's Shoujo Robot so far and when I heard it I felt like, "this would be perfect, if it had Ringo in vocals." I didn't know there is also TJ versio of it! On which release? or where have they performed it? I would love to hear :)